He
prayed, “I beseech you, LORD, is not this what I said while I was still in my
own country? This is why I fled at first to Tarshish. I knew that you are a
gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, rich in clemency, loathe to punish. And
now, LORD, please take my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to
live.” Jonah
4:2-3
Piety
“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
in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.” Luke 11:2b-4
Study
What is the right way to address the Lord in
prayer? We have a good example from Jesus
through Luke and a bad example from Jonah.
First the bad…Jonah’s prayer is done out of
selfishness and imperfection. Because of
his innate meanness (jealousy and judgementalism), Jonah did not want the Lord
to forgive the Ninevites. However, the
Lord does not dole out mercy in the same way an employer doles out a year-end bonus. Grace is heaped upon us in greater measures
than we ever deserve. However, Jonah did
not yet understand this. Selfish Jonah bemoans his own loss.
The Lord teaches that it is much better to
start out addressing him on the right terms.
Jesus teaches how to do that with the prayer that is aptly named for
himself.
When Beth and I were teaching Confirmation
class years ago, one explanation of the Lord’s Prayer has always stuck with
me. It boiled down the verses of the
prayer into seven parts: the three
Christian theological virtues start out the prayer and then it concludes with
verses that recall the four cardinal virtues: temperance, justice, prudence,
fortitude. Unfortunately, I have long
since forgotten the author of these ideas except to confess it is not mine.
Faith: Our Father, who is in heaven, holy is your
name
Hope: Your kingdom come; Your will be done on earth
as it is in heaven
Charity: Give us
this day our daily bread
Justice: Forgive us
our trespasses
Prudence: As we forgive those who trespass against us
Temperance: Lead us not into temptation
Fortitude: Deliver us from evil.
These seven verses considered in this fashion
then also evoke the seven sacraments and the seven gifts of the Holy
Spirit. Furthermore, considered this
way, frees us from reciting the prayer from memory and allows us to get to know
the Lord and ourselves by considering how our prayer life and our life reflects
the three theological virtues and four human/cardinal virtues.
“The number seven
is one of the most significant numbers of the Bible because it is the number of
spiritual perfection. It is the number which is stamped on every work of God.
We can observe the importance of this number in nature too. Be it physics, chemistry
or music we can see they are all based on this number of God’s work. All music
that is created is based on seven basic notes of music, the eight note is just
a higher or lower octave. If light is passed through a prism then it splits
into seven parts.[i]
This number and thus this prayer holds a very
important and sacred place in the Word of God as inspired by the Holy Spirit as
it is symbolic of spiritual perfection.
Action
Last week, the states of Georgia and Virginia
both executed persons on death row. The Georgia Board of Pardons and
Parole denied clemency for Kelly
Gissendaner. She was executed on
September 30, just after midnight. Virginia killed Alfredo Prieto on October 1
while an appeal was pending. This week, Texas
executed Juan Garcia. He is the 11th person executed by Texas and the 23rd in
the U.S. in 2015.
Forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us even when the state says we can
kill the killers. Lead us not into the
temptation to take an eye for an eye. Deliver
us from the evil done by killers and deliver the families of the victims from
their pain and loss.
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