The Teachings of Jesus in Luke: The Lord's Prayer

(Jesus) was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.” ~ Luke 11:1-4

In the Episcopal order of worship, the priest sometimes introduces the Lord's Prayer with the words, "Now, as our Savior Christ hath taught us, we are bold to say..." The word bold is worth thinking about. We do well not to pray the prayer lightly. It takes guts to pray it at all. We can pray it in the unthinking and perfunctory way we usually do only by disregarding what we are saying.
"Thy will be done" is what we are saying. That is the climax of the first half of the prayer. We are asking God to be God. We are asking God to do not what we want, but what God wants. We are asking God to make manifest the holiness that is now mostly hidden, to set free in all its terrible splendor the devastating power that is now mostly under restraint. "Thy kingdom come . . . on earth" is what we are saying. And if that were suddenly to happen, what then? What would stand and what would fall? Who would be welcomed in and who would be thrown the hell out? Which if any of our most precious visions of what God is and of what human beings are would prove to be more or less on the mark and which would turn out to be phony as three-dollar bills? Boldness indeed. To speak those words is to invite the tiger out of the cage, to unleash a power that makes atomic power look like a warm breeze.
You need to be bold in another way to speak the second half. Give us. Forgive us. Don't test us. Deliver us. If it takes guts to face the omnipotence that is God's, it takes perhaps no less to face the impotence that is ours. We can do nothing without God. We can have nothing without God. Without God we are nothing.
It is only the words "Our Father" that make the prayer bearable. If God is indeed something like a father, then as something like children maybe we can risk approaching him anyway.
~Frederick Buechner, originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words (you can find wonderful quotes and writings and devotions by theologian, novelist, and pastor, Frederick Buechner here: http://www.frederickbuechner.com 


I won't go into much more detail about this prayer. I think Frederick Buechner's words should stand on their own.
I'll ask instead: 
- Do you feel bold when you say this prayer?
- Do you want God's kingdom to come here and now? What parts of God's kingdom coming scare you? Excite you? Embolden you?
It has been my experience that in order to really dig deep and remember how bold this prayer is, sometimes we need to say it in a way that is different than how we usually say it. That helps us focus more on the words themselves and what they mean. I've included as a prayer a contemporary version of this prayer to try out. Or you can find some other wonderful versions of this prayer here: 

Prayer: Our Father in Heaven, hallowed is your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil. For the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.


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