Sunday
07/28/19 - Sidney UMC
Sermon Title: “The Our Father vs. The Lord’s Prayer”
Old Testament
Scripture: Psalm 85
New Testament
Scripture: Colossians 2:6-19
Gospel Lesson: Luke
11:1-13
My friends, my brothers
and sisters in Christ, welcome once again on this the Seventh Sunday after
Pentecost. Seven Sundays after the Holy Spirit moved in Jerusalem nearly two-thousand
years ago, and the Christian Church was born.
Before the day of Pentecost arrived, and even before Jesus
had been crucified, resurrected, and had ascended into heaven, Jesus loved,
taught, healed, forgave, and did all of the amazing things that we read about in
the gospels. One of the many things that Jesus gave us was “The Lord’s Prayer,”
or as our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters call it, “The Our Father”. This
prayer is very much a hallmark prayer of the Christian faith, and it has been central
to Christians both personally and in worship for nearly two-thousand years.
This is a prayer that is said at funerals, maybe in your homes, and it is a prayer
that every Christian that I have ever known seems to know. Some call it “The
Our Father,” and some people call it “The Lord’s Prayer”. Well what does Jesus
tell us in this prayer? Further, why do we have two different names for this
prayer, “The Our Father,” and “The Lord’s Prayer”? Also, did you know that “The
Our Father” is shorter than “The Lord’s Prayer”? We have two examples of “The
Lord’s Prayer,” or “The Our Father” in the gospels. This morning in our gospel
of Luke reading, we have one version of “The Lord’s Prayer”. Let’s look at what
the gospel of Luke says once again for this morning. Once again Jesus says
starting in Luke 11:1-4:
“He 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.” He said to
them, “When you pray, say: “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” (Lk. 11:1-4, NRSV).
Some
of you might have heard me say some Sundays paraphrasing Jesus, when I say, “The
disciples said to Jesus how should we pray, and Jesus said when you pray, pray
like this…” Then as a church we all say “The Lord’s Prayer” together. You may
have noticed in this gospel of Luke version that of the famous prayer that
Jesus taught the disciples that I just read, that it does not included the
sentence:
“For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, forever, Amen”.
So when we say “The Lord’s Prayer,” why does our prayer
include the line that I just read, but in the Roman Catholic Church and some others,
“The Our Father” prayer does not include that line?
Well
I am going to get to that. Before touching on that though, I want to read to
you the other gospel that includes “The Our Father,” or “The Lord’s Prayer”. There
are only two places in the four gospels where Jesus gives us this most recited and
most famous prayer in the world. This morning once again, we have a version of
it from the gospel of Luke 11:1-4, and the second place that we find “The Our
Father,” or “The Lord’s Prayer” is in Matthew 6:9-13. The Matthew version is
more complete, and this is what it says:
“Pray then in this way: 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” (Mt. 6:9-13, NRSV).
Now
in the gospel of Luke version of this prayer is says, “And forgive us our sins,”
while the Matthew version of this prayer says, “And forgive us our debts”. Some
translations say, “And forgive us our trespasses,” if you have ever been to a
different church and heard this prayer in a different way. Each church or
denomination seems to have a preference. In most United Methodist Churches that
I have been to, they say: “And forgive us our trespasses”.
Also,
if you didn’t pick up on it, the prayer that Jesus taught from the gospel of
Matthew version, also has this ending line missing:
“For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, forever, Amen”.
My
sermon title for this morning is a little tongue and check, in the sense that
it is called “The Our Father vs. The Lord’s Prayer”. I am not having them
compete to see which is one is better, but I am saying that the famous prayer
that Jesus taught us nearly two-thousand years ago has an extra line in it,
that the “The Our Father” that is said in the Roman Catholic Church does not.
Outside of small translation differences, like forgive our sins, forgive us our
debts, or forgive us our transgressions, why some like us Methodists add an
entire extra line at the end of this prayer? Anyone here ever been to a Roman
Catholic Mass, funeral, or a wedding, and heard “The Our Father”? Did you
notice that it was shorter than “The Lord’s Prayer”? Did you notice that it did
not end with:
“For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, forever, Amen”?
So the question I want to look at this morning, is why did
churches like ours add a line to the prayer that Jesus taught us?
When
I am performing funerals and I know that there are a lot of Roman Catholic
brothers and sisters in attendance, I will invite folks to say “The Lord’s
Prayer” with me. I will then also jokingly say to my Roman Catholic brothers
and sisters let’s say “The Our Father with a little extra”.
So
why the little extra in some churches? The answer is, is because we include the
doxology after “The Our Father”. A doxology is a hymn, or an act or praise and
worship. So after Jesus’ version of “The Lord’s Prayer” in the gospel of
Matthew, which most churches use, as it is the most complete version, we have
once again:
“For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, forever, Amen”.
This
statement once again, is called the “doxology”. We sing a doxology every Sunday
when we take the collection in church, and we have added this doxology to “The
Our Father” prayer. Here is a research source that helps explain this a little
bit. It says:
“The doxology of
the prayer is not contained in Luke's version, nor is it present in the
earliest manuscripts of Matthew, representative of the Alexandrian text,
although it is present in the manuscripts representative of the later Byzantine text. Most scholars do not consider
it part of the original text of Matthew. New translations generally omit it. The
first known use of the doxology, in a less lengthy form ("for yours is the
power and the glory forever"), as a conclusion for the Lord's
Prayer (in a version slightly different from that of Matthew) is in the Didache,
8:2. It has similarities with 1 Chronicles—"Yours,
O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the
majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the
kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all." In the Byzantine
Rite, a similar doxology is sung within the context of the Divine
Liturgy. Following the last line of the prayer, the priest sings
"For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages."
Latin Church Roman
Catholics do not use the doxology when reciting the Lord's
Prayer, because it is not part of their received liturgical tradition and is
not found in the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome.
Since 1970 it is included in the Roman Rite Mass as
an independent item, not as part of the Lord's Prayer. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer sometimes gives
the Lord's Prayer with the doxology, sometimes without. Most Protestants append
it to the Lord's Prayer” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Prayer).
So
long story short, the “doxology” at the end of “The Our Father” was first used
in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire, what is mostly the Eastern Orthodox
Church today. Some translations of the gospel of Matthew had it, or it was just
adapted and added in. Basically then, some churches have adopted this, and some
haven’t. This part of the reason that Roman Catholics and some others say “The
Our Father,” and we say “The Lord’s Prayer”. Let me read one other source that
I found from a Roman Catholic website that explains this a little more. This
source says that adding the doxology to “The Lord’s Prayer” more formally and institutionally
was first looked into under the rule of English king Henry VIII, who reigned in
the early to mid-1500’s. It then went back and forth for a little while in
England, and this source then says:
However, during the reign of
Elizabeth I and a resurgence to rid the Church of England from any Catholic
vestiges, the Lord’s Prayer was changed to include the doxology, and this
version became the standard for English-speaking Protestants
(http://catholicstraightanswers.com/why-does-the-catholic-our-father-have-a-different-ending-than-the-protestant-one/).
Queen
Elizabeth I, lived from 1533-1603. Sometime, during her over 40-year reign of
the British Empire, it became standard to say “The Lord’s Prayer” instead of “The
Our Father”. So this brothers and sisters, is why we add the doxology of:
“For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, forever, Amen”
Our
gospel lesson concludes for this morning, with Jesus telling us to trust him,
to pray, and to be persistent in seeking him, like some asking a friend for
food at the inconvenient time of midnight.
I
would like to close with a funny story about “The Lord’s Prayer,” and “The Our
Father”. Here it is:
Over
ten years ago, Melissa’s sister Christine got married to her now husband Brian.
Brian’s family is very predominately Roman Catholic, while Melissa/ her sister
Christine’s family is much more Protestant oriented. Interestingly enough, many
of the groom’s Roman Catholic family sat on one side of the wedding service,
and much of the bride’s family sat on the other side of the wedding service. I
think that this was just a coincidence, and not denominational segregation.
My
step-father, Mike, who is now a retired US Air Force Chaplain’s Assistant was
asked to help with part of this service. He then reached the part of service
for “The Lord’s Prayer,” or “The Our Father”. In all of us reciting this
ancient prayer from Jesus together at this wedding, after saying the word evil
in the prayer, almost the entire side that included the groom’s Roman Catholic
family stopped talking, and the bride’s mostly Protestant side said:
“For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, forever, Amen”.
Well, this was pre-seminary Pastor Paul, and I didn’t even
realize that we say this prayer differently. So I turned to Melissa speaking of
the groom’s side of the wedding service and I said to her, “Boy those people
are rude”!
Turns
out they weren’t rude, they were saying “The Our Father,” and we were saying “The
Lord’s Prayer”.
Friends,
the different expressions or traditions of the Christian faith have some
differences, but I think that we often share much more in common than we might
realize. Sure in many Protestant and on some level Orthodox churches we often
include the doxology of “The Our Father,” of:
“For
thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen,”
but we say the same prayer otherwise. There
might be some small translation differences, but we say the same prayer. We
praise the same Triune God, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We all love and
follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. While we are all brothers and sisters
in Christ though, some of us say “The Our Father,” and some of us say “The Lord’s
Prayer”. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment