Centering in the Lord’s Prayer
“Pray, then, in this way…”
- Jesus, Matthew 6
•••••
Last month I wrote about how one of the reasons people can drift away from church isn’t always because of harm done, but disenchantment with what is being taught and the sub-par fruits that stated and lived theology are producing. I encourage you to read that post first if you haven’t. The summary though is that a certain brand of penal substitutionary atonement (PSA), one that centers the idea of a wrathful God and hyper-individualism, leaves a lot to be desired.
Even if this approach were true, the way in which this style of PSA is presented and the rigid culture built around it increasingly don’t meet the realities and needs of lived experience. People predictably become disenchanted with the whole system over time. It was, however, brought to my attention that I didn’t really define what disenchantment is. The closest I came was this:
“When people hear messages like this month after month and year after year, when folks are reading their bibles and taking it seriously as they’ve been told to do, when people see our country in political crisis and basic needs exploding all around them, the disconnection between what is taught as true and the complexity of Scripture and the realities of daily life begin to be felt more acutely.
Disenchantment is bound to set in because this interpretation of PSA and the resulting cultural expression of it feels irrelevant when it starts coming into contact with the real world. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to think it will become even more difficult to connect with as the post-war era continues coming to an end.”
So, this month I want to clarify what I mean by disenchantment in this context and offer what I think is a simple starting place for moving forward: the Lord’s Prayer.
On disenchantment
The New Oxford American Dictionary defines disenchantment as “a feeling of disappointment about someone or something you previously respected or admired.” That’s a great starting point but is too broad for our context. I would offer two additions. First, it’s not just disappointment with someone or something you once respected, but specifically with a place that once felt like home and now feels foreign. Second, it’s about more than disappointment; it’s coming to feel there is a lack of relevancy in it altogether.
So, perhaps a better definition for our context is this: disenchantment is recognizing that a belief system and place which once felt like home has become alien, transforming standard disappointment into a total loss of its relevance in daily life.
As we examined last month, PSA in this context and the language of divine wrath often makes God feel like a tyrant, while notions of slaughter and bloodshed are much more foreign to us as modern people. We also looked at what I called PSA or the highway kinds of churches and how, in those churches, the violence of the Cross is often held in higher esteem than the One nailed to it. The result is a brittle, insular culture that becomes the object of worship while sowing the seeds of its own irrelevancy:
“Finally, the Cross presented in this over-intellectualized and formulaic way through the lens of what it does just for the individual is out of touch with our daily lived experience as humans. It doesn’t have answers for the damage in the world we see around us. It’s not rooted in Creation. It’s not relational. It feels detached from history. Indeed, it quite literally casts aside the majority of the Jesus story.”
Disenchantment, predictably, becomes the logical end point for a growing number of people. But I want to hold on the part about PSA not being relational for a moment. Understanding that specific dynamic is instructive with regard to how we can search for Jesus as he truly is.
In the context I’ve described above, PSA boils down to being a mere transaction, not the beginnings of a relationship. Too often it produces what Dallas Willard called the Vampire Christian, who “…in effect says to Jesus: ‘I'd like a little of your blood, please. But I don't care to be your student or have your character. In fact, won't you just excuse me while I get on with my life, and I'll see you in heaven.’” I’ve written about this approach to faith and the devastating consequences in its aftermath before so won’t rehash that here; however, it’s worth noting that a transactional theology will inevitably lead to a transactional people, and vice versa, a reality that becomes apparent when things go sideways.
This is not a controversial claim. Having run in evangelical circles my whole life here in Tennessee, I don’t know know how many times I’ve heard people say things like “my prayer life isn’t great” or “I’m really struggling with my relationship with God” or “it doesn't feel like anything is happening spiritually right now.” There can be lots of reasons people feel this way —and the sadness in their voices as they do is palpable— but one such reason can be that PSA as described above makes God feel distant, much like a judge in a courtroom can feel. It sets things up so that having an actual relationship with the divine, one rooted in mystery as it only can be, becomes more and more difficult with time. Feelings of shame and inadequacy can follow in its wake, making the chasm between a person and God feel even wider.
Where to turn?
The past several years I’ve thought the type of church culture described above makes faith way more simple than it ought to be. In some respects I still think that can be true, but lately I’ve also wondered if it makes faith overly complicated in other ways. Having better theology generally and a more holistic view of the Jesus story would be helpful; however, maybe the change we need isn’t wholly found in a replacement theology, but in becoming centered in a new lived experience.
This struck me recently as I considered my own spiritual habits which, to be frank, are more sporadic than I’d like them to be. One area I have noticed as becoming more formative and relational is trying to say the Lord’s Prayer daily. For reference, Jesus taught it like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
may your name be revered as holy.
May your kingdom come.
May your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.”
Besides being simple and to the point, what I find remarkable about this prayer is just how relational and rooted in the here and now it is. I’d go so far as to argue the way Jesus teaches us to pray shows little to no interest in the disenchanting expectations of the PSA or the highway teachings and culture described above.
Think about it. There’s no I or Me, but Our and Us instead. This prayer is rooted in focusing on today, not any sort of eternal future that first requires our death and departure from this world. It is inherently communal, anti-scarcity, and draws ourselves closer to God. We call him “Our Father” who we recognize as holy and loving. We ask for His Kingdom to come and for physical needs to be met, for forgiveness and an ability to forgive. We end with asking for deliverance from what we cannot control, especially the causes and effects of evil.
Indeed, in the cultural context Jesus was teaching and living in, it was so difficult for many people to think beyond the here and now due to material poverty and Roman oppression. Some people Jesus interacted with didn’t even know where their next meal was coming from. So what does he do?
Jesus doesn’t shame them or wag his finger and tell them they should be focused on eternity. No, Jesus says to pray for God to meet us where we are in our daily needs, and that His Kingdom would break into this world along the way, ending physical and relational scarcity once and for all. Jesus is asking us to pray that God’s Kingdom becomes our new lived reality and that we would trust in Him for everything that makes us human.
With time, these words can help form us into people who trust God on a more daily basis while moving toward meeting needs we see around us, just as Jesus did. We know it is likely that many ancient Christians prayed this prayer three times a day, a practice instructed in The Didache, one of the oldest Christian texts outside of the biblical canon. Considering this, perhaps my trying to say The Lord’s Prayer once a day wouldn’t have been considered enough by our spiritual ancestors!
My point is this: for those of us who have departed the church culture described above but still yearn to follow Jesus, centering ourselves in the Lord’s Prayer daily seems like a strong antidote to the disenchantment we have and a path toward what we hope to move into. This is a prayer that helps us avoid falling into the trap of Willard’s “Vampire Christian.” These words form us into being less focused on the anxieties of modern and post-modern life, brought on by big statistics, a recklessly brisk pace, and the feeling of constantly being overwhelmed. It all ties into something else Jesus said in Matthew 11:28:30:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Closing Thoughts
If Jesus really is the means and the ends of The Gospel then praying as he instructed us to pray seems, at the very least, prudent. As an American citizen, I’m acutely aware of the temptation or urge to do something new or try to go bigger. As a Christian, I also feel the same pull in much of the church culture around me.
Perhaps we don't need to reinvent the wheel though. The longer I’ve tried to meditate on the Lord’s Prayer daily, the more the anxieties and flashiness of modern life tend to recede, if not in perpetuity then at the very least for a few moments. I have noticed a change in me over time, too. I used to like moving fast; I don’t anymore. Broken relationships and places in my past that I used to be angry about have mellowed into a receding sadness. A lot of little things that used to annoy me no longer do. I feel more emotionally available, which has been difficult to understand sometimes as that includes an ebb and flow of anxiety I didn’t used to have. I suppose that’s one reason I see a therapist, which has also helped in all of this.
If anything, this simple prayer has made me more aware of just how much I don’t know and can’t know, and how dependent on God we really are even when we don’t recognize it. Everything, including reality itself, is of and from God. We are all specks of dust on the wide and long timeline of history, yet we are deeply loved at the same time. This is a Truth that is impossible to comprehend. But when the peace that derives from such a deep truth does appear, I am able to cherish it much more than I used to and be grateful, because I know it won’t last. At least probably not in this life.
I sometimes wonder if those listening to Jesus as he taught this prayer felt the same sense of relief I often do when reciting it. One has to imagine that at least a few did, as the prayer survives to this day and is still central to some Christian traditions. It’s comforting to think that, even though much of the Jesus story is shrouded in mystery, when we pray “Our Father…” that “Our” includes not just fellow Christians around us and across the world today, but those spanning time who have uttered such words, too.
We are never truly alone, even if we find ourselves praying the Lord’s Prayer alone. Maybe coming into that knowledge and letting it form us is part of the point.
About Me
I explore faith, church culture, and formation in the American South from my hometown of Memphis, TN. I’m an institutionalist who believes the means are just as important as the ends. Everything on this site is an expression of my faith and love for the Church.
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