We All Have Our Liturgies
Raised in a Pentecostal church, I have benefitted enormously with an experience of the dynamic of the Holy Spirit – the third person of the trinity. I mean, what’s not to like - no intention of converting sideways nor deconstructing.
Like everyone, we have our strengths that are our weaknesses, extemporaneous prayer being one of them. We have no need to write them down, repeat someone else’s, or feel bound to formatted prayer - it’s spontaneity all the way, and therefore more spiritual. Sounds good and sounds freeing, except it isn’t either necessarily.
And, given time we all have our liturgies, just like those we’d roundly criticised for formalising their faith. The moment something is repeated (on purpose, by design) it has essentially become liturgical.
Our problem can be a shallow vision of prayer that doesn’t plumb much more than the wading pool of our wants. Aside from, the vocabulary and theological acumen of prayers of immediacy, lack range and the collective wisdom of God’s people through history – those who have struggled greatly or been revealed glories unspeakable. They have written their prayers and meditations for others to learn by and be ministered to, by. Why would we not fellowship with them?
We so easily forget that the first Christians were guided by the daily prayer rhythm of Judaism. They would pray, in the main, predetermined prayers at predetermined times of the day. If that isn’t liturgical, I’m not sure what is. And they were filled with the Spirit too, so being Spirit filled doesn’t mean extemporaneity and hyper-individualism have been sanctified.
A case in point is the Lord’s Prayer. If we look at the differences between Matthew’s and Luke’s recording of this prayer, we have a prayer that is both to be prayed as is and to be used as an example of how to pray. (Matthew 6:8 – “Pray then like this.” ESV. Or “Pray then in this way.” NRSV. Luke 11:2 – “When you pray, say.” ESV. )
Repeating the words of the Lord’s Prayer, as written, is a great source of realignment and revelation. How so? The more I pray this prayer, which for me has become daily, the more I see what is being said by the one who taught us to pray, saying:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
In regularly praying this prayer I see more into the nature of God and the needs of humanity. What is important dawns more fully.
The prayer starts with declaration. The hallowing of God’s name is top of the list - it has precedence. But it is God’s name that Israel blasphemed by their departure from the word and ways of Yahweh. Least we think we are exonerated we do no less at times.
Next, we pray for his kingdom and will to be done. This turns a lot of our Christianity back up the right way, where what God wills takes precedence over our own preferences and needs.
These two opening lines are a rebuke to an individuated faith – God is not a serious hobby or insurance for a good life. He is God, vastly beyond all we can think or imagine, both unfathomable and revealed in the self-sacrificing Word. We fail to realise this to our own terrible loss; it cripples us, we hobble instead of walking, leaping and praising God.
Then and only then do we pray for ourselves. It is interesting and instructive what Jesus considered necessary for his disciples. Daily bread is what sustains us today; what satisfies our needs so that they don’t dominate. A satisfied stomach helps us focus on life, Kingdom life.
Straight after asking for our daily bread is forgiveness. We are to ask God for it, we are to extend it to others - it is both or neither. Forgiveness is the message of the cross, it is the focus of the two sacraments of baptism and communion. It matters, in other words. Sin is insidious, pervasive and pernicious. We learn to see the need of forgiveness the more we pray the Lord’s Prayer. At least, I do.
The same goes for temptation and evil. They matter as they are destroyers of worlds, and the reason for the cross of Christ. Evil is real, personal, destructive, and never far from anyone of us – least we forget.
And finally, the Lord’s Prayer loops back to forgiveness, because un-forgiveness, if we didn’t get it the first time, is the ruination of many a good prayer.
The more we pray the Lord’s Prayer the more comfortable we become with it, and the more comfortable we become the more uncomfortable it will make us.