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Lx.x.xIV
THE LORD"S PRAYER, V
THY KINGDOM COME
_Luke_ xvii. 21.
The prayer that the kingdom of G.o.d might come had long been familiar to the Hebrews. They had been for centuries dreaming of a time when their tyrants should be overcome and their nation delivered and their G.o.d rule. But all this desire was for an outward change. Some day the Romans and their tax-gatherers should be expelled from the land and then the kingdom would come. Jesus repeats the same prayer, but with a new significance in the familiar words. He is not thinking of a Hebrew theocracy, or a Roman defeat; he is thinking of a human, universal, spiritual emanc.i.p.ation. There dawns before his inspired imagination the unparalleled conception of a purified and regenerated people.
Never did a modern socialist in his dream of a better outward order surpa.s.s this vision of Jesus of a coming kingdom of G.o.d.
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But to Jesus the means to that outward transformation were always personal and individual. The golden age, as Mr. Spencer has said, could not be made out of leaden people. The first condition of the outward kingdom must be the kingdom within. The new order must be the product of the new life. That is the doctrine of the social order in the Lord"s Prayer.
We too are looking for outward reform in legislation and economics. It is all a part of the movement to the kingdom of G.o.d. Yet any outward transformation which is to last proceeds from regenerated lives. The kingdom of G.o.d is within before it is without. Do you want a better world? Well, plan for it, and work for it. But, first of all, enter into the inner chamber of your prayer, and say: "Lord, make me a fit instrument of thy kingdom. Purify my heart, that I may purify thy world. I would live for others" sakes, but first of all that great self-sacrifice must be obeyed: "For their sakes I sanctify myself, Reign thus in me that I may rationally pray: Thy kingdom come!""
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Lx.x.xV
THE LORD"S PRAYER, VI
THY WILL BE DONE
_Luke_ xxii. 39-46.
The Lord"s Prayer begins as a prayer for the great things. It prays for a sanctified world: "Holy be Thy name." It gives form to that great hope: "Thy kingdom come." It deals with the means of that great coming: "Thy will be done." The coming of the kingdom and the hallowing of the name are to happen through the doing of the will.
I suppose that most prayers which ask that G.o.d"s will may be done are prayers of pa.s.sive acquiescence and resignation. We are apt to pray "Thy will be done," as though we were saying: "Let it be done in spite of us and even against our wills, and we will try to bear it." But that is not the teaching of the Lord"s Prayer. "Thy will be done;"--by whom? By the man that thus prays! He prays to have his part in the accomplishment of G.o.d"s will, even as Jesus prays in the Garden: "Thy will be done," and then rises and {212} proceeds to do that will. The prayer recognizes the solemn and fundamental truth that the will, even of G.o.d Himself, works, in its human relations, through the service of man. Here, for instance, is a social abuse. What is G.o.d"s will toward it? His will is that man should remove it. Here is a threat of cholera, and people pray that G.o.d"s will be done. But what is G.o.d"s will? His will is that the town shall be cleansed. And who are to do His will? Why, the citizens. Typhoid fever and bad drainage are not the will of G.o.d. The will of G.o.d is that they should be abolished.
Social wrongs are not to be endured with resignation. They simply indicate to man what is G.o.d"s will. And who is to do G.o.d"s will in these things? We are. The man who enters into his closet and says: "Thy will be done," is asking no mere help to bear the unavoidable; he is asking help to be a partic.i.p.ator in the purposes of G.o.d, a laborer together with Him, first a discerner and then a doer of his will. "Our Father," he says, "accomplish Thine ends not over me, or in spite of me, but through me,--Thou the power and I the instrument,--Thine to will and mine to do."
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Lx.x.xVI
THE LORD"S PRAYER, VII
DAILY BREAD
The Lord"s Prayer begins with the desire for the great things, the universal needs; a holy world, a kingdom of righteousness, the will of G.o.d fulfilled. Then, in the light of these great things it goes on to one"s personal needs, and prays, first of all, for the present, then for the past, then for the future. The prayer for the present is this: "Give us our daily bread,"--our bread, that is to say, sufficient for to-day, enough to live on and to work by, just for today. The prayer is limitative. It puts restraint on my desire and limit on my ambition. It does not demand the future. It looks only to this present unexplored and unknown day. "Give us in this day what is necessary for us, fit to sustain us,--strength to do thy will, patience to bring in thy kingdom, grace to hallow thy name."
Into the midst of the restless antic.i.p.ations of modern life, its living of to-morrow"s life in {214} to-day"s anxiety, its social disease which has been described as "Americanitis," and which, if it is not arrested, will have to be operated on some day at the risk of the nation"s life, there enters every morning in your daily prayer the desire for quiet acceptance of the day"s blessings, the dismissal of the care for the morrow, the sense of sufficiency in the bread of to-day:--
"Lord, for to-morrow and its needs I do not pray, Keep me from stain of sin, just for to-day.
Let me both diligently work, and duly pray, Let me be kind in word and deed, just for to-day.
Let me no wrong or idle word unthinking say, Set thou a seal upon my lips, just for to-day.
Let me be slow to do my will, prompt to obey, Help me to sacrifice myself, just for to-day.
So for to-morrow and its needs, I do not pray, But help me, keep me, hold me, Lord, just for to-day."
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Lx.x.xVII
THE LORD"S PRAYER, VIII
FORGIVENESS
_Luke_ xii. 1-3.
We come to the pet.i.tion in the Lord"s Prayer which is the easiest to understand and the hardest to pray,--the prayer that we may be forgiven as we forgive. This prayer does not, of course, ask G.o.d to measure His goodness by our virtues. We should not dare to ask that G.o.d would deal with us just as we have dealt with others. It is the spirit of forgiveness for which we pray. "Give us forgiveness," we ask, "because we come in the spirit of forgiveness." The spirit of forgiveness, that is to say, is the condition and prerequisite of the prayer for forgiveness. If you do not love your brother whom you have seen, how can you truly pray to G.o.d whom you have not seen? If a man comes to his prayer with hate in his heart, he makes it impossible for G.o.d to forgive him. He is shutting the door which opens into the spirit {216} of prayer. Right-mindedness to man is the first condition of right prayer to G.o.d.
The traveler in Egypt sometimes looks out in the early morning and sees an Arab preparing to say his prayers. The man goes down to the river-bank and spreads his little carpet so that he shall look toward Mecca; but before he kneels he crouches on the bank, and cleanses his lips, his tongue, his hands, even his feet, so that he shall bring to his prayer no unclean word or deed. It is as if he first said with the Psalmist: "Wash me thoroughly of my iniquity; purge me of my sin; make me a clean heart; renew in me a right spirit;" and then with a right spirit in him, he bends and rises and bows again in his prayer. The pet.i.tion for a forgiving spirit prepares one in the same way to say his morning prayer. It cleanses the tongue; it washes the motives; it purifies the thoughts of their uncharitableness; and then, in this spirit of forgiveness even toward those who have wronged him, the Christian is clean enough to ask for the forgiveness of his own sin.
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Lx.x.xVIII
THE LORD"S PRAYER, IX
TEMPTATIONS
_James_ i. 12-17.
This pa.s.sage from the Epistle of James is a commentary on the last pet.i.tion of the Lord"s Prayer. When we pray: "Lead us not into temptation," it is, as James says, not G.o.d who tempts, for G.o.d tempteth no man. The temptation comes through our misuse of the circ.u.mstances which G.o.d offers us as our opportunity. We turn these circ.u.mstances into temptations.
Every condition of life has these two aspects. It is on the one hand an opportunity, and it is on the other hand a temptation. G.o.d gives it as an opportunity and we misuse the opportunity and it becomes our temptation. The rich have their special and great opportunity of generous service for the common good, and yet through that very opportunity comes their special temptation. The poor are saved by their lot from many temptations of self-centred and frivolous luxury, but are much tempted {218} by their poverty itself. The healthy have a great gift of G.o.d, but they are tempted by that very gift to recklessness, inconsiderateness and self-injury. The sick receive peculiar blessings of patience and resignation, but are much tempted to selfishness and discontent. The business man is tempted by his very knowledge of the world to the hardness of materialism; the minister is tempted by his very indifference to the world to unsophisticated imprudence. Wherever on earth a man may be he must scrutinize his future, and calculate his powers, and face his problems, and pray: "My G.o.d, prevent my vocation from becoming my temptation. Let me not put myself where I shall be tried over much. Save me from the peculiar temptation of my special lot. Deliver me from its evils and lead me not round its temptations, but through them into its opportunity and joy."
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Lx.x.xIX