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In Luke 11:1-13, the disciples want Jesus to teach them to pray. It was customary that each rabbi (which is what Jesus was) had a defining prayer, a prayer that was not only unique to him, but 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 in the way I’ve 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. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we become disciples too – disciples of God’s reign, agenda and vision.
This message is excerpted from “Dear God, thank you for…” by Anna Madsen in the July/August 2021 Gather magazine.