The Lord’s Prayer

By Michael Hell

A couple of years ago, we studied the Lord’s Prayer in a house group. We had many thoughts about the possible meanings to us, but we did not venture to rephrase the Prayer itself. Seeing the children’s version in a recent issue of Moseley Chimes, I have ventured to produce a version that reflects our different understanding of the universe and more recent theological developments.

Our heavenly Father
We hold sacred your holy name.
Help us to make your kingdom here on earth a reflection of your heavenly kingdom.
Give us what we need each day for body and soul.
Help us, when we follow our own agenda, to turn back to you, and to love our neighbour as ourselves.
Test us not, but keep us from harm.

Our knowledge of the universe today is such that it makes little sense to talk of a God in the heaven beyond the sky. Rather, we think of God as transcendent, but also immanent: as Fr Gerry Hughes put it, ‘God is ’closer to me than I am to myself’. Most of us no longer expect an imminent return, nor do we think of God intervening in this world except through the agency of human beings. We can live only in the present. It is therefore incumbent on us to follow today’s conclusions: ‘The most important time is now, the most important person is the person we are with, and the most important action is to do that person good’.

‘Daily bread’ is so familiar that it is the most difficult expression to change. The sermon in which it was suggested that God be asked to feed the inner as well as the outer man has stayed with me from my schooldays, though I am now less happy with the dichotomy of ‘body’ and ‘soul’. Like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son, God comes to meet us if we turn back to him. He so welcomes our return without reserve that the notion of forgiveness seems irrelevant. His scales are not our scales, as the parable of the workers in the vineyard suggests. Likewise, we are enjoined not to judge, which is implicit in the notion that we forgive others.

In a world in which life seems to have become a series of test hurdles, the word ‘test’ perhaps best expresses the trials we would like to avoid.

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