Luke 11:1-13 1Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him,

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1 Luke 11:1-13 1Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. 2 He said to them, When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread. 4 And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial. 5 And he said to them, Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him. 7And he answers from within, Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything. 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. 9 So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! COMMENTARY: In a certain sense, this Sunday s Gospel can be subdivided into two parts: (1) the request of Jesus disciple to be taught how to pray, and the teaching of the Lord s Prayer (Our Father/Pater Noster) as a model, and (2) a more general teaching on the importance of persistence in prayer, and on God s goodness toward His beloved children who come to Him in need. 1-4: There is no end to the comments that could be made (and have been!) on this most distinctively Christian of prayers. Most of the great Fathers of the Church, the Reformers and most Gospel commentators go into extensive detail about its component phrases, in far more detail than I possibly could. It is the only prayer-formula ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels, and it has come down to us in two distinct (but clearly related) versions, this one from Luke, and the other from Matthew 6:9-13 (which is perhaps the better known version, since it is the basis for the liturgical version used by most Christian churches; see comparison below) 1. 1 A number of later manuscripts of Luke actually contain the same wording as Matthew for the Lord s Prayer, but it is almost certain that this is the result of scribes trying to assimilate the two texts, filling in the holes in Luke with the appropriate words from Matthew.

2 Descriptions of the Lord s Prayer abound, but none of them are more penetrating than the very early remark of Tertullian in his third-century commentary on the Pater: a compendium [breviary] of the whole Gospel [breviarium totius evangelii]. In perhaps the single most helpful contemporary commentary on the Lord s Prayer, Ernst Lohmeyer takes Tertullian one step further, by declaring that the opening words, Our Father, are a breviary of the breviary [breviarium breviarii] Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica (II, II, 83, 9) refers to the Paternoster as the perfect prayer. Peter Chrysologus declares that the Our Father gives the theme of praying, the subject matter to ask for, and the norm of making petitions. Augustine writes to Lady Proba about how personal prayer is related to the Pater Noster: Whatever be the other words we may prefer to say we say nothing that is not contained in the Lord s Prayer, provided of course we are praying in a correct and proper way. But if anyone say something which is incompatible with this prayer of the Gospel, he is praying in the flesh, even if he is not praying sinfully. (Nicholas Ayo, The Lord s Prayer: A Survey Theological and Literary, pp. 5-6) As has often been pointed out, this most Christian of prayer actually incorporates many ideas and phrases that are part of central Jewish prayers particularly the Amidah or Eighteen Benedictions, which are a key affirmation of Jewish faith. The Kaddish is another typically Jewish prayer whose language seems to parallel some of that in the Our Father. A ninth-century version of the Kaddish (actually called the Half-Kaddish ) says: Exalted and sanctified be His great name. In the world which He created according to His will, may He establish His kingdom in your lifetime, and in the lifetime of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon. May His great Name be blessed for ever and to all eternity. Praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, revered, highly honoured and adored is the name of the Holy One, blessed be He beyond all the blessings, hymns, praises and consolations that are ever uttered in the world. (Kenneth W. Stevenson, The Lord s Prayer: A Text in Tradition, p. 26) As Stevenson says, The parallels with the first part of the Lord s Prayer the name, the kingdom, the will are obvious. They are more than linguistic, for they penetrate into the lifeblood of the Lord s Prayer, and demonstrate its Jewish setting It is fundamentally a Jewish prayer, taught by a rabbi to his followers; indeed, when the Didache enjoins that it should be prayed thrice daily, there is a direct echo of the Old Testament custom, continued in Rabbinic tradition, and taken over in the New Testament, to pray three times each day (Daniel 6:10; Psalm 55:17; cf. Acts 2:15; 10:3,16) (p.27). It is worth noting that, like most Jewish prayers, the Lord s Prayer is phrased in the first-person plural, us/our ; it is a prayer rooted in God s relationship to the family of believers, rather than merely an individual. Matthew s version 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 do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. Luke s version Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial. Some have argued that Luke s (the shorter of the two) is more likely to be original, and that perhaps Matthew had added to the more primitive framework. Others argue that Luke, presumably writing for a largely Gentile audience, might have chosen to omit some phrases which would have been more easily understandable in a Jewish context (such as Our Father in heaven, to distinguish God the Father from Our Father Abraham, a common expression in Jewish prayer). Luke s version speaks of our sins instead of our debts, and does not include the petition to be spared from the wiles of the Evil One.

3 As pointed out by many commentators, this metaphor [ Father ] plays a central role in the New Testament as a whole. According to Hamerton-Kelly (1981:98), in the New Testament God is designated father 170 times by Jesus, and is never invoked by another name in Jesus prayers, whereas in the entire Old Testament (which is of course much longer) God is described as Father only 11 times. (Anna Wierzbicka, What Did Jesus Mean? Explaining the Sermon on the Mount and the Parables in Simple and Universal Human Concepts, p. 227) The hallowing of God s name can take place in many forms. It can mean that God s name be spoken with respect, reverence and love. But it can also refer to actions which cause God s name to be reverenced, especially positive actions by religious people, which reflect well on God (it is in this sense that the Jewish tradition speaks of martyrdom as the ultimate hallowing of the Name of God, upholding faith in God even at the expense of suffering and death). The tense used here (the Greek aorist passive) seems to suggest a one-time hallowing of God s name, which is perhaps to be understood as happening at the end of time, when all nations will praise and worship God together, when His name will be fully hallowed. The coming of God s kingdom (perhaps kingship or reign would be a better translation) suggests an eschatological (=end of the world) time when God will finally be recognized as the one true Ruler of the world, and when all the nations will turn to Him with faith and worship, following His commandments with love. Before we can pray, Lord, Thy Kingdom come, we must be willing to pray, My Kingdom go. (Alan Redpath) Give us each day our daily bread : Or Give us bread each day for the coming day, or Give us each day the bread we need for today. The term ἐπιούσιος (epiousios) does not occur outside of early Christian literature (other occurrences are in Matt 6:11 and Didache 8:2), so its meaning is difficult to determine. Various suggestions include daily, the coming day, and for existence. (NET Bible notes). St. Jerome believed that the underlying Hebrew expression was l=<^j^r, for tomorrow, meaning the bread to suffice us until tomorrow, which Jerome saw as a reference to the manna in the desert. By this term, we should understand not merely material food, but also spiritual food, the true manna, which is comprised of the Word of God (Matt 4:4) and the Eucharist (John 6:31-58) (André Chouraqui, L Univers de la Bible, Vol. 8, p. 62) The seventh and eighth lines consider sins as debts against God, and forgiveness as the dismissal of that debt. But we do not ask God to pardon us as we pardon others for that would mean presenting ourselves as the model. The meaning is that we can only ask forgiveness unhypocritically since we ourselves have forgiven others [in Luke, the verb we forgive is in the present tense, suggesting something done repeatedly or habitually] (Chouraqui, p.62). The Old Testament contains an almost identical sentiment, in Sirach 28:2: Forgive your neighbour the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray. The Lord s Prayer includes the following request: remit us our debts as we ourselves have also remitted them to our debtors (the verb is aphiēmi).those numerous versions are in error which translate: Forgive us our offenses as we forgive those who have offended us. Accurately, the word opheilema of the Greek text signifies precisely a monetary debt, in the most material sense of the term 2. In the Our Father, then, Jesus is not simply recommending vaguely that we might pardon those who have bothered us or made us trouble, but tells us purely and simply to erase the debts of those who owe us money, that is to say, practice the jubilee. It is remarkable that the verb most used by Jesus is aphiēmi, which means remit, send away, liberate, forgive a debt and which is regularly used in connection with the jubilee [Aphesis, the noun form of the same verb, is the term regularly used by the Septuagint for the jubilee] Thus the Our Father is genuinely a jubilary prayer. It means the time has come for the faithful people to abolish all the debts which bind the poor ones of Israel, for your debts toward God are also wiped away (for that is the gospel, the good news). Furthermore, this is the way Jesus listeners understood this prayer. Jesus was establishing a strict equation between the practice of the jubilee and the grace of God. He who was not legalistic on other any point, and who was ready without 2 It should be noted that the term opheilema is used only in Matthew s version, not in Luke s.

4 hesitation to pardon prostitutes and disreputable people, was nonetheless extremely strict upon one point: only one who practices grace can receive grace. The aphesis of God toward you becomes vain if you do not practice aphesis toward each other. (John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, pp ) The ninth line does not mean do not lead us into temptation as if God could induce us into evil! but more Grant that we may not enter into temptation ; that is prevent us, or keep us from agreeing to it (Chouraqui, p. 62) 3 Temptation is a psychological concept, suggesting a struggle within the individual between good and bad impulses. But this kind of psychological analysis was not characteristic of Hebrew thinking. The nearest corresponding Hebrew concept was that of testing. In the Old Testament, many of the afflictions suffered by the people of Israel, and many personal catastrophes which befell pious individuals, were understood as a test imposed by God. How one would ultimately be judged would depend on how one survived this test ; and the more urgently that judgement was expected the more reason there was to dread any decisive moment which might bring out the true worth of a person, and so irrevocably determine God s final verdict. (A.E. Harvey, A Companion to the New Testament, p. 34) In many monastic rules, it was enjoined that the lay brothers, who knew no Latin, instead of the Divine office should say the Lord s Prayer a certain number of times (often amounting to more than a hundred) per diem. To count these repetitions they made use of pebbles or beads strung upon a cord, and this apparatus was commonly known as a pater-noster, a name which it retained even when such a string of beads was used to count, not Our Fathers, but Hail Marys in reciting Our Lady s Psalter, or in other words in saying the rosary. (Herbert Thurston, in the Catholic Encyclopedia) 5-8: This particular parable, focussing on the need to be persevering in prayer, is found only in Luke. The expression Which one of you is used to introduce a rhetorical question, and will be used in other Lucan parables as well; often, the expected answer is an emphatic No one! The scene is a Palestinian one-room house, with the family all in bed; the conflict is between the rules of hospitality and mutual aid which would be normal in village life in the east, and the trouble caused to a whole family by such an appeal at midnight. The moral seems to be: a pressing request from a friend, however importunate, will obtain whatever he needs. How much greater the efficacy of even an apparently importunate prayer, given the unconditional friendship of God! (Harvey, Companion, p. 247). In verse 8, Jesus says that, for no other reason, the homeowner will get up and offer something to his friend because of his ἀναίδεια, anaideia, which the NRSV renders as persistence. Many Greek dictionaries suggest a much stronger meaning, however: impudence, shamelessness, effrontery, insolence, gall. David H. Stern (Jewish New Testament Commentary, p. 123) suggests translating it with the Yiddish term chutzpah, which is probably as close to the real meaning as any other expression. The type of argument used by Jesus here is called in Hebrew qal wa-homer, light and heavy, or from the lesser to the greater, and was frequently used in Jewish legal interpretation (in the Greco-Roman world, it was often called a minore ad maius). Interestingly, Luke highlights this particular method of arguing, employing it more than 30 times in Luke-Acts far more than any of the other evangelists. 3 Some translations add a very beautiful doxology here at the conclusion, inspired by I Chronicles 29:10-11: Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty. Although this doxology is widespread in the Eastern churches and has been adopted by many Protestants, it is not considered to be original. It is a liturgical addition, probably originating in the region of Antioch in the third century. (Chouraqui, p. 62)

5 9-11: Does this justify the apparently unconditional promise, Ask, and it will be given you? As in Matthew, the answer is found in the analogy of a human father, who will hardly refuse food to his children, let alone give them a snake or a scorpion (a startling addition by Luke) instead of bread and eggs: if God is your father and that he is so is a premise of the Lord s Prayer and of all Christian praying that begins abba, Father how much more will he grant the prayers of his children! But what prayers? Luke may have been conscious of the obvious connection: surely God does not answer all prayers? In Matthew s version, the promise seems quite general: God will give good things to those who ask him. According to Luke, there is only one prayer which will certainly be answered, that for the Holy Spirit. (Harvey, Companion, p. 247) Luke 11:5-13 relates a parable to encourage the disciples to persistence and audacity in their prayers to God. The relationship to God expressed in the application of the first parable (v.8) is not a bit subservient; it is prepared to go almost to the point of embarrassment. Stories of such a relationship to God are also told in the First Testament and by the rabbis. (Luise Schottroff, The Parables of Jesus, pp ) See also God s words in Psalm 91:12-16: Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honour them. With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation. Verses are meant to be interpreted symbolically: just as scorpions or snakes conjure up the idea of death, so eggs and fish are sources of life. (Chouraqui, p. 313)