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debts, fidelity, forgive, hallowed, love, Luke, Matthew, Peace, praying, Sermon on the Mount, spiritual path, The Lord's Prayer, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trespasses
The gospel in today’s lectionary is probably the most commonly known prayer in Christianity: The Lord’s Prayer, also known as The Our Father. The text is found in two of the four canonical gospels, Matthew (6:9-13) and Luke (11:2-4). Most of us know it as it comes from Matthew’s version, appearing in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. Reading Luke this morning made me think that his version might have been easier to learn for children who had trouble memorizing prayers; it’s very succinct and yet seems to cover all the requisite items for our living. It comes in Luke’s gospel as the response of Jesus when he himself was praying and one of his disciples asked him to teach them to pray. Luke reports him telling them: “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed (holy) be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.” Period – the end.
On second thought, although the words may be easier to learn than those of Matthew, there is a tiny word that changes things for those trying to practice what they pray. In Matthew we hear: “Forgive us our debts (trespasses) as we forgive…” Does it mean: “to the extent that (or in the way that) we forgive others?” Luke seems to think that our forgiveness of others is a foregone conclusion – something already done – by using the word “for” meaning “because” in that same sentence.
As I get mired in these semantics, I remember that translation is not an exact science and everything I’m writing could be challenged by scholars of Aramaic and Greek and Latin… My point is only and always to delve into what can bring us closer to God on our spiritual path and what can motivate us to treat others as Christ would have us love them. So let us say our prayers and get about the day’s work in peace and the promise of fidelity, to the best of our ability today.
I remember the day, early in his papacy, that Pope Francis said, “I am a sinner” in public. The quote, as we say now, “went viral.” It’s rare to have a public figure admit during an interview or a widely attended speech that s/he has imperfections. We all know that none of us is perfect but admitting it to the world – especially using the word sin to describe our actions – is not a common practice. At first I was dismayed about his admission because I think that religious people tend to focus more on sin than on giftedness and good deeds. I grabbed onto Barbra Streisand’s line that “there are no mistakes, just lessons to be learned” and used it to talk about sin from that perspective. I still think we either overplay our imperfections sometimes or try to hide them by prevaricating (i.e. “skirting around the truth or delaying giving an answer, especially to avoid telling the whole truth”) but being able to follow the Pope’s example can be very freeing. If we are honest enough to offer our true selves to others we may find that we are accepted in spite of ourselves because nobody else is perfect either!
Since I need to be ready by 7:00AM to make breakfast for our energetic group of workshop participants this morning, I hoped there would be a brief message in today’s lectionary readings that would serve as a worthy point of reflection for the day. I found not one, but two – so take your pick or choose them both since joined together they provide both a goal and a promise!
Today is one of those times when inspiration is very easy to come by, just from about five minutes with the Scripture texts from the daily lectionary. See if you find the story from the Hebrew Scriptures consonant with the Christian gospel. To me it’s a “no brainer” with a most important shared theme.
It’s amazing what you can find when you start researching one little word like “fair.” We know it to be a noun and an adjective – with differing meanings, so it’s necessary to put it in context so that you know whether you’re talking about going to a carnival or watching the weather. I went to Merriam-Webster, the most trusted etymological source in my youth, just on a whim, and found 10 examples before I even moved to the nouns or added an “ly” to make it an adverb.
I am sometimes awed at how much can be packed into a few verses of Scripture. What I mean is more likely where my mind and heart go after reading a short section, like today’s gospel about the rich young man who couldn’t quite “go the distance” in surrender. (MT 19:16-22)
How does God get your attention? How do you pray for God to attend to you? When God shows up, do you recognize and accept how God comes? Today’s lectionary readings hold examples of two such situations for our consideration.
There is a line from Matthew’s gospel in the story called variously “the loaves and the fishes” or “the feeding of the five thousand” (CH 14) that always goes straight to my heart. It appears today and catches me as usual. It is late in a day that began with Jesus trying to escape the crowds to grieve the death of John the Baptist. Failing that, Jesus responds to the needs in what has turned into a long and likely tiring session of healing people. The narrative picks up with the apostles saying to Jesus that he ought to send the people away because it’s late and there’s no availability of food to buy in the deserted place where they are. They will need to go to one of the villages nearby to buy food. There is no need for them to go away, Jesus says. Give them something to eat yourselves. The gospel continues with the miracle of feeding the whole crowd on five loaves and two small fish.
One of the extraordinary events in the life of Jesus, chronicled in all three of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), is known as the Transfiguration. That word when broken apart speaks to a process of changing form, which is what happened to Jesus and was witnessed by the apostles Peter, James and John one day on a high mountain where they had gone to pray. It is a familiar story. For those interested in detail, it is a great chance to question and muse about the what and why of the incident as each of the three versions in the gospels has small, distinctive differences, none of which changes the substance of the event.
Yesterday a trio of people came to visit and remember the days of their youth here in Windsor. Two of them had been campers here when the Spiritual Center was Big Island Camp, a summer camp for Jewish children and teens, and the third, a husband who had heard all the stories from that era and was a willing companion to the two who desired a return to “the old days.” It is less common now, after almost 40 years of the life of the Spiritual Center, for campers to come back to refresh their memories, but come they do and their conversations with each other as we tour the land and the buildings always reveal a fondness for their experiences here.