In Luke 11:1-13, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. It was customary that each rabbi had a defining prayer, a prayer that was an encapsulation of this rabbi’s essential teachings, of who this rabbi was. So, when the disciples asked him to teach them to pray, they weren’t so much asking Jesus to teach them the way I have tried to learn (through classes and monasteries and prayer workshops). The disciples were asking Jesus to tell them who he was, what his vision of God was, and what his vision of those who followed him was.
“Teach us to pray” could just as well have been: Teach us to align ourselves with you. Teach us who you, in the name of God, are.
The prayer Jesus teaches, the Lord’s Prayer, is a communal touchstone, a grounding point for aligning us with God’s vision and God’s agenda for the world. All should be fed. All should be forgiven sins and debts. All should be protected.
This message is excerpted from “Dear God, thank you for…” by Anna Madsen in the July/August 2021 Gather magazine. Today we commemorate Luke, Evangelist.
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