Begin Again

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” Luke 11:1  NIV

Teach us – Heschel wrote: “Prayer as a way of speaking is a way that leads nowhere.  The text must never be more important than kavvanah, than inner devotion.  The life of prayer depends not so much upon loyalty to custom as upon inner participation; not so much upon the length as upon the depth of the service.”[1]  Do you suppose that we’ve missed Yeshua’s lesson entirely by making his model prayer into a Christian mantra?  Of course, we could repeat his words with kavvanah, pausing over each pregnant thought in order to absorb the deeper meanings, but I’m afraid that we’ve converted his statement of sovereignty and utter dependence into a religious slogan, or at best, a memorized creed.  We’ve got all the words; we just don’t have the devotion.  And all along we think we’re praying.

You will recall the oddity of this verse.  The disciples certainly knew prayers, plenty of them.  Recited every day, they were standard religious practice for orthodox Jews.  They still are.  But they are nothing more than mouthed sounds without the intensity, commitment, and integrity that converts words into spiritual feelings.  Perhaps that’s what the disciple’s request is really all about.  Not the words, but the texture of the words.  Think of this prayer, the one we call the “Lord’s prayer,” as if it were a tapestry of cosmic commitment.  Could you capture the same depth with your own words?

“Our Father.”  What is this opening address intended to teach us?  The plural is critical.  So is Abba.  We are in this together, and we’re not just a collection of followers.  We’re family, sons and daughters of the same Father.  The connections are deeper than religious or ethnic heritage.  Whenever we encounter someone who is relationally connected to YHVH, we embrace a sibling.  That makes a difference.  Siblings may have differences.  They might debate each other.  They may have interior squabbles.  But in the end, my brother is still my brother; my sister is still my sister.  A certain tolerance flows in the family that isn’t the same for outsiders.  Family is more than friends.  We’ve overlooked this in these opening words.  Who’s in your family?

Once you answer that question, you might reflect on the description “Father.”  Yeshua doesn’t (deliberately) address YHVH as “Sovereign,” “Lord,” or “Almighty.”  Those are all accurate but they don’t carry the same personal connectionas “Father.”  This title sets the stage for a declaration of dependence on Someone Who loves His children—you and me.  Without this, pagan appeasement is the only real alternative.  “Teach us to pray” begins with the disciple’s observation that Yeshua’s praying is filled with kavvanah.  The disciple is not asking for more words.  He’s asking how to reach the same level of yielding.  What Yeshua provides is a preamble to devotion, a vocabulary of surrender.  It isn’t memorized spiritual magic.  It’s invitation.  “Prayer . . . is primarily Kavvanah, the yielding of the entire being to one goal, the gathering of the soul into focus.”[2]

Topical Index: pray, teach, kavvanah, family, Luke 11:1

[1] Abraham Heschel, Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism (Free Press Paperbacks, 1959), p. 206.

[2] Ibid., p. 201.