Lord, Teach Us To Pray: A Series on the Lord's Prayer (Ordinary Time / Fall 2019)

Lord, Teach Us To Pray: A Series on the Lord's Prayer (Ordinary Time / Fall 2019)

The season of Ordinary Time is the longest season of the church year, spanning all the way from Pentecost to Advent. At Community CRC, we usually structure Ordinary Time in two parts, the summer and the fall. In the fall, we do a series based on the Heidelberg Catechism.

This year, our focus is on prayer, and where better to turn than the Lord’s Prayer? In the gospels, Jesus’ disciples ask him many questions, and most of the questions they ask are the wrong questions, so Jesus doesn’t really answer them. But when the disciples ask: “Lord, teach us to pray,” Jesus jumps right in.

The Lord’s Prayer has been repeated by Christians since the days of Jesus’ ministry. And from the beginning, Christian pastors and theologians recognized that the Lord’s Prayer isn’t just one prayer among many. Rather, the Lord’s Prayer is the heart of Christian prayer. It teaches us how to pray, the Lord’s Prayer draws us near to God, and the Lord’s Prayer reveals the heart of Jesus to us in a unique and intimate way.

One of the biggest themes that the Lord’s Prayer itself emphasizes is the theme of dependence on God. This is one of the most counter-cultural teachings of scripture in our society. In Western society, we tend to emphasize independence, personal choice, individualism, and self-expression as the highest values in our lives. That’s just the way our culture forms and shapes us. (Which is ironic, eh? Do you remember making a “personal choice” to make “personal choice” the highest value in your life? Just goes to show the formative soul-shaping power of culture!). But scripture constantly reminds us that there is no such thing as independence, no such thing as truly free personal choice. We are always dependent on others. We are always formed and shaped by forces that are bigger than we are. It’s just a question of whether that “greater force” that forms and shapes us is God or someone or something else!