Theological Journal – November 4 Craig Keen’s Theological Interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer (Part 2)

 

“. . . as it is in heaven,” as it is already where our thought and imagination cannot reach, as it is in mystery, as it is in our hopes and prayers . . . .

“. . . Give!”—that the hope and mystery of the world *gives* is the life and breath of all the faithful, all those who pray in Jesus’s name, all those who know by name the poor whom we have with us always, the poor among whom—as whom—Jesus lived, died, and was raised . . . .

“. . . us this day,” all we are is *this day,* though we are *this day* with a past and with a future, an indeterminate past and a differently indeterminate future, both at work in *this day* in ways that elude our management skills and our consciousness, a future calling upon *this day* to hope, a past calling upon *this day* to despair . . . .

“. . . our daily bread,” a prayer of those who cannot assume they will eat today, who do not and have not had more than enough for today and in too many days have had nothing at all, they are the *us* of this prayer . . . .

“. . . forgive us,” give-forth, rupture our closure with your openness, with your gratuity, with your mercy, with your grace . . . .

“. . . our trespasses,” our sins, our debts, the hard affairs of a hard life in which there are no expenditures that are not about food and shelter and the hands of young and old, male and female, sick and well, the hands that do not have the luxury of a day of rest, the hands that gather and hunt and hold to heal and bury and nurse a newborn while hoping and praying that another child’s death might be held off a little longer. . .

“. . . as we forgive those who trespass against us,” for the hope of people who live and work together is no solitary hope, but a hope for all the world, for the deer at pools of fresh water, for the winds and the rain, for the declining health of elders in a precarious household, for neighbors in a tiny village, for the strangers who are drawn to the nighttime fire around which they gathered, because my forgiveness is inseparable from yours . . . .

“. . . lead is not into temptation,” open a way for us where the blows that have rained down on us all our lives do not any longer on us fall . . . .

". . . but deliver us from evil," from new assaults, from new wounds, from new defeats, from the loss of a day's work or a season's harvest or the children who might have been a new generation . . . .

“. . . For thine is the Kingdom,” the embrace of all creation in the arms of your righteous justice . . . .

". . . and the power," the irruption into our exclusions and inclusions and conclusions of possibilities nowhere native to or inherent in this world . . . .

". . . and the glory," the disclosure, the manifestation, the revelation, the coming, the outpouring of your holiness, your deity, your overwhelming love . . . .

". . . Amen!" yes, yes, yes!