Prayer was always spoken aloud in Jesus’ day. There was no concept of “silent prayer.” The Gospels are full of references to Jesus’ prayers being overheard. Because prayer could be overheard, how a person prayed revealed what that person believed. It could also reveal who a person’s teacher was simply by the style of prayer. John the Baptist had taught his disciples how to pray. When his disciples prayed, the style was recognizable; therefore, simply by how they prayed John’s disciples could be identified.
This identification with John was important to his disciples. This is because personal identity did not exist as we experience it today. Identity was really corporate and not the sense of self or the individualism that we have in our modern world. Everything about people was wrapped up in the groups to which they belonged – family, town, tribe and nation. Because there was no sense of individualism, the punishment worse than death was exile. If you were cast out, you no longer had an identity. Because of this corporate identity, there was no concept of private prayer. People could pray alone, but they still prayed aloud, making the sense of the prayer still communal.
Jesus was different from other teachers and even different from John the Baptist. Jesus’ disciples wanted a prayer that identified their association with Him. Furthermore, they wanted to pray in a way that was consistent in the way He was teaching. Jesus’ prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, contains the sum total of religion and morals. The Our Father is not just a prayer. It is a statement about what we believe about God.
Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer does not have the words “who art in heaven.” Scripture scholars tell us that Luke did not intend to correct the other two versions of Matthew and Mark. Luke’s point is that God is always present to us and that God is present to us in the Church.
Luke was also knowledgeable in the Jewish notion of holy. Holiness meant to set aside something from any common or profane use. Even though we have a relationship with God, addressing Him as Father and thus establishing our identity, Luke sought to preserve the sense of God as the “Other One,” the “Holy One,” the One who should fill us with awe and before whom we should humble ourselves. In hallowing God’s name, that is, setting it aside for holy use, we remember the prohibition against the misuse of God’s name found in the Book of Exodus: “You shall not invoke the name of the Lord, your God, in vain.”
How well do we keep in mind our foundational belief that God is holy and is to be adored?
This awe of God is not the awe that leads us to fear and trembling. Jesus showed us that the God we worship is the God of love. Therefore, our love of God should lead us into wanting to be with Him. Jesus wants us to be drawn into God’s holiness, to be part of God’s kingdom. Jesus wants us to find our identity in God.
The challenge of prayer as given to us by Luke in the Lord’s Prayer is for us to make these words truthful in our hearts and lives: “and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us!” Once we learn this in our heart and in our lives, we will have joined in God’s holiness. Seek identity in God!
Father Loren M. Kalinowski is from Sacred Heart Parish in Mt. Pleasant.