Jesus taught his disciples, "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 evil." (Matthew 6:9-13)
We call it the Lord's Prayer, and it is a remarkably concise summary of some of the main themes of Jesus' life and teaching. The prayer is a reminder of how practical and how political Jesus' life and teaching was.
In a world where the Roman Empire ruled and Caesar was honored as divine, Jesus directs his praise to God and God's kingdom. Jesus chose a political metaphor as the central focus of his message -- the Kingdom of God. He could have chosen to speak of the "Family of God" or the "Community of God" or the "Temple of God." No, he deliberately chose a political image that challenged the authorities and powers of his day. From the beginning, his preaching had political overtones and consequences.
The Kingdom of God is how the world would be if God reigned rather than Caesar or his successors. The Roman Legion enforced its Pax Romana at sword point, but Jesus inaugurated the non-violent Kingdom of God under the commandment, "love your neighbor as yourself."
He uses revolutionary language. "Your kingdom come" challenges the political status quo of every realm.
Jesus calls for God's will to be done "on earth." His concern isn't heaven, where God's will is already established. His concern is with the kingdoms and people on earth.
What does God's reign look like? Jesus' prayer gives us a few clues.
It's practical. "Give us this day our daily bread" can also be translated "Give us today our bread for tomorrow." Tomorrow's security today.
In Jesus' day, the daily wage for a common laborer was a denarius, enough to assure the family's bread for tomorrow. In Matthew 20, Jesus tells a parable about work and pay. "The Kingdom of God is like ...," he begins. Then he tells of a landowner who searches to hire laborers for his vineyard. He hires workers at the first hour, agreeing to pay them a denarius, the usual daily wage. He continues to hire all day -- at nine, noon and three, and even at five in the afternoon, promising to pay "whatever is right." At the end of the day, the landowner paid them all the full day's wage -- their "bread for tomorrow."
Many Christians frame our current conversations about a "living wage" and about the stagnant "minimum wage" in the context of the Lord's Prayer and the Parable of the Vineyard. No one who works a full day should be without "our bread for tomorrow."
"Forgive us our debts." Scholars tell us that many peasant farmers in Jesus' day lost their family property to debt foreclosure. Wealthy businessmen lent money at high interest with land as collateral. A drought or bad harvest often left farmers unable to pay their debts. Land that formerly supported extended families with food and staples would be converted into cash crops controlled by absentee landlords, a form of Roman multinationals. Stable, productive, landowning peasant families would then be thrown into an insecure and impoverished struggle as day-laborers.
One of Jesus' most enigmatic parables has as its hero an agent who forgives debts in such a shrewd way that his master commends him. The Gospel consistently commends generosity and caring for the poor while it regularly criticizes greed and acquisitive economics.
Our nation has yet to recover from a debt crisis created by unscrupulous financiers who marketed bad mortgages then sold them in opaque instruments, leaving thousands of homeowners underwater in debt. Instead of forgiving those bad debts, we paid off the banks who were "too big to fail" while thousands of families lost their homes or now live with debt greater than their property value. Clearly we are not following Kingdom of God principles in our economy. "Deliver us from evil" and do not bring us again to the "time of trial." Homelessness and impoverishment are profound times of trial.
Jesus' great prayer invites us to commit to a governance and economy based on the will of God. It includes economic security ensuring everyone's "bread for tomorrow" and freedom from crippling debt.
"Your kingdom come!" What might that mean for our politics and economy today?
LOWELL GRISHAM IS AN EPISCOPAL PRIEST WHO LIVES IN FAYETTEVILLE.
Commentary on 06/15/2014