Today we resume our examination of Jesus’ sermon on the mount and in particular the prayer known as “The Lord’s Prayer.” To recap we know that this is not “the Lord’s prayer,” because Jesus did not pray this prayer. He offered it to his disciples as a model or format of prayer. The prayer he prayed is found in the gospel of John and the 16th chapter. Second in this “prayer that Jesus gave to his disciples we find that there are no first-person personal pronouns. There are no “me, my or mine,” instead there are “we, our and us.” Signaling that this is not a personal prayer but a prayer that the whole community was expected to pray.
That leads to the radical, revolutionary and subversive nature of this prayer that Jesus gave to his disciples.
To understand the content, one must know what the context was that Jesus offered this prayer in. The context that this prayer was offered in is the first century which was one of subjugation and oppression by the colonizers from Rome. It was a system of domination and Rome spread the ideology that Caesar and Rome were ordained by god(s) to rule on the earth.
Therefore, the opening words that Jesus offered “Our father, who are in heaven, hallowed be your name,” are what the culture calls “shade,” at Rome. Remember Rome exalted itself as a divinely ordained empire but Jesus told his disciples to pray to the true ruler who resides in heaven, not Rome and reverence or hallow the name of God or Yahweh and not Caesar. Caesar in Rome had taken on the title of lord and savior and Jesus’ prayer starts out disrespecting the self-imposed authority of Rome.
The prayer goes on to say “Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Rome believed that it was the one and only kingdom but Jesus instructs his disciples to pray to the true kingdom in heaven and invite the reign of God on earth as it already is in heaven. Remember that the Jewish aristocracy turned Jesus over to Pilate on the charge that “he said he was a king.” In fact, they tied Pilate’s hand because Pilate was ready to release Jesus until they said “you are no friend of Caesar if you let him go because he claimed to have a kingdom.”
Caesar and Rome would not permit any other kingdom to reign with it, that is why this was a dangerous prayer.
The prayer continues with another petition but this time to fulfill human needs. “Give us this day our daily bread.” Under Roman rule there never was enough bread or staple food to live on because of the greed of Rome. Food was used to control, oppressed and profit off the poor. There never was enough which made people desperate.
But Jesus instructs his disciples to appeal to God who is the provider and who provides on a consistent and daily basis because it is a basic human right for people to have enough food. Remember when the people were wandering in the desert after escaping Egypt? God provided manna in the morning (bread) and Quail at night because no one should go hungry and no one should go broke trying to pay for food that God has already provided for free.
The prayer next addresses another area that Rome and Caesar used to profit from the people while also controlling the people of Northeast Africa and that is the debt system. The prayer petitions God to “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” The debt system was a vicious and disempowering system because it crippled the hopes of the poor by shackling them to unbearable debt. Like American capitalism does today by saddling people with unbearable debt like student loan debt, medical bill debt and debt that comes with having a roof over your head and utilities to protect one from darkness and cold.
Jesus is instructing his disciples to pray for the end of the debt system so that no one goes through life being subjugated by debt that was designed to make a few wealthy and robbing the poor of the ability to live in dignity. He instructs them to not participate in the debt system by forgiving others of the debt owed to them. Remember that was precisely the reason for the “year of Jubilee.” It was to make sure that no one spent their life in debt so every 50 years all debt was forgiven and people could start fresh. It used to be the reason behind “bankruptcy laws,” until wealthy corporate CEOs lobbied against it.
By the way some translations tried to water down the radical significance of this portion of the prayer by substituting the “debt” with “trespasses,” and the reason was to direct attention to a personal piety that defined sin as a personal offense against God rather than corporate or societal acts of injustice against God. Debt is a better translation.
The prayer then closes with the words “And do not bring us to the time of trial/temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.” Since we learned in Sunday school from the New Testament book of James that God cannot be tempted and neither does God tempt anyone. Jesus is guiding his disciples to pray that God would give them the strength to resist the evil one that was ruling in Caesar’s Palace (not the one in Las Vegas).
This prayer could get the disciples of Jesus brutalized or killed because it was a communal contradiction of the Roman empire and how it dominated the people especially the poor. This prayer is all about Justice for those oppressed. It is no wonder that the right wing evangelical white nationalistic minded so-called believers in Jesus never quote Jesus and never exegete the words of Jesus because the words of Jesus are a condemnation of their behavior towards the poor and working class. Be woke, be informed and be well.
Uhuru Sassa!!!
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.
Rev. John E. Jackson
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.”