II. FIRST DISCOURSE, ADDRESSED TO THE DISCIPLES. THE NEW LAW, DESIGNED FOR THE COMMUNITY WHOSE MEMBERS WILL INHERIT THE KINGDOM (5:1—7:29)

Matthew (Exeg.51)

Matthew now introduces the most striking and characteristic feature of his entire Gospel. He has sometimes been called "ecclesiastical," "legalistic," or "Judaistic," but actually his greatest interest is in the moral life of the Christian community. This discourse, which is put at the forefront of his Gospel, deals with the righteousness which exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees (5:20), and is appropriate for those who pray for the kingdom of heaven and will inherit it. This righteousness is prophetic rather than rabbinical (as Bacon remarks, Studies in Matthew, p. 165), and it is worth noting that the last of the five discourses (see Intro., p. 235) concludes on the same exalted note of transcendent righteousness (25:31-46). Some of Matthew's special material, which is often assigned to an M source, has an inverted rabbinical interest; i.e., it is directed against the law as understood by the Pharisees. But the passages which are drawn from the sermon as it is found also in Luke 6:20-49, and also from other parts of Q, deal with right action in the widest sense of the word. The Sermon on the Mount is a whole new Torah or teaching tradition and not merely a new halakah or lawbook.

Jesus would not have given all this teaching on a single occasion. The sermon is made up of aphorisms, maxims, and illustrations which were remembered and treasured out of many discourses.

Up to this point in the story Jesus has called only four special disciples, and apparently the discourse is addressed to them; but Matthew actually has in mind the crowds, and the sermon is intended to apply to all Christians.

It is a curious fact that both Matthew (4:24-25) and Luke (6:17-19) begin their sermons after a summary of healings, and in each case the summary is based on Mark 3:7-12. Possibly Q introduced the sermon in a similar fashion. In any event, the sermon, like the preaching of John the Baptist in 3:1-12, is addressed to a group of people who have come away from their homes to hear the word. (See the articles, "The Growth of the Gospels" and "The Sermon on the Mount" [above, pp. 60-74, 155-64]; also Martin Dibelius, The Sermon on the Mount [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940]; Hans Windisch, Der Sinn der Bergpredigt [2nd ed.; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1937].)

B. THE DISCOURSE (5:3—7:27)
1. NINE BEATITUDES, CONTRASTING FUTURE JOYS WITH PRESENT SUFFERINGS AND DUTIES (5:3-12)

2. THE RELATION OF THE DISCIPLES TO THE WORLD (5:13-16)

3. THE NEW LAW IS THE COMPLETION OF THE OLD, NOT ITS DESTRUCTION (5:17-20)

4. CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE OLD INTERPRETATION OF THE LAW AND THE NEW (5:21-48)

5. CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE OLD PRACTICE OF RELIGION AND THE NEW (6:1-18)

Matthew (Exeg. 61)

a) INTRODUCTION: AGAINST OSTENTATION (6:1)

6:1. Jesus takes it for granted that his followers will do religious acts, but they must be performed with a pure motive and without ostentation. There is very little in this section which is foreign to the best thought of Judaism. Jesus was not so much interested in remodeling institutions as in transforming the minds and attitudes of those who used the institutions. His primary concern was that men should share his vivid consciousness of the reality, power, and omnipresence of God. Worship is simply meaningless unless it is performed solely for his sake and the sake of his kingdom. At the same time, a profound acceptance of this principle inevitably leads men to criticize and reform the institutions themselves.
b) ALMSGIVING (6:2-4)

2. Alms was an exceedingly important feature of Jewish piety. Tob. 12:8-9 says: "Good is prayer with fasting and alms and righteousness, ... for alms rescues from death and it will cleanse from all sin." Sound no trumpet is probably a metaphor, like our colloquial "Don't blow your own horn." Matthew may have in mind an actual Jewish custom, whether Jesus did or not. The community's poor were supported by a graduated tax, which was supplemented by freewill offerings collected in synagogues and schools. Trumpets were sounded during public fasts in times of drought and there were prayers in the streets. (Cf. Adolf Büchler, "St. Matthew 6:1-6 and Other Allied Passages," Journal of Theological Studies, X [1909], 266-70.) It may well be that collections for the poor were made at these public fasts. The trumpet helped to call attention to acts of generosity. The hypocrites (Aramaic hanfA)) of the Gospel no doubt include those who pretend to be more pious than they are, but the sayings of Jesus which contain the word usually "seem to point ... to the incongruity of behavior, straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel, concerned for the mote and ignoring the beam," in other words inconsistency and discrepancy (H. J. Cadbury, Jesus: What Manner of Man [New York: The Macmillan Co., 1947], p. 83). The classical meaning of the Greek word is "actor in a play." The corresponding Aramaic word means "a profane person." A second-century rabbi remarked acidly that "there are ten portions of hypocrisy in the world, and nine of them are in Jerusalem." They have already received their reward—namely the praise of men—and God is quits with them. The verb ajpevcw is used in papyrus receipts as a formula: "Received of. ..." Jewish theology often assumed that one who receives his reward now will not be rewarded in the age to come. There are parallels in rabbinical writings and in Epictetus. Glory was more frankly and openly sought in the ancient world, whereas Christians at least pay lip service to modesty and humility.

3. Even your most intimate friend must not know of your generosity.

4. Your Father who sees in secret is an idea found in Epictetus Discourses I. 14. 14. Openly, as in vss. 6 and 18, is an early gloss, found in Koridethi (Q) and the Sinaitic Syriac. The Mishnah teaches that he who profanes the name of God in secret will be punished openly (Aboth 4:4); but he who studies the Torah in secret will be proclaimed to the people.

c) PRAYER (6:5-15)

(1) SAYINGS ON PRAYER (6:5-8)

5. Standing was the most usual posture for prayer in Jewish, Christian, and pagan antiquity. At the time of the daily tAmîdh offering there were public prayers in the temple (Tamid 5:1; Acts 3:1; Luke 18:10), and people would join in prayer no matter where they happened to be, as Moslems do at the prayer hours or Catholics at the Angelus.

6. For parallels see Test. Joseph 3:3; Epictetus Discourses I. 14. 14. Jesus does not condemn public worship (5:24; Luke 18:9-14); but one who engages in common prayer must be as free of self-consciousness as if he had gone into his room and shut the door. Prayer is a direct personal relationship with a Father God, and an attitude of play-acting destroys its spirit. This attitude is similar to that of the rabbis. (See C. G. Montefiore and Herbert Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology [London: Macmillan & Co., 1938], pp. 342-81.)

Vss. 7-15 are parenthetical, a kind of footnote to vss. 5-6. They are largely drawn from Q or at least run parallel to it. They were not found in either M's or Q's sermon.

7. Do not heap up empty phrases: The Greek verb means "to babble." Though Jewish prayer was often filled with honorific phrases, as in the Kaddish, and was often long (II Chr. 6:14-42; Dan. 9:4-19), there are rabbinical sayings which counsel brief prayer. Jesus condemns the theory that if fifteen minutes of prayer is good, a half-hour is twice as good; it reminds one of heathenism, with its magical texts. A good example can be seen in these nonsense syllables from "Charm for Securing an Attendant Spirit" (E. J. Goodspeed and E. C. Colwell, A Greek Papyrus Reader [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935], p. 78): "auoi ptaucharebi aouosobiau ptabaïn aaaaaaa aeeiououooieea chachach chachach charcharachach. ..." Seneca referred to those who "tire out the gods" (Epistles XXXI. 5).

8. God does not need to be informed, as though he were unconscious of man's needs, nor does one have to wheedle him into action, as heathen worshipers attempted to do. On the other hand, Jesus teaches confident, loving persistence in prayer, as in 7:11 and especially Luke 18:1-7.

(2) THE LORD'S PRAYER AS AN EXAMPLE (6:9-13)

It is not certain whether Matthew's form of the prayer comes from Q, as Luke 11:2-4 probably does, or from M. The form in Luke is nearer the original; and, as Dibelius shows (Sermon on the Mount, p. 75), it consists basically of three petitions: for the coming of the kingdom, for daily bread—i.e., all that is needed for earthly existence—and for forgiveness of sins in the past and the future. These sum up all the needs of those who, as in the Beatitudes, await the coming of the kingdom. Matthew's prayer may have been developed out of this into a sevenfold form designed for public worship; the first three petitions (vss. 9-10) are centered in God, the other four (vss. 11-13) in our needs. Did. 8:2 contains Matthew's version with slight variations and with the doxology (vs. 13b) appended, and commands Christians to say it three times a day. Jesus' disciples no doubt employed the prayer in their common worship from the beginning, but Jesus' primary purpose was to furnish an example of what true prayer is like (vs. 9). The prayer is thoroughly Jewish and nearly every phrase is paralleled in the Kaddish and the Eighteen Benedictions; thus it is Jesus' inspired and original summary of his own people's piety at its best.

9. Luke's prayer begins, "Father." The simple "Abba" must have been Jesus' usual address to God (Mark 14:36; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6), but it can also be translated our Father, which is a frequent address to God in Jewish prayer. The phrase who art in heaven is sometimes added in synagogue prayers (Singer, Authorised Daily Prayer Book, p. 9), but it is found more frequently in rabbinical teachings than in prayers. God is frequently referred to (Deut. 32:6; Jubilees 1:24-25, 28; III Macc. 5:7; etc.) or addressed (Isa. 63:16; Ecclus. 23:1, 4) as father of Israel or of an individual Israelite (Jubilees 19:29; Wisd. Sol. 2:16; Ecclus. 51:10), and the term is used once in a pre-Christian writing as a substitute for the name of God (Test. Judah 24:2). Only occasionally does a Jew address God as "my Father" (Ecclus. 23:1, 4; Wisd. Sol. 2:16) and the rabbis regarded this as appropriate only on the lips of a saint. Other religions often speak of the deity as father. The meaning of such a symbolic word depends on the total religious and cultural context in which it is spoken. It is difficult to define exactly how Jesus' use of it differs from that of the best of his contemporaries. Perhaps the difference is that when he speaks of God as Father, he uses the word with profound and loving intimacy. He consistently thinks of religious relationships in terms of family life.

Hallowed be thy name means approximately the same as "Father, glorify thy name" (John 12:28), but here the passive form is used, as in the Kaddish, to avoid a direct imperative. God is asked to sanctify his name and to cause men to sanctify it. The sanctification of the name is a rich and many-sided concept in Jewish thought. God sanctifies his name by condemning and opposing sin, by separating Israel from the world and giving it his commandments and his love and grace. It is also Israel's task to sanctify God's name by sanctifying itself, in keeping his commandments and doing all other things which redound to his glory. God's name will be fully sanctified in the age to come, when everything that opposes his will has been removed and punishment is no longer necessary.

10. Thy kingdom come: As in the Kaddish and the Alenu, this petition follows the prayer for sanctification of the name. See on 4:17 for a discussion of the kingdom of God. As this concept is two-sided, so is the prayer; God is asked to exercise his kingship and to cause men to take the yoke of the kingdom upon themselves (11:29). Rabbinical writings usually refer to the "revealing" or "appearance" of God's kingdom instead of its "coming." Thy will be done, not found in Luke, is an early and accurate gloss; where God's will is done, there his sovereignty is acknowledged and effective.

11. The word translated daily is not found in Greek writings independent of Christian literature, except for one occurrence in a single papyrus, and its meaning and derivation have never been satisfactorily explained. Various suggestions have been made: (a) "necessary [for life]," so Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, and the Syriac Peshitta and Arabic versions; (b) "steadfast, faithful," so the Sinaitic Syriac (of Luke) and the Curetonian Syriac; (c) "daily" or "for the day in question," from ejpi; th;n ou\san (hJmevran), so the O.L.; (d) "for the morrow" or "for the future," perhaps from hJ ejp--iou'sa or to; e[pion, so the Gospel According to the Hebrews (mâhâr), the Bohairic Coptic, and Cyril of Alexandria. The third and fourth are the most likely possibilities. The papyrus, where the word is found, may be from the fifth century A.D.; it was published by Sayce in W. M. Flinders Petrie, Hawara, Biahmu and Arsinoe (London: Field & Tuer, 1889), pp. 33-35. It is a leaf from a cook's household account book, and the word occurs as the first of the items for the fifteenth day. Here the most natural translation is "for the day's expenses [not otherwise tabulated]" or "for various everyday items." The teaching of 6:34 also speaks in favor of "daily." Probably the term was not understood by Matthew's and Luke's readers; hence the evangelists feel the need of adding an explanatory phrase: this day, in the case of Matthew, and "each day" in the case of Luke.

12. Debts is a Jewish figure for "sins," well illustrated by 18:23-35. He who sins is under special obligation to make amends and is not free until he has fulfilled that obligation. Those who use this prayer do not presume to ask forgiveness save in so far as they have forgiven others (cf. Ecclus. 28:2).

13. The word rendered temptation might mean "trial" or "persecution," but the petition is usually taken as a request that God will remove occasions of sin or the evil impulse which prompts sin. God's omnipotence and providence are, as always, assumed; but there is no reflection on the question raised by Jas. 1:13-14, "Does God tempt man?" The clause but deliver us from evil, not found in Luke, may be Matthew's gloss, which stands in poetic parallelism to the previous petition; if so, it probably does not mean "from the Evil One," which is another possible translation. For thine is the kingdom, ... Amen is a doxology added in the later MSS to round the prayer out liturgically. Except for the words the kingdom and it is found in the Didache version. The source of the doxology may be I Chr. 29:11. A briefer formula is found in II Tim. 4:18.

(3) A COMMENT ON FORGIVENESS (6:14-15)

14-15. Similar teachings are given in Mark 11:25-26 and especially Matthew 18:23-35 (see notes on that section); also Ecclus. 28:1-2; Test. Gad 6:3-7; I Clem. 13:2.

d) FASTING (6:16-18)

According to 9:14-15 (=Mark 2:18-20) and 11:18-19 (=Luke 7:33-34), Jesus and his disciples were conspicuous because they fasted seldom, if at all. This passage, even though it presupposes fasting, collides directly with Jewish custom. Anointing was a symbol of joy, and therefore forbidden on the day of Atonement and other days of fasting and mourning. Jesus would have his disciples, even at the risk of criticism, avoid the conventional display of humility.

16. They disfigure their faces, probably by leaving them unwashed. Cf. Test. Joseph 3:4, "Those who fast for God's sake receive beauty of face."

6. OTHER TEACHINGS ON THE RELIGIOUS LIFE (6:19—7:12)

6:5-8. Christianity and the Way of Private Prayer.

It is important that we see in mind's eye the background of religion against which Jesus spoke. Too many "men of prayer" in his day were hypocrites—actors—and they went where they could find an audience. In the synagogue they would loudly recite their own prayers instead of being content to share in the accustomed congregational prayers. They "made broad their phylacteries" (see Exeg. on 23:5). At the three times of daily prayer—when the pious workman would quit his work, and the teacher his teaching, to turn toward Jerusalem in acknowledgment of God—the professionally pious would so arrange life as to be caught at a crowded corner; and then they would sometimes stand for three hours in their devotions. Thus the comment of Jesus: nowhere is his hatred of form and cant more clear. He gives by implication certain rules for private prayer. It is essential—the burning center of life. Public or corporate prayer is also essential, for prayer inevitably has its social expression. Jesus enjoined public prayer in both word and act. But corporate prayer will lack sincerity and depth without private prayer—as witness the aridity of much public worship. The soul must be gathered in, not to itself (for there is peril in introspection), but to God. This is the wellspring of life, this is the food of the spirit, without which the soul of man dies.

Prayer must be sincere, as thoroughly sincere as our wavering will can offer. The door must be shut against the distractions of the world, lest we bring to God a divided mind. The church bell can be heard in stillness, but not amid the roar of traffic. What is even more important, a man must be where he cannot pose or pretend: Thy closet, ... thy door, ... thy Father—he, the person, stands before God stripped of every disguise, and the dissemblings of life drop. He makes his confession freely and fully, offers gratitude for mercies he has never merited, and draws strength for a destiny newly understood.

The prayer must be childlike in simplicity; RSV says not ... empty phrases. (See Exeg. for meaning of the word.) Compare the repetitions used in Baal worship, as by the "priests of Baal" on Mount Carmel, in contest with Elijah (I Kings 18:22-40); or in the pagan cults (Acts 19:34). We should not construe Jesus to mean that repetition is always vain: he himself used repetition under stress of great emotion in Gethsemane. But compare that repetition with the prayer wheel of Tibet. Jesus' plea is for such simplicity as a man must use when, stripped of every disguise, he stands alone before the Alone. Implied also is the intimacy of complete trust. That God knows our need before we ask does not argue against our asking. But it does argue against the ever-encroaching folly of trying to turn God's holy purpose, and against the attempt to use God for our own ends. Petition is inevitable in our humanness, and is indeed the part of honesty. But true petition remembers that God is our all-knowing and all-loving Father. It is made in childlike trust: "Thy will be done." Such prayer is the missing "main contact." Our works and ways all fail in that lack: we, like Samson, meet the Philistines, and discover only then that our strength has gone. For strength is gathered in the secret place.

6:9-13. The Lord's Prayer: A General Comment.

(See Exeg.) Pray then like this. ... An artist attempting to portray Niagara Falls flung down his brush in despair. There are thunders and powers and a spectrum mist in this prayer: it defies our wit, and yet is our salvation. It is brief: the eighteen petitions offered three times daily in the prayers of pious Jewry were ten times as long; this prayer by its terseness cuts into the mind and is easily remembered. It is childlike in simplicity: statesman and man in the street, philosopher and rustic, bishop and the youngest catechumen are one here: Our Father; and no prayer could more unqualifiedly set forth God's sovereign love and man's dependence. It is daring in its freedom. Imagine this Craftsman teaching his disciples a prayer that they shall use more centrally than the agelong Jewish prescribed prayers! Yet it is not novelty: in it there are phrases found in the best Jewish prayers of that time. Not novel, yet new—in its order, its insight, and in the spirit of him who taught it. It sets first things first: its first three petitions (do they correspond to the traditional "Holy, holy, holy"?) are adoration: they concern God's nature, God's kingdom, God's will; while the next (and secondary) four petitions concern man's need—our daily temporal needs, our need of forgiveness, our defense against the onset of temptation, our deliverance from evil. This is the due order and proportion of prayer. It is example and form of prayer, but is yet a creative focus. Form criticism may show that the Matthew version was used at the Eucharist, and that the Luke version (probably the original) was used in informal group settings and in baptism. Apparently Jesus intended his followers to use the prayer regularly, but not to recite it slavishly; and, because this is what has measurably come to pass, the prayer is a treasure both of public worship and of private devotion, and also a seed plot for new prayers age on age. It is a universal prayer. Our: it speaks the common longing and deepest aspiration of the heart of man across every class and race. The suggestion has been made that this might be the creed of all religion. Above all, it is the prayer of Christ. It is not an excursion into theology: it is rather an adoration from the soul. Yet in its awareness of human need it is his gift, and could be his alone, who is the Son of man; and in its authority and disclosure of God it is his gift, and could be his alone, who is the Son of God. This is the charter of prayer.

6:9. Our Father.

The word occurs in the O.T.—not in prayer—but is used to describe God's dealings primarily with the nation rather than with the man. Rabbinical prayers had begun to use it in Jesus' time, but Jesus made it his best name for God—the hallmark of his truth, an imprint which he has set forever on our world. The phrase which art in heaven saves the word from our humanness; and the petition hallowed be thy name enthrones it in awe. Thus the critic cannot use the jibe "anthropomorphic"; and, if he should, he himself blunders worse by speaking about the "laws of the universe": for it is a worse anthropomorphism to compare sovereign Power with a lawbook than with a father. The only words we have are human words; we are not angels. Jesus taught us to compare God with our best, and then to acknowledge a Mystery beyond the best which no words can hint.

The word speaks holy authority, even though the authority is one of love. God made the world, and is above it even while in it, and he rules it. "Smart politics" is at last folly, and "enlightened self-interest" is at last benighted nonsense, because he is Father. There is no indulgence in the name. The optimism in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is false optimism: "He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all he well." Crime, hard to conceal from man, is impossible to conceal from God; and inevitably it "finds out" the wrongdoer, because God is holy Father. The universe cannot keep a secret—because its heart is open and honest, and because God rules. Yet the name is Love: he gathers man into a tender care and so ennobles our common life. Man, the creature of an hour and stained by selfishness, may speak to God, who summons the stars from the void and before whom angels veil their faces, as—Father. The authority remains and is not usurped, but it intimately lives with us for our utmost good. The love shows in the order of the world and in daily providence, whatever the paradox of pain. It shows also in home, the discipline of toil, and the pangs of remorse. It shows, heaven-sent, in Christ. Thus we are children of his grace: "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (I John 4:10). That fact gives the prayer its centrally Christian impact. It justified Marc Antoine Muret in his famous answer. The surgeons thought him as ignorant as he was poor: "Faciamus experimentum in anima vili" ("Let us experiment upon this worthless fellow"). He replied in Latin as good as theirs: "Vilem animam appellas pro qua Christus non dedignatus est mori" ("You call one worthless for whom Christ did not refuse to die").¹ The proof of this Love is in the faith and venture of the prayer—with fact enough in experience and in the experience of Christ to warrant the venture.

The name is a commonalty: Our Father. The whole church is in that pronoun, and the whole family of nations and men. A man cannot be complete without this "beloved community," and the community is bereft without the man. Prayer, even when private, is still a social expression. Here all the barriers are down—the race barriers, the political blocs, the fences between classes and nations. The ancient mariner, in the Coleridge poem, was becalmed and his vessel held in a deathlike trance until he prayed in compassion for all God's creatures. See the stanza: "He prayeth best who loveth best."² Thus the name gives both meaning and power. "Pray devoutly, hammer stoutly" is a good motto. The prayer gives direction to the deed and empowers it. Here is a theophany and a theology. Here is childlike trust. Here is freedom and reinforcement. Here is forgiveness and the promise of eternal life: Our Father which art in heaven.

6:9. First Petition.

Hallowed be thy name. We ask, "What's in a name?" There is something in it, or people would not choose one name rather than another, or wish to change their name. But there is not much in our names: they are a code-sign, a tag for the convenience of the mailman. But names were important in the time of Jesus (see the meaning in Hebrew names); they were promise and hope in God. There is everything good in God's name, for name here means essential nature. God's name is the "quality" of the eternal Spirit, God's disclosure of himself. For the Christian, God's name is the soul of Christ. Thus the prayer means: Our Father, cause thine eternal nature, revealed in Christ, to be hallowed by us and by all men. This is properly the first petition. We pray it before we pray for the coming of the kingdom, inasmuch as that coming is for the honor of God's nature; and before we pray for daily bread, for we misuse daily bread if God is not glorified; and even before we pray for pardon, for the pardon must be understood as the gift of holy love. We pray this petition first, because God must come first with us if we would live.

God's name must be sanctified in our thought of him. If we think of him as on the side of big battalions, we make him mere tyrant. If we imagine that we can avoid the penalty of greed, we slander his holy sovereignty. If we say, "I am too insignificant for his notice," we brand him as one who judges only by physical size. If we say, "I'll turn to him when I need him," we scorn him as mere ambulance. How do we think about God? It is a crucial question.

God must be hallowed in our words. The Roman Catholics have a Holy Name Society. It is needed, even though blasphemy of speech can perhaps be conquered best, not by frontal attack, but by cultivation of the root of reverence. The Jews of old almost shrank from speaking or writing the name of God, but our modern fashion is to use it far too freely—for a curse or an embellishment of unworthy language. Our speech has a thrust into our neighbor's life, and a sharp reaction into our own—and can be a grief to God.

God's name should be hallowed in our daily conduct. The Mohammedan turns to his minaret five times daily and prays: "God is great." We have no such custom, though if we were wise we would punctuate our day with periods of prayer. A sterner demand rests on the Christian: his work and play must kneel in reverence. Advertising, business practice, politics, friendships must all honor the name. That road is hard—like the road to Palm Springs Canyon, but, like that road, it ends in verdure.

God's name should be hallowed in worship. It might seem that such a demand could be taken for granted, but perhaps irreverence has made its worst inroads where reverence should most deeply live. Worship can be made a compensation for unruly life—after the manner, though not to the measure, of brigands who say their Pater Nosters and then proceed to their brigandage. Even the Lord's Supper can subtly be turned into an aesthetic selfishness. Protestant worship has sometimes become cheap—prefaced and ended in casual conversation, interrupted by a casual "announcement period," and disfigured by hymns that are poor jingles and by preachments that are a "noisy gong." This is the first prayer. Jesus lived the prayer he offered: "Father, glorify thy name" (John 12:28). In thought and speech, in deed and worship, he reverenced the nature of God, who is all and in all.

6:10. The Second and Third Petitions.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. (For more detailed exposition of thy will be done, see comment on last phrase of 26:39.) Perhaps the first three petitions grow out of one another: God's nature cannot be honored until his kingdom comes, and his kingdom cannot come until man does his will. Perhaps the thy is emphatic —thy name rather than the powerless names of the Pantheon; thy kingdom rather than "earth's tragic empires"; thy will rather than our selfish purposes. Almost certainly the phrase "as in heaven, so on earth" (see "The Clarendon Bible") attaches to all three petitions. The word kingdom is suspect in our modern world: therefore it is important to remember the second word of the prayer: "May thy Fatherly realm come, may thy Fatherly will be done, as in heaven so on earth." Yet all authority derives from the invincible sovereignty of God.

The kingdom already is, or it could not come. It exists in the precision and majesty of the stars; in higher orders of life perchance—

Thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er Land and Ocean without rest;³

The kingdom is a realm of joy. Why do we regard it as threat and shadow? Is it because of our cherished sins? We have turned thy will be done into sad resignation—an inscription on a tombstone. There indeed it belongs, but as a promise of dawn. "An act of God" in our legal term is almost synonymous with catastrophe. A fetid swamp was in old days "an act of God," and it was not to be drained; while the amazingly recuperative powers of the body that could still live in fetidness, and man's power to drain a swamp, were apparently not acts of God! "The kingdom of God is ... righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17). It is such righteousness and peace and joy as are found in Jesus, and constantly it knocks on our door. Thus great insights are hidden in this prayer. It reminds us that the world is not ours, and that we do not rule it. Our political plans must fail unless they are consonant with the Will. The only "progress" is in the movement of the kingdom. It reminds us that the prayer itself is power, such power as is the tragic lack of every age. Our cultures are like perfect buildings left dark because we have electricity but no main contact, or like a man with strong physique who dies because he will not drink from the wellspring at his door. It reminds us of life's prime purpose: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. It is a blowing of trumpets and an unfurling of banners. The doctor is not just a doctor: he is a consul of the kingdom. The businessman is not "in business for himself": he is a regent of the Will. One who cut the words "thy will be done" into his weather vane, when asked by a flippant neighbor if God's love was thus unpredictable, answered, "No, I mean that from whatever quarter the wind may happen to blow, God is still love." "The will you are asked to obey," says J. D. Jones, who told the story, "is your Father's will." ⁵

6:11. The Fourth Petition.

Our daily bread. See Exeg. for word translated daily. By any translation the prayer is concerned with day-by-day needs, and neither temporal nor spiritual interpretations are excluded. Bread is the stuff of drama. "Bread and the circus" echoed the social tensions and conflicts within the Roman Empire, and the Ukraine with its wheat fields was a factor in World War II. The saint even in his prayers is still dependent on bread. So this prayer is a confession of need. No man has "independent means": he cannot eat dollar bills for breakfast. His tractors could not help him if life should fail within the seed, or fertility should fail within the soil. Witness the "dust bowl"! Why talk of the "laws" of nature? They are marvelously adapted to our daily need, and therefore are more than laws.

This prayer is a plea that we may be faithful, for daily bread requires each man's co-operation with God's constant labor. Yet the faithfulness and co-operation are also gifts. A man must not be a parasite either on God or on his fellow men. To shirk, or to indulge in sharp practice, or to engage in work that adds nothing to the world's health is parasitic: "Give us to be faithful in daily toil, and thus to be worthy of thy daily gift." The prayer implies that we should live in simplicity. The petition is for bread, not for luxuries. It is a plea for day-by-day provision, not for a lifetime security. In any event bread does not keep. We are to live soberly in daily dependence on God's sufficient grace.

This is a prayer of the human comradeship: our daily bread. Here is a reminder that mankind is a family. Do we need reminder? We are interdependent. The coffee supply failed when World War II came, because ships were sunk off Brazil. New York was threatened with hunger when the tugboatmen went on strike. Social righteousness is really a matter of table manners: we ought not to glut ourselves while others hunger. "Pass the bread, please." In a modern play, Panic, by Archibald MacLeish, a woman, watching a news bulletin which told of forthcoming depression and unemployment, cried out, "Forgive us our daily bread"—and she made no mistake. The eyes of the disciples of the Emmaus Road were opened when Jesus took bread and broke it and gave to them. This prayer asks Christ to preside at the world-table.

But this is a prayer for more than bread. A mourner pushes away the plate: "I cannot eat anything." In short, food is neither joy nor sustenance unless we have also food for the spirit. This prayer is offered, not to a celestial flour merchant, but to the Father of our spirits. Emerson has said, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by faith, by admiration, by sympathy." He should have added, as one taught by Jesus, "and 'by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God'" (4:4). An Irish manuscript of the eleventh century reads, "Panem verbum Dei celestem da nobis hodie: Give us today for bread the Word of God from heaven." ⁶ If conscience is only a foolish scruple, love only a trick of the nerves, and Jesus only a sad blunder—if there is no joyous reality in God bread is ashes. Thus the deeper prayer. Here also we live "one day at a time." No generation can live solely on the consecration shown by the fathers. Manna from heaven spoils unless daily gathered. Give us day by day thy secret bread! This is an answered prayer. We may not always be aware of answer. A man is not instantly aware of the healing from an infrared lamp. When we seek the mind of Christ, and pray in sincerity the prayer he taught, a change is wrought—bread for the body, bread for the family of mankind, bread for the soul. "Lord, evermore give us this bread" (John 6:34).

6:12. The Fifth Petition.

Forgive us our debts. The expositor should carefully note the locale and meaning of each of the three words: debt, sin, trespass. (See Expos. on vss. 14-15.) By any translation Jesus here refers to failure in duty. There is no escape from the basic fact of obligation or from awareness of our shortcomings. The word "bravery" implies the possibility of cowardice, and the word "dishonest" implies the possibility and obligation of honesty. There are personal sins—each man's greed and deceit. There are social sins—class pride, racial prejudice, national selfishness. Man cannot solve the problem of sin. George Bernard Shaw makes Cusins in Major Barbara say that "for giveness is a beggar's refuge. ... We must pay our debts." But he does not tell us how. If a man is honorable today, he has not canceled yesterday's dishonor, which meanwhile has run out into life like ink in water. Who can cleanse history? Who can cleanse memory? No man has power even to return to the past, let alone to redeem it.

There is no easy forgiveness. Forgiveness can be defined as laying aside revenge and claim for requital, but a dictionary definition cannot plumb the depths that true forgiveness must sound. A mother forgiving a wayward son has no thought of revenge or requital. Jesus washing the feet of Judas is not concerned with claims and equities. Forgiveness is possible only by one morally sensitive and therefore grieved, who is willing to give all and bear all that the wrongdoer may be won back into life. Only God can do this work for man. The Cross is the thrust of God's pardon—the incarnation of his pain and self-giving. But for the Incarnation how could we have seen the work of pardon, or accepted it? The gift of pardon is sheer bounty. "Give us our bread," and forgive us our debts: just as the earth brings forth food in multiplied harvests, so the love of God brings forth forgiveness. It is not purchased by our "good works": to imagine that would be to add the sin of self-righteousness. The hymn is right:

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling.

What of the other phrase—as we forgive our debtors? It is not a business transaction: God does not keep office ledgers. He is "our Father." It means that the two forgivenesses go together. If a man should say, "I'll never forgive you!" he can hardly be forgiven: he is not in the mood. He is not penitently aware of his sins, but only vengefully aware of another man's sins. He is not thinking about God: he is intent rather on his prideful self. This truth must be underscored because Jesus underscored it in what Matthew presents as a kind of codicil to the prayer. An unforgiving spirit in us shuts the door in God's face, even though his compassions still surround the house. He is ready to forgive, but we are not ready to be forgiven. The parable of the unforgiving debtor (18:23-35) is also for witness. How little forgiveness there is in our world! Our law courts are sufficient proof. When General Oglethorpe said to John Wesley, "I never forgive," Wesley properly answered, "Then I hope, sir, you never sin." "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you" (Eph. 4:32). This prayer breaks the circle of hate breeding hate, as Stephen's prayer of forgiveness changed Saul (Acts 7:60). This prayer is the world's spring of hope. In one of the da Vinci legends, the artist is said to have painted his enemy's face on the shoulders of Judas, and, the story goes, he could not then conjure up the face of Christ. But when he forgave his enemy and painted out the insult, he saw Christ's face in a dream that night. Forgive us ... as we forgive.

6:13. The Sixth Petition.

Lead us not into temptation. The word temptation is hard. If it means seduction, the prayer would seem unnecessary: does God seduce? If the word means testing, the prayer seems unworthy: we ought not to shrink from due testing. Probably the word includes both meanings; and probably the prayer is best explained as the plea of conscious weakness—not as an exercise in logic, but as a cry of the soul. We need testing, as the prayer tacitly admits. Psychologists know the man who avoids testing: "I have always been needed at home." He is no joy either to himself or to his neighbor; he lives in excuses and therefore in inner conflict. Unless a ship can ride a storm, what use is it? Perhaps we can go further and guess that we ought to be tested morally. Jesus was tested the more sharply because the allurements seemed to be quicker ways of bringing God's kingdom. But we should never invite the temptation, or try to play our own providence.

It is no sin to be tempted when life honorably brings the temptation: it is sin only to fall, for we have as our avail a Strength beyond our own strength. But we should never be sure of ourselves. Yet how sure we are! We court temptation, and when anyone warns us we dub him a prude. We take moral chances, as a man going over Niagara Falls in a barrel takes physical chances, not in bravery but in foolhardiness. Our plea that "we need the experience" is a confession of spiritual irresponsibility. This skating on thin ice comes because we have no deep love for God, and therefore no deep fear or hatred of evil. "This is your hour, and the power of darkness," said Jesus (Luke 22:53); but to us evil is no midnight and no desperate threat. We pray, "Deliver us from sickness, fear, poverty, unpopularity"; but cannot understand why we should pray, Deliver us from evil. The wrong in the world is not merely economic or psychological maladjustment, though these factors may be present: it is wickedness. So this prayer has deep meaning. It admits our weakness, pleads for hatred of evil, and therefore breathes our love for God. The temptation comes subtly, suddenly, camouflaged, with weapons appropriate for each walk and decade of our life. Before the two world wars we had the planet well under control, so we thought, but actually we were drowsing by the fire while a lion crept on us from the thicket. The prayer lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, has not been outmoded or outgrown.

The prayer confesses also that only God's power can save us. Only he can deliver. He enters the struggle—in the grace of Jesus Christ. Thus we know him, our holy Ally. The myths foreshadow the encounter. Circe, for an instance, turned men into beasts after enticing them to her palace with sweet music. They were not quite beasts: they had human memory and discontent. But they were no longer men: they turned foul faces to the foul earth. How were they delivered? Mercury, sent from heaven, gave Ulysses "a sprig of the plant Moly," that was proof against the enchantment, and Ulysses set free the captives. Christ heaven-sent: the interpreter may point that moral! In many ways God delivers us: through this prayer, by turn of event, by sudden insight, by access of strength, by our resolve not to fail those who trust us, by work, and by worship. But the focus of deliverance is in Christ. Thus this prayer, seeming to plunge the soul into darkness, lifts us into light. There is deliverance, or Christ would not have taught us to pray for it. He is answer to the prayer. We need not despair either of ourselves or of our world. The deliverance is not complete on earth? It saves earth from disconsolate doom, and is complete in its promise and assurance.

6:13. The Ascription to the Lord's Prayer.

The phrase was almost certainly not in the original prayer. (See Exeg. for how and when the addition was made.) It corresponds with the doxology used at the temple services: "Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom for ever" (e.g., Ps. 72:19). But we may be glad for the addition; it is a final peal of trumpets. Christ prompted this doxology. Why should a small and persecuted church add such a climax of praise to a prayer taught them by One from Galilee? It is like David's praise at the bringing of gifts for the new temple (I Chr. 29:11). Christ had died—on a Cross. Was this "deliverance from evil"? This the coming of the "kingdom"? Surely his followers must then have been tempted to say at Calvary what Africans said to Livingstone about the Zambezi River, that it "by sand is covered." But Christ rose: the river disappearing into the sand came back again into the sun. So the doxology of the Lord's Prayer is the church's praise for his risen power. His prayer became a nobler temple: God's redeeming presence. Therefore the early church said, For thine is the kingdom. ...

The doxology and prayer interpret the word "kingdom." History traces the rise and fall of empires:

Age after age their tragic empires rise.
Built while they dream, and in that dreaming weep:
Would man but wake from out his haunted sleep,
Earth might be fair and all men glad and wise.⁸

Christ through this doxology can remake our world. We can live for "the world," or we can live for "the Father"; and we must choose. If we do not worship God in constant doxology, we shall end in a grotesque and ruinous selfworship. If we do not follow Christ, we shall make a state-idol or some equally futile and debasing surrender. The earth finds no light except from above the earth, and only God is worthy of worship. His is the kingdom and the power and the glory. The only enduring center of the "City of Mansoul"9 is an altar, and science and trade are alike suicidal unless they are consecrate. The early church even in persecution cried, "For thine is the glory," and so had power. The word amen is a massive word fallen on evil days. It is the word Jesus used when he said, in our version, "verily." It is man's resolve: "So let it be!" It is, more deeply, trust and assurance that God can bring great things to pass: "So let it be!" By right instinct the church added a doxology and an amen to the Lord's Prayer.

6:14-15. Further Word about Trespasses.

The word ojfeilhvmata (vs. 12) is perhaps best translated by our word "debts." The word paraptwvmata (vss. 14, 15), translated in both KJV and RSV as trespasses, carries the idea of "missing the mark." The word aJmartiva" in Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer (Luke 11:4) can best be rendered by our word "sins." The teacher should note the three pictures of human life here reflected. First, life is an obligation to be met. Duty often seems irksome, and we rebel against its impossible demands. But this imperious "ought" is really our best crown: it proclaims us children of an ultimate right. It is not enough to be 50 per cent kind or 75 per cent pure: we are born for an unseen perfection. To break the obligation is to be in debt, and we cannot pay the debt; for if on any day we were 100 per cent compassionate or true, we would have no "works of supererogation" by which to overtake yesterday's indebtedness. Only God can cancel moral debt. Second, life is an aiming at the mark, a pilgrim's progress toward a wicket gate of heaven. "I press toward the mark" (Phil. 3:14). To choose a lower mark, or to miss the mark, is failure. "We needs must [ought to] love the highest when we see it.¹ G. F. Watts had as his motto: "The Utmost for the Highest." How many of us are satisfied with proximate goals! Third, life is devotion to goodness. The story of the mother is true of all men: "A white bird, she told [Marius] once, looking at him gravely, a bird which he must carry in his bosom across a crowded public place—his soul was like that!"² What stains are on our purity! Only God can give cleansing. As these verses imply, we daily need a canceling of debts, a clarifying of aim and rededication to it, and a cleansing of the whole purpose and practice of our life. Notice the reiteration of the truth that a man unwilling to forgive bars the door against the proffer of God's pardon: he is in no mood to be forgiven. When Queen Caroline died, someone said: "An unforgiving, unforgiven dies." The two words are linked. Conversely the man ready to forgive opens the door to God who always waits ready to pardon.