Kirkepiscatoid

Well...no April Fool here. Now we launch into another piece of the familiar, the Lord’s Prayer (minus the doxology)...

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.

It always intrigued me why Roman Catholics never say the doxology of the Lord’s Prayer (“for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever”), other liturgical denominations do sometimes (like at the Eucharist) but not in some other rites, and the rest of the Protestants pretty much say the doxology in all instances.

Well, I found a bit of history on that. It appears the doxology was a transcriber’s footnote. So much for the biblical literalists....

Here’s what I found out. Of course, there is the Matthew version and the Luke version. The Matthew version has the doxology but the Luke version does not. Apparently, a copyist. was copying Matthew's gospel, and he put a note in the margin at 6:13. A later copyist mistakenly transcribed the margin note into the text after vs. 13. The folks transcribing for what is now the King James version used a copy of the New Testament that contained these added words.

There’s no doubt, next to the 23rd Psalm, it may be the most well known bit of Christianity known to the human race. People who don’t know squat about the Bible usually at least know the Lord’s prayer. It’s emblazoned on more kitsch than one can imagine. If anything, it has become incredibly trite. I remember some time back dissecting it to find reality amidst the “trite.”

What’s probably of more interest is WHY this prayer appears in the Bible. Well, if you really look at this chapter of Matthew, it comes out in the context of Jesus rebuking the folks who pray out in front of everyone just for the sake of been seen out praying in front of everyone...as in the Pharisees. Chapter 6 of Matthew starts out, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

When he gets to the text of this prayer, he says “Pray in this way:...” (verse 9.) He was wanting people to pray in this MANNER, not “pray this prayer right here, word for word verbatim.”

Ok, so what are the minimum daily requirements for praying “in this way?”

Acknowledge God is God;
Ask for God’s will to be done;
Thank God for not just food, but the things that come to us daily as a matter of course that sustain us
Ask for forgiveness of our sins;
Ask for forgiveness for those who have harmed us in any way;
Ask to walk upright in our lives as children of God and have mercy on us when we do not.

This doesn’t require us to say the Lord’s Prayer verbatim, but to simply acknowledge God and try to do his will.

Hey, if only it were THAT easy!