C 02 - The Petitions

2. The Petitions

Let us begin by considering the petitions as a whole. We note that the arrangement of these petitions is, in a sense, analogous to that of the Ten Commandments : there is a very distinct difference between the first three and the last three; the former correspond to the first four Commandments and the latter to Commandments five to ten. The first three petitions are concerned with the glory of God; this is where the ’Our Father’ begins. Thus we are permitted, or rather commanded, to commit ourselves to God’s cause, to pray that this cause - God’s name, his kingdom, his will may triumph and so reach its fulfilment. God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ as one who, while enjoying perfect freedom and self-sufficiency, yet does not will to be alone. He does not desire to act, exist, live, labour, work, strive and conquer, reign and triumph apart from man. Therefore it is not his will that his cause should be his alone; he desires it to be man’s cause also. Can there really be atheists, men without God? At all events, even if there are men without God, there cannot be, in Christian terms, God without men. It is very important to realize this : God has been with us, he is with us, Emmanuel ! He permits us, he commands us to pray, as in these first three petitions we are bidden to do, for the triumph of his cause. He invites us to take part in his work, in his government of the Church and of the world. When we pray, `May thy Name . . . thy Kingdom . . . thy Will . . .’, we put ourselves on God’s side, no less. God invites us to unite ourselves with his purposes and his actions, and it should be noted that this invitation comes at the beginning and is repeated at the end, in the doxology. On these three petitions depend the liberty, the joy, the eagerness and the assurance of the other supplications. All our entreaties presuppose that we desire to take our part in the cause of God. Anyone who refused to do so, who had no concern for God’s cause, would not know how to pray for the forgiveness of his sins or for his daily bread; he would not understand what it meant. We cannot live with God unless we are in agreement with his purposes, with his cause, which includes ours and all others. Otherwise we might as well try to stand in mid air. We must have ground to walk on, and in prayer we walk on the ground of these first three petitions. It is not surprising that so many prayers echo in a void and are not heard or answered. And yet everything would be quite simple if it were understood that one must begin at the beginning; there is no other way of praying. The last three petitions concern us directly and vitally; they relate to our comfort, our good will, and our salvation, bodily as well as spiritual and heavenly. Because God, in Jesus Christ, has united our cause (the important and the trifling problems of our life) to his own, we are permitted, we are indeed commanded, to appeal now quite simply on our own behalf. And here our whole life is at stake. We are not merely given leave, but we are ordered to bring to God and entrust to him all our baggage (for we do not journey through this world without amassing a very complicated collection f baggage). We can entrust to God all this impedimenta-temporal, material and secular as well as eternal, Christian, ecclesiastical and theological. In Jesus Christ the human being is revealed; in him humanity becomes pre-eminently a creature which cannot exist or act by itself; it cannot live without God; it can neither eat nor drink, love nor hate; it cannot justify or save itself, sorrow or rejoice, hope or despair, experience, success or failure. It is thanks to God that we exist among his creatures. Thus, in fact, there are no men without God. There are people who believe themselves to be atheists, and cling firmly to that idea. But this makes no difference whatever; man as such does not exist apart from God; he may behave like a naughty child that screams and scolds its mother - but the mother is still there. This is not a philosophical concept. It is doubtful whether the statement, `man does not exist without God’ could be convincingly explained apart from faith in Jesus Christ. But once we have understood what Jesus Christ is, we understand what man is and how he cannot be separated from God. Because, therefore, there cannot be man without God (for atheism is an absurd invention), God commands us to pray; God shares in all our concerns, in our needs, our cares, our sorrows and our expectations. When we pray, Give us our bread, we plainly declare what our life really is; we admit, what is indeed the truth, that without him we are nothing. And this command, this invitation to pray to him, to make our cause one with his, is a plain declaration of what is : God bids us and commands us to place ourselves at the side of Jesus Christ who deigned to assume humanity. He was God and he became man. Thus he concerns himself with everything, great and small - and especially the small things - with which we are concerned.

Man’s cause - his material needs and his salvation - comes after God’s. But it should be noted that there is no question here of optional requests. The first three petitions would certainly not exist were it not for the last three, which are as indispensable as the others. The man who did not go on praying the last three petitions would not be praying sincerely, for he too must have his place, since his own cause is involved, all he is, with his temperament, his nerves and the rest. He is not there on account of God’s cause only; he needs must bring his own also and make it enter into God’s. It would be dangerous, therefore, to omit the last three petitions, for then there would be, on the one hand, an ecclesiastical, theological and metaphysical sphere and, on the other, a sphere concerned with money, sex, business and social relations. There would be two compartments. But, whether we like it or not, there is only one compartment and nothing is more fatal than the illusory notion of two compartments. You know how often ministers imagine that there are these two : this contrast between God’s cause and ours. But in fact they are bound together, and we pray for both at once. This is so because it is Jesus Christ who bids us pray with him and in him these two causes are one. It is important, therefore, to understand not only the difference between the two parts of the Lord’s prayer, but also their unity.

Let us recall that Luther, in his Shorter Catechism, lays stress, in an interesting and enlightening manner, on this paradox : that God’s actions take the same course as our prayer; he sanctifies his name, his kingdom comes, his will is done, he gives us our bread, he forgives us; and he does all this before we ask it. We speak to him who has heard us before we have said anything to him. Let us not forget this-and Luther was right to say so-it is Jesus Christ who prays and we join in his intercession. It is he whom God hears, and his prayer has been heard since the beginning of the world from eternity to eternity; all is already in order. In the first part of this book I stressed, as Luther and Calvin did, the fundamental facts of prayer and response. Let us begin by understanding this : we are heard in the name of Jesus Christ. Everything is already there when we approach God.

Luther says, concerning the Lord’s Prayer, that we must take our part in God’s activity. God is working for his glory and our salvation, and we should profit by his action, not as spectators nor yet by assuming the part of indispensable fellow-workers, but by praying and by concerning ourselves with him and with what he is doing. This is real collaboration. He bids us approach him in the knowledge that his cause and ours are one, for our cause is embraced by his. We men come to him, therefore, and stand before him, prepared to live in the total concord of these two causes. All is contained within the liberty and the sovereignty of God. This is not necessity or fate, but God is our Father and he wills that we should be with him.