OVERVIEW
Matthew has given a summary of Jesus' message (4:17), but has not yet presented Jesus as teaching or as performing any miracle, except the call of the disciples. But with v. 17 he is preparing to give the first and major presentation of Jesus' teaching (the Sermon on the Mount, 5:3–7:29) and of Jesus' mighty works, including the calling and equipping of disciples (8:1–9:34). For Matthew, "words" precede "works," since he considers teaching to take precedence over and to validate miracles, not vice versa. "Miracles do not certify teaching; it is the other way round!"103 This major unit is bracketed by verbally identical summary statements (4:23; 9:35). Thus 4:23–5:2 is no biographical summary, but Matthew's carefully prepared introduction to the centerpiece of his creative Part One (see Introduction).
The Sermon on the Mount is the first, the longest (uninterrupted), and the most carefully structured speech in Matthew's Gospel. Matthew and his church had long been thoroughly familiar with the Great Sermon in Q, which begins with beatitudes; continues with instruction on love, the "Golden Rule," attitudes toward others; and concludes with warnings about two kinds of ethical "fruit" and the story of the two builders.104 Examination of the parallel material reveals that Matthew takes over all the material in the Q sermon, keeping all the intervening material in exactly the same order, except for his rearrangement of the sayings in Q's "On the Love of One's Enemies" (now preserved in Luke 6:27-36; see Fig. 4, Structure of the Sermon on the Mount). Matthew extracts 5:38-42 from its Q context and constructs a separate unit, reformulating these verses into two pairs of three antitheses (cf. Luke 6:27-30 and Fig. 4). He also relocates the Q text found in Luke 6:31 to make it the conclusion of the extensive didactic core of the sermon at 7:12, atthe same time adding his characteristic phrase "law and prophets" to make an inclusion with 5:17, the beginning of the main body of the sermon. Matthew thus preserves the basic three-part outline of the Q sermon, but by adding additional traditional material from elsewhere in Q, from M, from his own composition, and from occasional touches from Mark and by utilizing his favorite means of composing in triads using literary brackets, Matthew constructs a discourse with a new structure, corresponding more closely to his own theological interests.105
The following points are to be noted about this structure:
(1) The sermon is not a random collection of individual sayings, but a carefully composed discourse with a deliberate structure.
(2) Matthew 5:17, "the law or the prophets," corresponds to 7:12, "the law and the prophets," forming an inclusion that brackets the central core of the sermon.106 The saying in 7:12 has been relocated, and the phrase "law and the prophets" has been added to create this inclusion. Thus we have good reason to see this as a basic element of the Matthean structure, separating the central instructional core from the introductory pronouncements and concluding warnings, demarcating the three major parts of the sermon.
(3) Matthew has elaborated the basic triadic structure already present in the Q sermon by composing many of the subunits in triads. This central core of the sermon corresponds to the pattern of a familiar rabbinic saying attributed to Simon the Just: "By three things the world is sustained: by the law, by the Temple service, and by deeds of loving kindness."107 The Christian reformulation of these "Three Pillars of Judaism" in the sermon would have been recognized by those who had this pattern in mind, since 5:17-48 deals with the Law, 6:1-18 is concerned with worship and religious practice, and 6:19–7:12 deals with trusting and serving God in social relationships and action.
(4) At the very center of the sermon is the Lord's Prayer, itself the triadic center in a structure composed of triads. Matthew thus gave the sermon a new center and point of orientation, since the Q sermon did not contain this section on prayer.
(5) The overall tripartite structure facilitates Matthew's explication of related theological themes. Part One begins with performative language in the indicative mode, characterizing the eschatological community and declaring the basis for its life to be in God's gracious act. Part Two, the didactic core of the sermon, is primarily in the imperative mode, giving instructions for the life of the eschatological community. In Part Three the imperative recedes, giving place to the future indicative warning of eschatological judgment.
(6) In all of this it is clear that the Sermon on the Mount is Matthew's composition.108 Although some of the sayings are from the historical Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount is not a report of a speech actually given on a Galilean hillside. In the sixteenth century John Calvin had already taught that the sermon expresses the intention of the evangelist "of gathering into one single passage the chief headings of Christ's teaching, that had regard to the rule of godly and holy living"—i.e., it is the composition of the evangelist.109
Figure 4: The Structure of the Sermon on the Mount
Introduction: Setting of the Sermon
4:23–5:2 Mark 1:39; 3:7-133
Luke 6:12, 17-20 a
I. Triadic Pronouncements That Constitute
the Disciples as the Eschatological
Community,
5:3-16
A. The Beatitudes:Character and Destiny
of the Disciples
5:3-12 Luke 6:20b-23
B. The Disciples as Salt
5:13 Luke 14:34-35
Mark 9:49-50
C. The Disciples as Light and a City on a Hill
5:14-16 Luke 8:16; 11:33
Mark 4:21
II. Tripartite Instructions on the Way of Life in
the Eschatological Community,
5:17–7:12
A. Part One: "The Law"
5:17-48
1. The Law and the "Greater Righteousness"
5:17-20 Luke 16:16-17
2. Three Antitheses Modeling the
Greater Righteousness,
5:21-32
a. Anger
5:21-26 Luke 12:57-59
Mark 11:25
b. Lust 5:27-30 Mark 9:43
c. Divorce
5:31-32 Luke 16:18
Mark 10:3-4;11:12
3. Three Antitheses for the Disciples'
Application,
5:33-48
a. Oaths 5:33-37 M
b. Retaliation 5:38-42 Luke 6:29-30
c. Love 5:43-48 Luke 6:27-28, 32-36
B. Part Two: "The Temple Service":
Three Acts of Righteousness Before God,
6:1-18
1. Giving to Charity 6:1-4 M
2. Prayer, 6:5-15
a. Not like the hypocrites or the Gentiles 6:5-8 M
b. The Lord's Prayer 6:9-13 Luke 11:2-4
c. The condition of forgiveness 6:14-15 Mark 11:25(-26)
3. Fasting 6:16-18 M
C. Part Three: "Deeds of Loving Kindness":
Additional Instruction in Authentic
Righteousness,
6:19–7:12
1. Serving God or Mammon
6:19-24 Luke 12:33-34
11:34-36
16:13
2. Anxiety 6:25-34 Luke 12:22-32
3. Judging
7:1-5 Luke 6:37-42
Mark 4:24-25
4. Pearls Before Swine 7:6 M
5. Asking and Receiving 7:7-11 Luke 11:9-13
6. Concluding Summary: The Golden Rule 7:12 Luke 6:31
III. Three Eschatological Warnings, 7:13-27
A. Two Ways 7:13-14 Luke 13:23-24
B. Two Harvests (False Prophets)
7:15-23 Luke 6:43-46;
13:25-27
C. Two Builders 7:24-27 Luke 6:47-49
Conclusion of the Sermon
7:28-29 Mark 1:22
................................
MATTHEW 6:1-18, THE TEMPLE SERVICE
COMMENTARY
With this unit we move to the second major section, the Instruction (cf. above on structure of the Sermon on the Mount). The tradition in this section is derived from M, with insertions of material also found in Q (6:9-13) and Mark (6:14-15). This section has no points of contact with Q's Great Sermon, which Matthew has abandoned and will not resume until 7:1 (Luke 6:37).
If 6:7-15 is extracted, the remainder comprises three units composed almost exactly parallel to one another, with each having a negative and a positive section:
I. "When you . . . "(pl.)
2a 5a 16a
"do not . . . " do what the "hypocrites" do (pl.)
2b-c 5b-c 16b-c
"so that they may be praised/seen by human beings"
2d 5d 16d
"Amen I say to you (pl.), they have received their
reward" 2e 5e 16e
II. Positive command to disciples (sg.)
3 6a-b 17
"so that" + infinitive (sg.)
4a 6c 18a
"And the Father who sees in secret will reward you"
(sg.) 4b 6d
18b
Verbs addressing the disciples are plural in the first, negative part and singular in the second, positive part.153 This symmetrical structure is interrupted by the insertion of the unit on prayer (6:7-15), which itself is composed of three units to correspond to the triadic structure into which it is inserted. Since Matthew must be responsible for the insertion, the three units must have belonged to Matthean tradition. They were formulated in pre-Matthean Jewish Christianity, possibly including some authentic words of the historical Jesus, and had become sacred tradition in Matthew's church and influenced his own theology and vocabulary. Matthew has incorporated them almost intact, adding only 6:1 as a heading for the whole section.
6:1-4, Giving to Charity. 6:1. This is the thematic heading that embraces the religious practices of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, taken over by the church from Judaism under the common designation dikaiosuvnh (dikaiosyne; translated "righteousness/justice" in the preceding passage, but in this text often translated "piety"). There is no command to observe these religious practices; it is assumed that Jesus' disciples will continue to make these fundamental elements of Jewish practice part of their own lives.
By means of this heading, Matthew links this section thematically to the preceding one (cf. the similar thematic head in 5:20 for the following six examples of the "greater righteousness"). This also shows that he makes no distinction between devotion to God, expressed in acts of worship (6:1-18), and acts of personal integrity, justice, and love directed to human beings (5:20-48), all of which are called dikaiosyne.
In all three examples, this heading makes clear that the point of contrast between "the hypocrites'" behavior and that required of the disciples is not the contrast between public and private worship (Matthew affirms both),154 nor the contrast between external and interior behavior (again, Matthew affirms both), but the contrast of motivations: the affirmation and applause of human beings, or the "reward" of being accepted by God.155
The word for "hypocrites" is a neutral term in Greek, literally meaning "stage actors," and is here applied metaphorically to those who perform their religious acts with an eye on the human grandstand. It should not be generalized to mean "the Jews," nor should this passage be used to contrast Jewish worship with Christian. Similar biting critiques of ostentatious acts of piety performed for human approval are found in contemporary Jewish writings along with similar praise for those who avoid such ostentation and seek only God's approval—e.g., "He who gives alms in secret is greater than Moses our teacher" (B. Bat. 6b).
6:2-3. The contrast is described in striking metaphors, neither of which is literal. Contrary to a popular explanation, there is no evidence that in the synagogue worship trumpets were sounded to call attention to the presentation of large gifts, but the meaning of this provocative metaphorical caricature is transparent. Nor is it literally possible for one hand to be unaware of what the other is doing. The emphasis is on doing one's religious duty to God—here, helping the poor—in such a manner that only God sees. The tension between this repeated note of privacy and even secrecy in doing good works, and the command to do them "before others" in 5:16, is somewhat relieved by the difference in motivation in each case. Yet the tension remains. Despite the differing motivations, in 5:16 people see the good works, and they should; in 6:3-4 the good works are not to be seen, regardless of motive. The tension is partly the result of Matthew's incorporating two different traditions, but is primarily due to the mode in which scribal wisdom functions (cf. Reflections on 5:16).
6:4. "Openly," found in the KJV, was added by some scribes in later manuscripts, and was read by some of the early versions and the Church Fathers, but is not found in ¸ , B, D, f 1,f 13, and is certainly not original. The promised reward is eschatological. God will reward with acceptance into the kingdom of God and the granting of eternal life. This-worldly reward for discipleship is not in Matthew's perspective.
6:5-15, Prayer. The tradition that came to Matthew had a unit on prayer in precisely the same form as the units on almsgiving and fasting. Matthew expands the central unit on prayer (6:5-6)—which he may have editorially relocated to make it the central unit—by adding the contrast between "Gentile" prayer and the authentic prayer of his disciples (vv. 7-8), the Lord's Prayer (vv. 9-13), and the condition of forgiveness (vv. 14-15), thus making the section on prayer the structural and theological center of the Sermon on the Mount, with the Lord's Prayer the core of this center (cf. "Structure" above).
6:5-6. This passage parallels vv. 1-4 and 16-18 and, by means of another provocative metaphorical picture, rejects ostentatious praying aimed at applause from a human audience and commands that prayer be directed to God alone. This shows that for Matthew prayer was not understood psychologically, for its effect on the one praying and those who hear it, but like all worship is God-centered and understood as an objectively real event in which God hears the worshiper.
Through the centuries Christian interpreters have sometimes taken the ostentatious and insincere practices here described to be typical of Jewish prayer in general. This is a grave and slanderous mistake. Jewish literature likewise contains similar criticisms of pretentious and hypocritical praying.156 The hypocrites called attention to themselves as religious people by praying ostentatiously in the synagogue or on the street corners. Public prayer in the synagogue was normal; the synagogue was the house of prayer. Praying on street corners was not normal, nor was it necessary. As in the preceding unit against ostentatious giving of alms, it is not the act itself that is condemned, but the motive in performing for the applause of a human audience. Jesus does not here legislate against public community prayer, in which he expects the church to engage (18:19-20), otherwise he would have called for the abolition of the whole institution of Temple and synagogue. Rather, he commands that prayer be made to God alone. This is the meaning of going to the inner room or shed (KJV, "closet" [tamei'on tameion]), away from public view, to address only God in prayer. Prayer does not require a holy place, but is sanctified when addressed to God in a storeroom. As elsewhere in this section, the direction is not intended literally—one can also ostentatiously call attention to going to the inner room to pray.
6:7-8. In this addition to the tradition (see above), authentic prayer is contrasted not only with hypocrites in the synagogue but with perverse Gentile practice.157 The "many words" of pagan prayer refers not merely to their length. The Greek word battaloge"w (battalogeo) is obscure, absent from the LXX and used only here in the New Testament.158 It may refer to the invocation of many gods; to the ritual repetition of prayer formulas; to empty, insincere talk; or to glossolalia. All such speaking supposes that one must impress or gain the attention of the deity or use the correct formula in order to ensure the effectiveness of the prayer, and thus understands prayer to be a manipulative function for the self-interest of the one praying. In contrast, Matthew pictures Christians praying as an expression of trust in a God who knows our needs before we ask. Asking, then, is not a matter of informing or manipulating the deity, but of aligning ourselves in trust and acknowledging our need.
6:9-13, The Lord's Prayer. Over against such prayer, Matthew presents the Lord's Prayer as a pattern for the disciples. It has been relocated by Matthew to become the very center of the Sermon on the Mount, structurally and theologically (cf. Outline).
The Lord's Prayer was apparently a constituent part of Q (cf. Luke 11:2-4) and had been a part of the Matthean community's tradition and liturgy from its earliest days. The prayer consists of an address and two sets of three petitions. The first set of petitions has a certain rhythm and even rhyme, since they all begin with a third person imperative (-qhvtw -theto) and end with "your(s)" (sou sou). Each member of the second set contains a form of the word for "we" (hJmei'" hemeis), known as the three "we petitions." Despite its context indicating private prayer, the pronouns that refer to human beings are in the plural throughout, indicating communal, corporate prayer. The prayer has formal similarities with other Jewish prayers current in the first century, especially the Kaddish and the Eighteen Benedictions, but the present form is due to Matthew and his community.
We can trace the history of the tradition of the prayer from the time of Jesus through Matthew to our own time:
(1) Jewish prayers of the first century addressed God as "Our Father," prayed for the hallowing of God's name and the coming of God's kingdom, and had other points of contact with the Lord's Prayer.
(2) Reflecting his own Jewish faith and background, Jesus taught his disciples a model prayer, originally in Aramaic, the common language of the people, not the Hebrew of official synagogue liturgy. This fact is indicated both by the use of aba ( `Abbã), which apparently stood behind the original "Father" (pavter pater; see Commentary on 6:9), and by the use of "debts" (hbj hobâ) instead of "sins," which was possible only in Aramaic. Jesus' original prayer was both in continuity with Jewish prayers and was distinguished from them—e.g., by its brevity and distinctive use of abba. There is no (explicit) christology, nor anything un-Jewish about the prayer, which can serve as an ecumenical prayer shared by both Jews and Christians.
(3) This prayer was translated into Greek and preserved in Q. The short Q form reconstructed from the common elements in Matthew and Luke is very close to the original prayer of Jesus.
(4) Luke slightly adapted this prayer from his Q source for his Gentile church and incorporated it in his Gospel in 11:2-4.
(5) The Matthean church, founded by messengers of the Q community, had received the prayer as part of Q from its very beginning. In the course of a generation of use in the liturgy, it was slightly expanded and nuanced to correspond to the Jewish Christianity of Matthew's church.159
(6) The author of the Gospel of Matthew was deeply influenced by this prayer and its dominant themes (God as Father, the coming kingdom of God, doing the will of God, the need for receiving divine forgiveness and practicing human forgiveness), and incorporated it as the generative nucleus of the Sermon on the Mount, which he constructed from traditional sayings of Jesus.
(7) The Matthean form of the Lord's Prayer became dominant in the history of the church. In the Vulgate and the liturgy of the Roman Catholic mass, it formed the focus of the worship and prayer life of the church for more than a thousand years.
(8) When the Bible was translated into English, the forms of the Lord's Prayer in the dominant translations shaped the liturgy of the church and private devotion. The original Anglican Prayer Book adopted the translation of the Wycliffe (c. 1380), Tyndale (1526), and Coverdale (1535) Bibles: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." This form became common in English-speaking countries in both Roman Catholic and Protestant settings, despite the presence of the alternate translation "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" in the KJV, which replaced the earlier translations as the primary translation of American Protestantism.
(9) As the English language evolves, minor changes are made in modern translations in order to continue to express the original meaning of the prayer in contemporary English. Since there is no uniform pattern of adopting contemporary English translations into the church's liturgy and private devotions, many people continue to pray using the version they have become accustomed to (e.g., "trespasses" vs. "debts") with the result that the wording of older English translations lives on in the life of the church.
6:9. Jesus' original invocation was to "Father" (as in Luke 11:2). "In heaven" represents the Matthean church's accommodation to the liturgical usage. In the first century both Jews and Greeks commonly addressed God as "Father." The common synagogue invocation was "our Father, our King" (wnklm wnba ) Abenû malkenû). Jesus reflects this Jewish practice, with his own distinctive adaptation. It was characteristic of Jesus to pray to God simply as abba, which stands behind the simple Greek pater and is occasionally left untranslated (Mark 14:36; Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). Abba is not only a child's term of endearment, like Papa, Mama, and Dada, but was also used by adult children in addressing their fathers.160 It connotes the intimate personal relation of Jesus to God. For Jesus and Matthew, Father was not a general term for the deity, but was first of all Jesus' word for his own relation to God. He then included his disciples, and then human beings as such in this relationship. As children of the one God, they are "brothers and sisters" not only of one another but also of Jesus, sharing his personal relationship with God. Father, for Jesus, means the one who loves, forgives, and knows how to give good gifts to his children (7:11; Luke 15:11-32). This word for God and its associated imagery are very important to Matthew, as it is for the other Evangelists, especially the author of the Fourth Gospel. Father language dominates not only this section (6:1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 15, 18), but is also found often elsewhere in the Sermon on the Mount (5:16, 45, 48; 6:26, 32; 7:11, 21) and in the remainder of the Gospel. Matthew and the Matthean Jesus can also use other images for God, including feminine images, but the centrality of the father image in Matthew's theology and its basis in the teaching of Jesus should not be obscured.161
6:9b-10, Three "Thou" Petitions. Like all authentic worship, the Lord's Prayer is God-centered. It begins not with human needs and desires, but with the honor of God as God. The first three petitions are not for three separate items, but for the eschatological event in which God's name will be hallowed, God's kingdom will come, and the will of God will be done.162 Thus all three are aspects of the central focus of Jesus' proclamation, the coming of the kingdom of God. (See Excursus "Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew," 288-94.) Each petition is primarily eschatological, with an impact on the present that calls for corresponding action. Even the address "Father" is eschatological, since the declaration of the disciples' "sonship" is a matter of future revelation at the last judgment, although already experienced in the present (cf. 5:9 and the similar theology of Rom 8:18-21).
"Hallowed be your name." A name in the biblical world was not a mere label, but represented the reality and presence of the person. Hallow means to honor as holy. The initial petition is that God will be honored as God, the Holy One. It is not a pious wish, but a prayer for a specific eschatological act of God (cf. Ezek 36:23-33). The prayer is intimate and direct, but not chummy. It preserves the awesome holiness of God and prays for it to be acknowledged by all.
"Your kingdom come." The eschatological nature of the whole prayer is focused in this one petition, which sums it up. Yet, as in each of the petitions, there is also a present dimension. For Jesus and his disciples, the kingdom was not only a future reality at the end of the world, but a present experience. (See Excursus "Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew," 288-94.) The prayer acknowledges that God is God and that God is finally responsible for bringing in God's rule, but one cannot pray this prayer without committing one's own will and action to fulfilling the will of God in the present and praying that other people will submit themselves to God's rule in the here and now (cf. 6:10b and 26:41). For Christians, submitting oneself to God's rule includes becoming disciples of Jesus the Christ.
"Your will be done." Rather than mythological pictures attempting to portray the meaning of "kingdom of God," the prayer expresses the content of the expression as doing God's will. Just as God's will is already done in heaven, so also at the consummation all creation will actualize the will of God. The kingdom image is (re-)uniting, bringing the rebellious earth back under the rightful sovereignty of the Creator. Thus heaven/earth corresponds to the already/not-yet nature of the kingdom. The statement "thy will be done," from the liturgy of the Matthean church, became very important to Matthew, who made it a theme of his Gospel. Jesus prays this prayer in Gethsemane (26:42, also peculiar to Matthew).
6:11-13, Three "We" Petitions. "Bread." The seemingly simple and natural prayer for daily bread has been interpreted in a wide variety of ways.
(1) Since the prayer as a whole is eschatological, and since in a hungry world bread is a widespread symbol of eschatological blessedness (cf. 22:16; Luke 14:15), the prayer is for the eschatological bread of the final coming of the kingdom of God. It was thought that the heavenly manna would reappear in the eschatological times, with bread from heaven for all (cf. John 6:22-58). This eschatological interpretation was widespread in the early church, both East and West. So understood, the prayer is for the eschatological blessing of the messianic banquet, when all God's people will sit down together, with enough food for all.
(2) Bread has been understood for normal this-worldly needs, for survival. For the poor people among whom Jesus lived and worked, it would be difficult to exclude this natural meaning. The prayer represents Jesus' own solidarity with the poor and his concern that they have the minimal means of survival. Praying this prayer, the church unites with the hungry and poor of the world, and hence the prayer constitutes a readiness of those who have bread to share with those who have not.
(3) Since this prayer early became an element in the church's eucharistic liturgy, "bread" was often understood to refer to the sacramental bread. This could hardly have been part of Jesus' original meaning, and there is no indication that Matthew understands this petition eucharistically. The best interpretation combines (1) and (2): The prayer longs for the coming of God's kingdom, when there will be bread for all, and prays specifically for present physical needs.
"Daily" is the traditional translation of the unusual word ejpiouvsion (epiousios), whose meaning is unknown since it occurs nowhere else in Greek literature independent of this text.163 Based on etymology and its translation in ancient versions, it can mean "necessary," "continual," "for today," or "for tomorrow." The best linguistic evidence points toward "for tomorrow," which was also the Aramaic text of the Gospel of the Nazarenes. But asking today for tomorrow's bread seems to conflict with 6:31, 34. Yet what is forbidden there is not prayer for tomorrow's needs, but anxiety about them. The day laborer who lived from one day to the next could pray today for bread for tomorrow (especially as the evening prayer!) without being guilty of greed or wanting to store up reserves.
"Debts." We might first note that Jesus, like John the Baptist, Paul, and biblical theology in general, makes the assumption of universal sinfulness. Jesus assumes, and does not argue, that every person who comes before the Holy One in prayer comes as a guilty one who needs God's forgiveness. Sin is here thought of as a debt owed to God—a debt one cannot repay (cf. 18:21-35). Without presumption, but in confidence, the disciple is taught to ask for God's forgiveness. Like the rest of the prayer, the petition is primarily eschatological ("Grant me forgiveness in the last judgment"), but is also a prayer for present needs ("Grant me forgiveness here and now").
The binding of human forgiveness to God's, already present in Jesus' prayer and Q, expresses Matthew's dialectical understanding of forgiveness. God's forgiveness is unconditional, precedes human forgiveness of other human beings, and is its ground and cause. Yet prayer for God's forgiveness is unthinkable for one who is intentionally an unforgiving person (cf. 18:21-35). Here and elsewhere in the prayer, divine action and human action are not alternatives. When placed in a linear chronological framework, God's forgiveness corresponds to the already/not-yet of Matthean eschatology. We already have the unmerited, unconditional forgiveness of God. Whoever receives it is placed in a new relationship that calls for and makes possible forgiveness of others. But we do not yet have this forgiveness as a possession that cannot be lost in the final judgment. This dialectic goes back to Jesus and is preserved in the Q version of the prayer that came to Matthew. In his Jesus tradition, Matthew magnified this element of the danger of presuming on God's grace and, therefore, being an unforgiving person oneself, emphasizing it at the conclusion of the prayer in 6:14-15 and especially in 18:21-35.
"Lead us not into temptation; deliver us from the evil one." From the earliest times the church has been bothered by the apparent threat that God could lead Jesus' disciples into temptation, and had to be supplicated not do so. Beginning with the Old Latin, various translations have attempted to avoid that problem.164 In accord with the orientation of the prayer as a whole, it is best to interpret the petition as originally having primarily an eschatological reference. In apocalyptic thought, just before the final victory of God and the coming of the kingdom, the power of evil is intensified, and the people of God endure tribulation and persecution. The disciple is instructed to pray that God, who always leads the people, will not bring them into this time of testing, when the pressure might be so great as to overcome faith itself (see 26:42, where the identical phrase occurs). Thus "evil one" is the proper translation of the final word of the prayer (as in NIV and NRSV), not "evil" in the abstract (KJV, RSV). Although originally primarily eschatological, the petition for deliverance from the final testing and the evil one also has a present dimension. The "ordinary" testings and temptations are seen not as petty peccadilloes, but as manifestations of the ultimate power of evil. The disciple is instructed not to take them lightly, but to see them as a threat to faith and to pray for God's deliverance from them.
The manuscript tradition contains ten different endings to the Lord's Prayer, testifying to its frequent use and adoption in the life of the church. The oldest and best MSS do not contain the final doxology.165 The mass of later MSS include some form of "for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen," derived from 1 Chr 29:11-13. Early English translations (such as the KJV) were unaware of the oldest Greek texts, which had not yet been rediscovered, with the result that the common English form of the Lord's Prayer used in public worship quite appropriately includes the doxology. There can be no doubt, however, that it is a later addition made long after Matthew's time.
6:14-15. On the connection between human and divine forgiveness, see Commentary on "Debts" in 6:11-13. These two verses have parallels in Mark 11:25-26, which may be a scribal gloss in Mark. If so, then vv. 14-15 are not derived from Mark and moved to this location, but are entirely M material, from Matthew's special tradition or, more likely, Matthean redaction. In this case, Matthew has composed a pair of paraenetic "sentences of holy law" in the style of the Christian prophets active in his community, to drive home the point that those who pray for God's forgiveness must themselves forgive.
6:16-18, Fasting. This is the third unit in the traditional "cultic catechism," taken over by Matthew, to which he returns after his insertion on prayer. Fasting means the voluntary abstention from food for a prescribed period as a sign of religious devotion. It was often accompanied by wearing sackcloth, placing ashes on the head, and abstaining from washing the body. The OT prescribed only one public fast, on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16). Later Jewish tradition developed two others, Rosh Ha-Shanah (New Year's Day) and the Ninth of Ab (lamentation for the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE and by Titus in 70 CE), but it is not known whether these were already official in Matthew's time. There were, however, voluntary fasts in which observant Jews could participate as a sign of repentance, mourning, or devotion to prayer. Mondays and Thursdays were designated as appropriate days for such fasting.166 It is such individual, voluntary fasts that are in view here, and it is assumed that the disciples participate in them (see further on 9:14-15).
As in the preceding instructions about almsgiving and prayer, the issue
is whether such voluntary acts of piety are done with the goal of impressing
a human audience, or as an act of devotion to God.167 Thus the disciples
are commanded not to call attention to themselves (by wearing sackcloth,
placing ashes on their heads, or not washing or combing their hair), which
makes it obvious they are fasting, but to perform their normal daily washing
and anointing—so that only God will be aware of their devotion. Although
this is not, as in the other examples, a metaphorical hyperbolic command,
but is meant quite literally, it is still not merely a legal prescription,
but an example of that devotion directed to God alone, which the disciple
must apply creatively—for, again, it is possible to obey this literally
and still find ways to be admired for one's strict religious devotion.
REFLECTIONS 168
1. Prayer is theology; theology is prayer. Karl Barth rightly affirmed, "The first and basic act of theological work is prayer."169 Prayer is a theological act, the fundamental theological act. What one prays for simultaneously shapes and expresses one's theology. The use of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew's church has affected his theology (see above). Matthew's decision to place the Lord's Prayer at the center of the instruction of the Sermon on the Mount dissolves the line between worship and theology. Prayer is theology.
It is less often seen that theology is prayer. Thus Barth's dictum above is misunderstood if one takes it as piously recommending that one have a moment's prayer before beginning theological work. Barth's point (I think Matthew would agree) is that theological work itself, struggling to discern the contemporary meaning of God's revelatory self-disclosure, even when theological work struggles to affirm that there has been a divine relelvatory act or that the God purported to have acted in Christ is truly real—such theological struggle is itself prayer, wrestling with the angel until the blessing comes, even if one goes limping away (Genesis 32). The scribal Matthew comes from the same rabbinic milieu that generated the dictum: "An hour of study is in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He, as an hour of prayer."
2. You can tell what persons believe not so much by what they say in church, but by the assumptions on which they habitually act. The Lord's Prayer is an expression of faith, not only in what it says, but in what it assumes. There is an anthropological assumption, that the disciples of Jesus (and human beings as such) are true to themselves when they pray—and that they will pray. The text is not a command to pray or a scolding for not praying; it assumes that people do pray. The assumption is that human beings are not self-sufficient, but creatures of the creator God, pictured as their divine Father. It is not a sign of weakness to pray, but a sign of genuine humanity. Prayer is not merely for emergencies, but is thankful praise that acknowledges our true dependence on God.
3. Many thoughtful people have pondered what we are really doing when we pray. If there is a God at all, doesn't this God already know everything that we could possibly say in prayer? Does prayer really change anything? Is it even possible to truly worship a deity who can be swayed by our prayers? If there is a God at all, could this God be good if waiting to grant help or healing until we ask in the proper way? How could prayer be significant, if on many issues there are sincere people praying for opposite results? (One thinks not only of superficial illustrations from sports—though there is much praying during athletic contests, and much thanking God for victory afterward—but also of deep political struggles and wars.)
There is some help in realizing that prayer is a particular kind of language. Not all language is of the same kind.170 The vocabulary of prayer is not the same as that for the application for a grant or a job. Since Matthew immediately prefaces the Lord's Prayer with his teaching that prayer language is not informational (6:8), he is quite aware that the language of prayer is in a different linguistic category from other types of language, even of other varieties of religious language. Prayer is the language of confession. By "confessional language" I do not mean merely admitting that we have done wrong, but confession in the sense of expressing faith, the language that gives expression to our deepest convictions. This kind of language is not merely expressive, a venting of emotions, but represents a reality of human life, even though it is a different kind of language from that used to express other realities. It is non-inferential—i.e., it cannot be made the basis for a series of logical inferences. It says what it says, not what it infers. It is the insider language of the community of faith, which makes no sense to the spectator perspective of the outsider. The believer asks for bread neither to inform the deity of a need nor to persuade a reluctant deity to supply it, but to confess our own need before God and to declare dependence upon God. And so it is with the prayer for forgiveness for sins, and for the coming of the kingdom. Once we realize something of the nature of the language of prayer, we are freed from the constrictions and hesitations we may have about praying—Do I really need to tell God that? Is my prayer going to change God's mind? Do I even want to pray to a God so subject to the power of suggestion? We can then confess our own need and lift up our intercessions and petitions to God without reservation. The Lord's Prayer offers a model for doing so. Matthew's text presents the opportunity for deepening our understanding of the nature of the language of prayer.
4. Jesus himself gave a model prayer to his disciples something like our earliest New Testament version (see above). One can reflect on, and preach from, the prayer as a prayer of Jesus, since there is a sense in which this prayer transcends all its NT literary contexts and brings us within sound of the very voice of Jesus.171 Yet this is different from preaching from the Bible, for the Lord's Prayer in the New Testament is an integral part of the writing and theology of two (different) evangelists. From this point of view, it should make a difference whether one is preaching from the Matthean or Lukan text of the Lord's Prayer, and that not only regarding the slightly different wording. In each Gospel, the prayer is an expression of the theology of the Gospel in which it is embedded. "Your kingdom come," for instance, is verbally identical in the two versions. Yet two different sermons, lessons, or reflections should result from giving the context in each case its due. One must ask in each case, What does Matthew or Luke mean by the "kingdom of God"? This is a different question from asking what Jesus meant by it—and more readily answerable. We have the Gospels of Matthew and Luke on which to base our meaning, but we do not have the context in Jesus' ministry from which we can fill in the meaning of "kingdom of God" for him. Exegesis of Matthew (or Luke) will prevent us from filling in Jesus' meaning with the content of our own theology, tradition, or prejudice. Even so common a text as the Lord's Prayer is not only a call to prayer, but a call to study as well, and these may often be the same.