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This study should take no more than 90 minutes. This week will included a directed prayer time, so make sure that you are in a quiet place where you can appropriately concentrate before beginning. When you are ready, proceed onto lesson five:
week five. section one. father.
We are now moving onto chapter six in Matthew. If we aren't careful, we could begin to lose the flow of the Sermon by looking too closely at it section by section. Take some time now to re-read the entire passage of Matthew 5-7. As you read, note every time the word "Father" is used. How many "Fathers" are in the Sermon?
Read Matthew 5-7 and return.
The Sermon on the Mount could have been called something like "Seeing God as Father." Take ten minutes now to watch the following youtube link to Rob Bell's Nooma video called Rain:
Before Jesus it was uncommon for individuals to refer to YHWH as Father. It was understood that the nation of Israel itself was YHWH's child. God himself first made that clear during the exodus in this passage:
Exodus 4:21-23
The idea of God as Father for the Israelites is closely associated to the exodus (deliverance from slavery). Jesus the Revolutionary has come as the second and greater Moses to deliver God's child (Israel) back to his love and care within the reality of the Kingdom. Whenever the father/son imagery is used in the Old Testament it is normally associated with God delivering the Israelites out of Egypt. See the following example in Deuteronomy:
Deuteronomy 1:30-31
It is clear then that this Kingdom Jesus brings is a Kingdom of deliverance. In a real way, God's people are being freed and led into the promised land of Heaven through Messiah. For Jesus to use the term "Father" for God seventeen times (by my count) in this relatively short sermon is of great significance. It simply was not that common to address God as Father. Jesus only uses the normal word for God five times in the Sermon. He saying something most clearly - that God is fundamentally Father - not just the Father of Israel, but the Father of all humanity. Not just the Father of all humanity, but your Father. He is your personal Father. This, again, is revolutionary. It moves beyond exodus/deliverance language and into the realm of genuine familial love.
week five. section two. matthew 6:1-18
We will now look at the section in the Sermon devoted to addressing the three primary religious activities of the Jewish people in the days of Jesus: giving to the poor, prayer and fasting. We'll see how having God's primary identity as Father changes the motivations for these and other activities.
Read Matthew 6:1-18 and return.
Jesus will now show us the role of religion in the Kingdom. With all we have seen thus far, we might expect him to completely ban all religious activity. He does not. He assumes that people within the Kingdom will give, pray and fast. Just like with last week, these are examples of Kingdom life, not an exhaustive list of what good deeds or pious acts are permitted or expected in the new community. He assumes that many of his good Jewish listeners will continue to be good Jewish people who do these acts of righteousness. Just like the discussion of sins in the previous lesson, everyone of the three acts of piety boil down to the same thing for Jesus - inner motivation.
Giving. Matthew 6:1-4
Jesus is going to make a simple case for each act of piety: If you do your acts of righteousness for Father God he will reward you. If you do them for any other reason, like to be seen as holy, you will get your reward in full. Ie: your full reward will be people thinking you are holy. He starts with giving to the poor. He is not making hard fast rules about hiding your giving from anyone who may notice your actions, but he is saying that the second your motivation to give is about you instead of God, you've traded in your heavenly reward for an earthly one. Give because your Father first gave to you.
Notice one other thing here. Jesus makes it permissible to seek a reward from God. He doesn't say what the reward will be, but he does seem to leave it open as a motivator. This isn't pure asceticism in that light. He assumes that we will all desire rewards from time to time. In the Kingdom we desire rewards from God our Father more than rewards from people.
Prayer. Matthew 6:5-15
Here are some interesting examples of prayer:
I thought I'd show you a few of my favorite actors pretending to pray because Jesus actually uses one of the greek word for "actor" in this passage. He says, "do not pray like the hypocrites." Jesus was likely the first to use this word with a negative religious connotation. "Hypocrite" was the word for a stage actor. (Full disclosure - your online teacher is a proud member of the screen actors guild.) Actors are professional pretenders. Some in Jesus' day would actually see them as professional liars. In the century following Jesus, actors were often forced to quit their careers before they were allowed to join the church. In short, actors were seen as frauds. Jesus is saying that there is no place for pretending to talk to God in the Kingdom. No room for dramatic, showy monologues. God is here and he is your Father. He doesn't need your theatrics. If your motivation is to be heard by your Father, he will certainly hear you and reward you in the quiet place. If you pray to be noticed by anyone other than your Father, being noticed will be your full reward.
Then Jesus teaches his disciples what we have come to call "The Lord's Prayer." Luke records a simpler version of this prayer, causing some scholars to think that Jesus would often teach this as a pattern for Kingdom prayer. The prayer has a flow. I have come to believe that the prayer is a mantra of sorts. The prayer is meant to be lived more than to be said. If you could live every word of the prayer, you would be living in the Kingdom of God. I will post a link to a message series on the prayer as the extra link at the end of this study. For now, let's just summarize:
Our - The prayer must come first from the new community. In the Kingdom, prayer is abut "us" first and "me" second. There is no Kingdom prayer without community.
Father - As we have seen in this study, there is no Kingdom without God as Father. This one word tells us who God is, who I am (his child) and who the other members of the new community are (my brothers and sisters/his other children.) The prayer and the Kingdom are all about family relationship.
In Heaven - actually, in "the heavens." Now that we know more about Heaven, this should mean more. God is where Heaven is...and Heaven is both here now and not quite here yet. God is here in new real way through Jesus...and he will one day be fully present with his people.
Hallowed be your name - Father is holy. Personal but royal. His name is both his reputation and his prophetic destiny. He has many names, but we are now most aware of one of his names - Father.
Your Kingdom Come - This can't mean come into existence since Jesus has already announced its availability. It rather means, come into fulfillment. The prayer is for the Kingdom (God's presence and reign) to fill every inch of all creation.
Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven - A qualifier to the request that the Kingdom come. When Kingdom comes all of earth will be as Heaven - God's total reign.
Give us today our daily bread - The prayer that is meant to be lived is entirely practical. In Jesus' day many estimate that as many as 75% of the people did not know where their daily food would come from. We ask God for our needs, and our Father meets them. For many of us, the fact that we can no longer pray this prayer legitimately should cause reflection on how we can answer this prayer for those in our world who are right now praying this prayer.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors - Debts/debtors is by far the superior translation. These are economic words. We can assume that this also means forgiving trespasses, but the point is first an economic one. We forgive those who owe us money because we have been forgiven completely by God. For more on this I highly recommend John Howard Yoder's classic book, The Politics of Jesus
.Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one - This should beg the question, "What is the real temptation in light of what we have learned thus far?" I would propose that the ultimate temptation is to not believe the prayer itself - that God is Father and his Kingdom comes.
Jesus trails the prayer with a thought attached to the forgiveness language. "Who are you to not forgive anyone after how much you have been forgiven?" In the Kingdom, we forgive because we were first forgiven.
Fasting. Matthew 6:16-18.
Nothing new in this section. It's the same idea as giving and prayer. When you fast, do it for Father and he will reward you. Do it for others to be seen as one fasting and that is all the reward you get. In all three examples, Jesus uses the imagery of the hypocrite. No Academy Awards for piety in the Kingdom of Heaven.
week five. section three. prayer experience.
Below is a 20 minute prayer experience. It is a video that will lead you through Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer. It was originally created for a church service, but will work where you are. You'll want to be alone in a place where you won't feel awkward praying. You will also need something heavy to hold - something about the size and weight of a brick. When you are ready to begin the experience, click the link below:
Lord's Prayer Experience.
week five. section four. assignments.
1. Pray the Lord's Prayer every morning for seven days. As you do, think through all that you have learned about each phrase of the prayer in this study. If you want, come back and do the prayer experience each morning.
2. Post something in your twitter or facebook status about what you learned in this lesson.
Extra, extra:
Listen to yours truly speaking about the Lord's Prayer at this link.
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