Joseph - An Essential Character in Matthew’s Vision of Jesus

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 5 January 2011 1 Comments
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Question

Why do we introduce the Lord’s Prayer by saying: “And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say:” Why does one have to be bold to say the Lord’s Prayer?

Answer

Dear Toddie:

The first part of that statement bothers me more than the last, since I do not believe that Jesus taught us the Lord’s Prayer. It does not enter the tradition until Matthew and Luke write in the 9th decade of the Christian era. Neither Paul, who wrote between the years 51 – 64 nor Mark, who wrote in the early years of the 8th decade, appear ever to have heard of this prayer. John’s gospel also makes no mention of it. If it had been a prayer Jesus literally taught and enjoined on his disciples as the model prayer, I do not believe that three of the five major writers of the New Testament would have failed to include it. The prayer also involves a particular messianic interpretation of Jesus, which was applied to him by the church, but I see nothing in the gospels that causes me to believe that this was the self-definition of the Jesus of history.

I believe that the reason the church has suggested that it takes boldness to say this prayer is that it is a kingdom prayer. That is, we are praying for the end of the world to come! We are asking for God’s Kingdom to come, with the sign of that Kingdom being that God’s will be done on earth as it was in heaven. Then we ask for food to allow us to survive each day until the kingdom comes and next the strength to bear any test or temptation that might come with the end of the world. That means it is a particularly scary prayer that it takes boldness to say.
Thanks for asking.

~John Shelby Spong

 

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