Matthew 5-7: The Sermon on the Mount (6)
Four Triads on Living
in the Presence of God (Matthew 6:1-18)
The first six
triads of the SoM dealt with the practices that God’s people in the midst of
the crisis for their life in the 1st century. Jesus unveils ways for
his people to survive and even thrive amid this crisis. We also saw some
analogies between the church’s situation in that 1st century and the
North American church’s in the 21st and made Jesus’ teaching to them
reach across the centuries to us in spite of the differences between our
circumstances.
The next four
triads of the SoM reveal Jesus’ teaching on how in such a crisis (or a
different one, or, indeed, no crisis at all) to relate to God.
Giving Alms (6:1-4)
1“Beware
of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then
you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So
whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do
in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others.
Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But
when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is
doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and
your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
The
introductory statement (v.1) identifies the subject of this section, “practice
of traditional Jewish piety,” and the problematic, “practicing it for public
approval or show.” The three practices of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting were
indeed the pillars of Israel’s covenant faith and worship. And because this was
a faith to be lived in public, in the streets, the desire to be seen by onlookers
for praise and approval was always a temptation. “Jesus, instead, wants us to be so eager to
love and please God that we will do everything we should do for his eyes alone”[1] irrespective of who sees
it or what they think about it.
I
doubt any of us have never felt the tentacles of this temptation wrap around
our hearts. In particular, Christmas and Easter services raise the stakes on
how visitors or occasional members who attend on those holidays appraise the
services. Any program or ministry of the church is also liable to performance
for public show. The deeper issue here is integrity, what the beatitudes call “purity
of heart” (5:8). Who do we worship and why? Who do we love?
Stassen
notes the structural similarities of these four triads with the previous six:
“Each of the four
following triads begins by naming a traditional practice of righteousness, as
expected (6.2a, 5a, 7a, 16a). Each is a subjunctive (or participle in v. 7), as
hypothesized. Each begins with when (ὅταν) except that 6.7, being a continuation
of the topic of praying, has no ὅταν. Thus,
when you give alms,... And when you pray,...And praying,..And when you
fast,...”
Alms were gifts to
the poor but were more than charity or philanthropy. It‘s an essential
ingredient of a just and harmonious community. “Almsgiving must involve facing
the poor with whom one lives, and sharing one’s food and one’s home; it is not
simply the giving of financial resources.”[2]
A three-year tithing of the yield of the land (Dt.14:28-29) and leaving of
unharvested grain in the field for the was required (Dt.24:19-22). In Isaiah
such alms, such giving to the poor, is essential for hearing the voice of God. This
is far more than occasionally giving a few bucks to a beggar or even a
structured charity. Almsgiving incorporates the life of the giver and the
recipient into a community richer and more organic than that.
The “reward” for giving into the temptation to give
alms for show and praise is precisely that approval and recognition (v.2). The
integrity of alms giving lies in its unself-consciousness (v.3). That is, its
incorporation into the structure of our lives such that practicing it rouses no
sense of having done something we think worthy of praise. We do it out of love
for God and participation in his work in the world. This is what giving alms “in
secret” (v.4) means not doing it out of the sight of everyone else which would
in many cases be impossible. Rather God, who does not look at the appearance of
things but “on the heart” sees and rewards us (1
Sam.16:7).
Prayer (6:5-15)
5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they
love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that
they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you
pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in
secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.[b]
7 “When
you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they
think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them,
for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 “Pray
then in this way:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.[c]
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not bring us to the time of trial,[d]
but rescue us from the evil one.[e]
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.[c]
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not bring us to the time of trial,[d]
but rescue us from the evil one.[e]
14 For
if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive
you; 15 but
if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
These two teachings on prayer plus its treatment in 5:44 and
7:7-11 parallels the two teachings on financial generosity in 6:19-34 which
finds cognate teachings in 5:44 and 6:2-4. This clearly establishes this pair –
prayer and generosity – as key emphases of the SoM.[3]
Living in the presence of and communion with God is the point
of human life. That’s why this central section of Jesus’ sermon is devoted to
it.
The respect and praise that “hypocrites” who pray in synagogues
and on the street corners receive is their “reward” for such practices. Again
it is the prayer done with no regard for such adulation but for love of God
alone, for that communion with God that is the point of life, that matters both
to God and to us.
The second teaching Jesus gives on prayer here refers to the Gentiles
who had many gods to address in prayer in order to cover every aspect of their
lives which the various gods were responsible for. Petitions to these gods constitute
the “heap(ing) up empty phrases” (v.7) he warns against. We don’t have to ply
God with a multitude of names or treat him as a pagan deity. Nor do we need to
pour out every need we have in hopes that such multitude of petitions will gain
us God’s ear. And such needs and concerns are numerous and profound in the crisis
coming upon them. Followers of Jesus, however, trust in his Father who knows
and has and will provide for those needs (6:33). He offers them a way to pray suitable
to the situation they are in, the famous “Lord’s Prayer” (vv.9-13).
I reproduce here a blog post I wrote on the Lord’s Prayer as
a New Exodus prayer. It will make this post longer and a bit more detailed than
those I’ve written specifically for this series but I think it will be
worthwhile.
The New Exodus Setting
“Magnified and sanctified be his great name in the
world He created according to his will. May he establish His kingdom during
your life and during your days, and during the life of all the house of Israel,
speedily and in the near future. And say Amen.”
This is the Kaddish, a regular feature of Jewish prayer extolling
praise and longing/mourning for the quick establishment of God's rule at the
time of Jesus. The long exile begun in Babylon but extending even now to Rome's
overlordship of the people in their own land was intolerable to the Jews and
they passionately wanted it over. They looked forward to a long-promised New
Exodus to remedy this terrible situation.
Jesus offers his disciples his version of this prayer as a model
prayer for those who join him in God's New Exodus movement. It is a New Exodus
(NE) prayer (N.T. Wright, Brant Pitre). It grows out of and relates to the
historical context which Jesus was born into and ministered in – a time of
great ferment and revolutionary fervor for the establishment of God's rule and
the ousting of the pagan Romans and their hated rule over God's people.
None of the models on offer for how the Jewish people ought to
deal with Rome won Jesus' approval. The Sadducees' capitulation to and
assimilation into Roman rule certainly didn't. Nor did the Essene withdrawal to
set up a community in the desert to practice a pure faith and wait for God's
day of intervention to establish his kingdom. Jesus' NE movement was certainly
anti-Roman and pro-God's rule in the here and now and in the midst of daily
life. Jesus, however, knew of any enemy more powerful than Rome (or any
imperial power) that lay behind and sponsored its rule. This sinister power is
what he discerns and seeks to engage and defeat in this, God's final and
ultimate NE movement.
Zealots offered a guerilla movement of armed revolt against the
Romans and their Jewish sympathizers. Jesus burned with a similar zeal for God
and his rule over his people (Jn.2:17) but he rejected the strategy of armed
revolt. Instead he offered tactics (de Certeau) for the powerless to use in
their daily interactions with the powerful to force the former to recognize and
respect the humanity and needs of the latter. His NE sermon (Mt.5-7) is full of
such wisdom.
Pharisees wanted God's rule over Israel as much as any of the
other groups. As much as Jesus did. Because they are his major opponents in the
gospels (which as such means we get a somewhat one-sided view of them there) it
is worth a longer look at them. N. T. Wright sets their views out like this:
Who are we? We are a group of Jews who find ourselves
dissatisfied with the way our country is being run and with our life as a
people, at home and abroad. We are therefore devoting ourselves to the study
and practice of Torah, as a kind of elite corps, intending to advance the time
when Israel will finally be redeemed, when our God will reveal his faithfulness
to our nation.
Where are we? Mostly, it seems, in
the holy land, which is where we might prefer to be; but some of us live and
work in the Diaspora. We are, however, mostly living under the rule of the
Roman empire (some, perhaps, far out in the east, have other pagan overlords),
and we have struck a deal that we will pray for the emperor, not to him as everyone
else is forced to do.
What’s wrong? There are not nearly
enough of us who take Torah with proper seriousness, and even among those who
do there are schools developing which the tough-minded among us regard as
dangerously compromised. What counts, after all, is absolute purity. We do not
imagine that we never sin, or never incur impurity, but we deal with it at once
according to the methods and means of atonement and purification given by God
and prescribed in the law. That is what it means to be ‘perfect in the law’.
But we cannot compromise or collude with the wickedness we see in the nations
all around us, and that goes especially for the rulers of the nations. Ever
since the days in Egypt, and then again from the time in Babylon (where some of
us still are) to the present, we have known what pagan rulers are like, and
what it’s like to live under them. We will not be content until we no longer
have to live as, in effect, slaves under these pagans, paying them taxes.
Behind the problem of Israel’s large-scale failure to obey Torah prop- erly is
the much bigger problem: when will our God reveal his faithfulness to the
covenant, by judging the pagans, liberating us from their wicked grasp, and
setting up his ultimate kingdom? That’s what’s wrong: it hasn’t happened yet.
What’s the solution? To the
smaller-scale problem: a campaign to persuade more Jews to take upon themselves
the yoke of Torah. To the larger-scale problem: to pray (prayer is especially
important; the Shema alone is the very foundation of our existence) and to wait
in purity, to keep the feasts and the fasts, to study scripture . . . and
perhaps, so some of us think, to join up with those who are eager for armed
resistance and revolution. We have as our great models of ‘zeal for Torah’ the
heroes of old, Phinehas and Elijah especially. They were not afraid to use the
sword in the service of God. Nor were our more recent heroes, the Maccabaean
freedom-fighters. We venerate, too, the martyrs who died cruel deaths rather
than defile themselves with pagan food and practices. We are waiting for a new
exodus, and perhaps a new Moses to lead it. Some of us want to hurry that
process along.
It is easy to note a number of key
similarities between the Pharisees and Jesus' movement as well as the intensity
of the opposition between them. Similar (though not identical) aims, similar
audience, similar (though not identical) theology, all this brewed a serious
conflict between groups seeking the same thing, one through Torah-adherence
looking for Messiah/New Moses/New Exodus and the other through adherence to
Jesus as Messiah/New Moses/New Exodus. For the one Torah was the lens through
which everything was viewed, Jewish identity, hope, and ethics. For the other
Jesus was the lens through which everything (even Torah) was viewed. Thus he
articulated a new way of being Jewish. A way that portended the defeat of God's
enemies (Rome and that bigger sinister power sponsoring it), a return of God to
his temple (reconceptualized as the resurrected Jesus himself), the true
function of Torah and, indeed, all Israel's scriptures, the renewal of Israel
as the Abrahamic people through whom God intended to bless the whole world
(i.e. the Gentiles), and the fulfillment of God's aim to have a shalom-saturated
world to enjoy in fellowship with his human creatures.
The gathering and reconstituting of
Israel as God's Abrahamic people was Jesus' primary goal in his earthly
ministry. Since that was the Pharisees' goal too (from their perspective), it's
no wonder they were a;lways fussing with one another. It's worth noting that
this conflict was far more and profound than the simple caricature of the
Pharisees as nit-picking legalists, boorish moralists, in comparison with whom
Jesus was a breath of fresh, freeing, gracious air. These were two serious ways
of being Jewish in a time when when such self-definition was a matter of life
and death.
None of these four models sufficed
for God's New Exodus, however. And that for two reasons. First, none of them
had the Messiah. And second, and perhaps consequently, they focused too solely
on Rome as the enemy to be defeated. God's NE movement had the Messiah (so they
claimed) and he was able to see beyond Rome to its spiritual core and focused
the NE struggle there. He also saw what any clear-minded observer could see at
that time - that war with Rome could only be a disaster for the Jews. And so it
was. Rome would be defeated in a spectacular collapse but it takes some four
more centuries for that to come (see Rev.18). Meanwhile, the sinister power
behind Rome would be defeated by this Messiah making Rome's defeat inevitable.
But I'm getting ahead of the story.
Here at the beginning Jesus is recruiting Israel to become Abrahamic again to
play its role as God's New Exodus people. Those who follow him need a prayer
suitable for this time and this movement. Matthew presents it as part of Jesus'
NE sermon in Mt.6 while Luke gives it in a slightly different form at the
request of his followers (Lk.11). We'll follow Matthew's version here.
Jesus'
New Exodus Prayer
Like the Kaddish Jesus' prayer is an eschatological prayer. That
is, it's a prayer for the ultimate reality of God to come and deliver, redeem,
and set right all that has gone wrong. And that what this New Exodus is all
about.
And it's also a prayer for the here and now, the present of Jesus'
followers: “Truly, I say to you, there are some
standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in
his kingdom” (Mt.16:28). Whatever Jesus teaches us to pray for here, it is something
that will happen in their lifetimes or generation. What that means for us as we
pray this prayer today we will consider at the end of this essay.
Jesus kicks the prayer off with an address to God
infrequently used in prayer, “Our father.”1 But
when it is it is usually in the context of a New Exodus. Two of the most
important texts are in Isa. 63:10–17 and Jer. 3:16–19.
-There are strong linguistic
parallels with the Lord’s Prayer (“our father” in Isa.63:16 and
“my father” in Jer.3:19.
-each of these texts
describes the future ingathering of Israel and the Gentiles in a new
Exodus.
-this is the only
place in Isaiah where the divine use of divine “Father” language occurs and the
only other “father” language for God in Jeremiah is also in a New Exodus
setting (Jer.31:7-9).
The first petition of the prayer is actually an imperative: “May
your name be hallowed.” A feckless and idolatrous trashing of God's name,
reputation, and power in a pagan world by rebellious Israel was a major problem
for God as well as the people. The original Exodus was as much about
establishing the knowledge and reputation of Israel's God with the plagues and
the mighty defeat of Pharaoh's army. Having squandered that reputation God must
act in power and grace again to fulfill his promises and purposes in the world.
And this is exactly what God has determined to do:
“And I will sanctify
my great name (hagiasō
to onoma mou…), which was profaned among the nations, which you
profaned in the midst of them; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord
when I am sanctified among you before their eyes” (Ex.36:23 LXX).
This cri de coeur by another one dear to the
Jewish heart: “May your kingdom come; may your will be done, as in heaven and
upon earth. Jesus summarizes the Kadish's “May he establish His kingdom
during your life and during your days, and during the life of all the house of
Israel, speedily and in the near future.” As we noted above, God's kingdom,
which was the keynote of Jesus' message, is something to occur with that
generation of his first followers. “It will consist,” writes Andrew Perriman,
“of a transfer of sovereignty over Israel from Caesar to YHWH, but Daniel’s
vision of the symbolic Son of man figure has suggested that YHWH will
then give this sovereignty to the suffering community - that is, to Jesus and
those who suffer in him.”2
And not only is this
kingdom or rule of God to come within that first generation of Jesus'
followers, God's will is to be done as well (another way of talking about the
kingdom) not only soon but here on earth just like it is done in heaven!
Jesus tells his
followers in God's NE movement to pray in these first three petitions for God
-to justify his reputation and will and way before the
world,
-to bring his kingdom (quickly), and
-to have his will done here and now on this green
earth as it is done in heaven.
His second set of
three petitions, though they may appear to change the focus to our human, daily
needs, in reality they maintain the NE focus with which they began.
In the fourth petition
Jesus instructs us to pray for “daily bread.” Does he mean our regular
allotment of food or is this an allusion to the manna God feed the original
Exodus people with each day? The NE focus of the prayer thus far suggests the
latter. Pitre calls this the “most obvious sign of the presence of a new Exodus
typology in the Lord’s Prayer”3 though it
probably does not seem so to readers today.
This, then, is no mundane provision for human hunger Jesus talks
about. This is God's miraculous provision for his people marching through the
desert out of Egypt on the way to Sinai (see Ex.16:4–5, 13–15, 31;
Psa.78:23-25,29). “Mortals ate the bread of angels” the psalmist tells us.
Attendant to the NE Jesus' people will need to rely on God for their sustenance
and ongoing life. Further, this manna bespeaks an eschatological food, the
bread of the age to come. Pitre notes: “Many ancient Jews expected that when
the Messiah finally came, he would cause the manna to come down from heaven
again. One of the most explicit descriptions of this comes to us from the
first-century Jewish writing known as 2 Baruch. In a vision of the
messianic age, the text states:
'And it will happen that when all that which should come to pass
in these parts is accomplished, the Messiah will begin to be
revealed. . . . And those who are hungry will enjoy themselves and they will,
moreover, see marvels every day. . . . And it will happen at that time
that the treasury of manna will come down again from on high, and
they will eat of it in those years because these are they who will
have arrived at the consummation of time.' (2 Baruch 29:3–8).”4
And
many expected this new manna to come at a New Passover5 which would signal the onset
of the long-awaited moment prayed for here. The connection with Jesus' meal at
the last supper with his followers seems obvious. It too is a NE (and new
covenant) event.
These two senses of
God's provision for his people's needs during this NE and his provision of
spiritual food for their life in this new reality of his kingdom come mingle
together here.
“And forgive us our
debts, as we forgive our debtors” - this fifth petition reflects the
eschatological summons to the New Exodus in Isa.40: 1-2 and more particularly
55:7 (LXX):
“…let the ungodly
leave his ways, and the transgressor his counsels: and let him return to the
Lord, and he shall find mercy; for he shall abundantly pardon your sins.”
And when we note that
just above this passage in 55:1-2 God exhorts Israel to purchase “good bread”
from him the connection of the fourth and fifth petitions as NE texts becomes
clear.
But more may be
intended here as well. In a NE contexts “debts” would easily bring to a Jewish
mind the famous Jubilee legislation in Lev.25. Once a generation (every 50th year)
Israel was to practice a great social leveling – debts accrued during this time
were forgiven and lsnd was returned to the family it was given to by Joshua.
These provisions were rooted in Israel's experience of the first Exodus from
Egypt (Lev. 25:38, 42, 55) and expected again as a part of the NE (see Isa.
61:1–2, 4, 7; “the year of the Lord's favor,” v.2) expectation. Pitre
cites this passage from the Dead Sea Scrolls in evidence:
“And as for what he said: 'In [this] year of Jubilee, [you
shall return, each one, to his respective property' (Lev. 25:13), concerning it
he said: 'Th]is is [the manner of the release:] every creditor shall release
what he lent [to his neighbour. He shall not coerce his neighbour or his
brother, for it has been proclaimed] a release for G[od]' (Deut. 15:2). [Its
interpretation] for the last days refers to the captives. . .they
are the inherita[nce of Melchize]dek, who will make them return. And
liberty will be proclaimed for them, to free them from [the debt of] all their
iniquities. And this [wil]l [happen] in the first week of the Jubilee. .
.in which atonement shall be made for all the sons of [light and] for the men
[of] the lot of Melchizedek. . .for it is the time for 'the year of
favor' (Isa. 61:2). . .(11QMelchizedek 2:1–9)”6
The forgiveness of debts prayed for here, then, points to the
inauguration of the New Exodus. This reality is not simply “spiritual” (as we
count such things), between us and God, but a reality practiced among the
people of the NE. And its chief agent, according to the Dead Sea Scrolls, is
“Melchizedek” (Gen.14; Messiah).
The final petition Jesus offers is “And may you not lead us into
trial, but deliver us from the evil one.” Here Jesus realistically exhorts his
followers to pray for God's provision and protection during the birth pangs of
this inaugural period of the NE. Troubles and trials will accompany the arrival
of God's movement to set all things right even as the original troop of Exodus
travelers underwent severe testing (Ps.94:8 LXX; 4 Macc.9:7) such that some
lost their faith as a result. Many of the New Testament statements about the
trials and tribulations of God's people are situated within this context of the
birth pangs of this fresh and final act of God's liberating act for his world
(see 1 Pet.1:6-7; 4:12,13).
The “evil one” (not “evil” in the abstract in this context) is
behind this trouble, resisting and trying to derail this NE movement in any way
possible. “This is the Satan who seeks to divert Jesus from his calling, who
demands to sift the disciples like wheat, who inspires the extreme opposition
of Greek-Roman paganism.”7
How Do We Pray This
Prayer Today?
It's probably occurred
to you that if the Lord's Prayer is historically anchored in the setting of
longing and anticipation for God's New Exodus in the 1st century
a. d. then what can it mean for us to pray it 20 centuries later? Its
widespread use in worship tends to incline us to treat it as a timeless prayer
that anyone can pray anytime anywhere with no loss of meaning. Yet the context
of God's NE restricts that field of meaning in a way that makes praying it
timelessly distorting of its meaning.
Perriman pushes this
hard in this direction. If this reading of the prayer is right, he contends
it's already been answered. “The people of God was restored, Caesar was finally
overthrown, God’s kingdom was established, the community survived the
eschatological crisis and entered the promised land - or as Paul puts it,
inherited the world (Rom. 4:13).” He suggests
we pray it as a way to remember the journey God and God's people have taken to
enable us to be where we are today (similar in this way to how we celebrate the
Lord's Supper).
“We do not need to
pray for the kingdom to come - certainly not in the way that the disciples did.
The prayer has its place in the narrative, but the story-line has moved on. The
victory over Satan and death that is envisaged in the New Testament has been
won; Jesus is our king. Our task is to live and work under that
kingship. But we cannot forget the basic reason why sovereignty was
given to the Son of man: we have a ‘king’ who gave himself out of love for God
and for his people so that the mission of God would have a future.”8
This, I think, is a valid way to pray this prayer today
There is another way too. A christological way. We noted earlier
that the difference between the Pharisees and Jesus movement was . . . Jesus.
If we look out the window though on any given morning it won't look like God's
name has been hallowed, his kingdom come, his will is being done here and now
as it is in heaven, and so on. So is Perriman wrong after all? Is this prayer
not already answered?
I don't believe Perriman is wrong. I think he and Pitre and Wright
are correct to locate this prayer in salvation history as a prayer for those on
whom the New Exodus has dawned. And I think his suggestion for how to pray the
prayer is on target too. But as we look out our windows and see the world
looking pretty much as it always has, understanding this prayer through Jesus,
seeing him as its fulfillment, can give us a somewhat different take on it and
on our lives.
Has God's name been hallowed, despite appearances? Yes, Jesus has
done it.
Has God's kingdom come, despite appearances? Yes, Jesus brought
it.
Has God's will been done here on earth as it is in heaven, despite
appearances? Yes, Jesus has done it.
Yes, yes, Jesus is our confidence and assurance that that God's NE
movement has been executed and completed in and by him. It has not fully played
put yet. God's eternal purpose for which he instituted the NE has not yet been
fulfilled de facto though its fulfillment is certain by virtue
of Jesus' resurrection and exaltation as world ruler.
This, in fact, is how the writer of Hebrews sees it. In Heb.2:8-9
we read,
“Now in subjecting all
things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do
not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for
a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and
honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he
might taste death for everyone.”
God created humanity for dominion over his creation, to care for
it and guide it to its full flourishing as God's vice-regents. They failed and
forfeited that vice-regency. In other words, when we look out our windows we
don't see things as they should be. However, we do see Jesus, crucified, risen,
and exalted - God as us, us as we should be. He hallowed God's name, as we all
should have. He brought God's rule over nations and creation. He did God's will
in the midst of all sorts of opposition and resistance. Jesus is our guarantee,
our “down payment” as Paul put it (Eph.1:14), that God has made good on all his
promises (2 Cor.1:20). He is God's New Exodus in person.
As those Christ-followers called to share in the extension and
implementation of the fruits of his victory w pray this NE prayer in both
memory and hope. Both the salvation history approach of (Perriman) and the
christological approach I am sketching draw on both with differing emphases.
Seeing Christ as the fulfillment of the prayer makes us look back to his
earthly ministry in which he hallowed God's name, brought in God's kingdom, and
did God's will here and now as it is done in heaven. And to our lives today in
gratitude for the assurance he will keep on provisioning us with the physical
and spiritual sustenance he did for them, and will keep and bring us through
the attacks of the evil one in all their variety in our time and place.
And in both memory and gratitude we find ourselves caught up in
Jesus' own life and come to know God in him as “our father” Thus, this prayer's
historical rootage in a particular context is both vital for its proper
understanding and at the same time for stirring up memory and gratitude in its
pray-ers and readers at later times and other places in the church's journey.
Taking it as a timeless prayer obscures this historically determinative meaning
and dilutes the quality of the memory and gratitude evoked.
1See Brant Pitre, “The Lord’s Prayer and the New Exodus,” Letter &
Spirit 2 (2006), 75-76.
2 Andrew
Perriman, “The Lord's Prayer and its Eschatological Context” https://www.postost.net/commentary/lord-s-prayer-eschatological-context.
3 Pitre, “The Lords Prayer and
the New Exodus,” 84.
4 Pitre,
“The Lord's Prayer and the New Exodus,” 85.
5 Brown, The
Gospel according to John, 1:265, citing B. Gärtner, John 6 and the
Jewish Passover, Coniectanea Neotestamentica 17 (Lund: Gleerup, 1959),
19.
6Pitre,
“The Lord's Prayer and the New Exodus,” 89. 7Perriman, “The Lord's Prayer in
its Eschatological Context” https://www.postost.net/commentary/lord-s-prayer-eschatological-context. 8Ibid.
In vv.14-15
we have a somewhat troubling teaching that seems to suggest the God’s forgiveness
of us is conditioned by our forgiveness of others. Leithart wisely comments:
“We have all kinds of pseudo-pious
ways of avoiding this kind of teaching. We are saved by grace, not by our
works; forgiveness is a work; therefore, Jesus can’t be serious about the
Father withholding forgiveness or withdrawing forgiveness from those whom He
has forgiven. But He is serious. We shouldn’t soften this. Of course, we are
acceptable to God because of His grace, because of what Jesus has done for us.
But that works itself out in a life of forgiveness, and this has to be our
disposition, if we want to be forgiven. God oversees all history and every
moment of our salvation. God is the initiator. But God also works within time,
within history, and in that context He really does respond to what we do. He
responds to our forgiveness as much as He responds to our prayers. The if-then
statements mean what they say. If you are not willing to forgive those who have
offended you, then God will not forgive you. You will be judged with the
standard by which you judge.”[4]
[1] Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: 1141.
[2] Hemchand Gossai, “Alms,” Eerdmans Dictionary of the
Bible.
[3] Stassen, “The Fourteen Triads,” 285.
[4] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 2292.
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