Lord, Them's My Sentiments

In the prayer wheels of Tibet, there was a mechanical arrangement that enabled each person’s prayer to be lifted up before the altar again and again without the worshiper even being present. It makes you think of some kind of Rube Goldberg contraption.

It’s not too different, however, from the little boy who crawled into bed, and pointing to a note at the foot of his bed that he had written the night before, said: “Them’s my sentiments, God. Good night.”

Of course, the prayer without the pray-er is of no value, though it be repeated parrot-like a million times.

Prayer that is real keeps us in the supply line of strength, and without it, we discover that we have been shorn of our locks like Samson, who failed to realize, until too late, that his strength was gone.

The Lord’s Payer is the great model that Jesus gave to his disciples. Jesus said, ”pray then, like this.” It is a brief prayer, it is a child-like prayer, and yet no prayer could portray more profoundly the theology of the Church. It is a prayer that sets first things first.

It starts out with three things: God’s nature, God’s Kingdom, and God’s will: “hallowed be thy name…thy kingdom come…thy will be done.” And then follows the four petitions of man’s needs: his daily temporal needs (“give us this day our daily bread”), his need for forgiveness, (“forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”), his defense against the onset of temptation (“lead us not into temptation”) and his deliverance from evil (“deliver us from evil”). And then comes the closing doxology: “thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.” Amen.

The story is told about a man who left his car parked in a “no Parking” zone. He left a note, “I’ve driven around this block 20 times and found no place except here. I have an appointment. Forgive us our trespasses.”

When he came back, he found a traffic ticket on the window, and this note: “I’ve been driving around this block for 20 years on my beat, and if I don’t give you a ticket, I may lose my job.” And then he added, “Lead us not into temptation.”

The Lord’s Prayer has been used, and it has been abused. But it holds before us the truth that the way to pray is not complicated. It is our needful way of communicating with the Eternal.

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