The Rev. Jim Clinefelter, via the Internet, writes:
Question: Thank you for your insights into the Sermon on the Mount and The Lord's Prayer.
I am a retired Presbyterian minister and for some time I have had difficulty praying the traditional words of The Lord's Prayer. So much of it is devoted to asking, indeed begging, God. I find myself praying a modified form of the prayer that recognizes God's presence on earth and alters the begging into affirmation.
Here is how I pray The Lord's Prayer:
Ever Present Holy One, we hallow your name. Your kingdom comes and your will is done on earth through those who trust the vision of your realm. You give us daily bread; you forgive us and call us to forgive others. You do not lead us into temptation; you deliver us from evil; for yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Do you have any suggestions for modifying the way I pray The Lord's Prayer? Do you see any possibility of churches ever modifying the traditional Lord's Prayer or is it too deeply entrenched and therefore beyond conscious awareness of most worshipers?
Answer: Dear Jim,
First let me thank you for your years of service to the Church as a Presbyterian minister. In our time, I believe clergy are too little appreciated and I am convinced that the pastoral role is still a vital and important one so I hope you in retirement are able to hear the words that Jesus was said to have spoken in one of his parables, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
In your translation of the Lord's Prayer, you address in a sensitive way some of the problems that these words have produced because of their time and place in history. I will never forget a conversation I had with Buckminster Fuller at the Chautauqua Institute some years ago. The Lord's Prayer reminded him, he said, of a bargaining session at a Middle Eastern local market as buyer and seller haggled over an acceptable price. I suggested to Dr. Fuller that he try his hand at rewriting it in contemporary English to reflect a contemporary world view. He did, but he edited his version of the Lord's Prayer more each day of the week that we were together. By the end of that week, his version of the Lord's Prayer was three pages long! My relationship with Bucky Fuller, as we called him, was one of the happier memories of my life. He even came to my diocese to lead the clergy conference for me. It was a mind expanding occasion for us all.
No, I do not think that the churches will ever engage this issue. Most of them still introduce the Lord's Prayer with some version of the words: "And now as our Savior has taught us, we now pray." It is quite difficult to change words that for hundreds of years we have attributed to Jesus himself. It is interesting to note that the Lord's Prayer is not found in either the writings of Paul or in the first Gospel, Mark, to be written.
The Lord's Prayer is, quite clearly, a prayer composed not by Jesus, but by the early church asking for the realm of God, which they believed they had experienced in Jesus, might be revealed to the entire world. "Thy Kingdom come; the will be done on earth as it is in heaven" makes sense only in that context. I think your words translate that purpose very well. Thank you for sharing it with me and, through this column, with my reading public.(John Shelby Spong)
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