The Lord’s Prayer: A Rookie Anglican Guide
The Lord’s Prayer is one of the most well-known features of Christian worship. Many Christian denominations, even ones that don’t use pre-written prayers in their worship services, still teach children this prayer in Sunday school. However, to many Christians, Anglicans included, it can easily lose its meaning through rote repetition. So why do we pray the Lord’s Prayer? What is its true significance?
The Lord’s Prayer comes from two passages in the Gospels—Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4. Each passage’s context seems different, so this prayer must have been a recurring theme in Jesus’ ministry. In both contexts, however, Jesus gives the Lord’s Prayer both as a prayer to repeat and as a model for our other prayers.
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What Are We Praying for When We Pray the Lord’s Prayer?
The contents of the Lord’s Prayer have been divided differently by various groups at different times. Luckily, each petition seems to stand independently. While we won’t go in-depth on what each petition includes (although there are a lot of resources that do, particularly our catechism!), it’s important to understand what we’re praying for when we pray the Lord’s Prayer.
God Takes the Initiative
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
In Jesus’ time, it was rare for Jewish groups to refer to God as their Father. When we as the Church pray to God as “our Father, who art in heaven,” we recognize that God has chosen to adopt us into his spiritual family on account of Jesus. The first few petitions of the Lord’s prayer—that God’s name be hallowed (counted as holy), that his kingdom comes, and for his will to be done on earth as in heaven—all recognize that God himself is actively involved in these things. They will only succeed according to his strength and his will.
God has shown his name to be holy and has brought his kingdom to earth in Jesus, and he continues to do so in Jesus’ body, the Church. This prayer recognizes the invitation to join him on his mission to the world revealed in his Son.
Vertical and Horizontal
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
After these petitions, the prayer transitions to the needs of the Church. Praying for daily bread is all-encompassing: “daily bread” is shorthand for all of the day’s needs. This petition brings dignity to our daily lives by recognizing that all things come from God himself.
The needs of daily life are not only physical, however. We also ask for forgiveness for sins. As fallen people, we sin frequently and need to experience God’s forgiveness all too frequently. The hope of this prayer is not merely a vertical relationship of repentance toward God, however. It includes the element of forgiving those around us. In the experience of God’s forgiveness, the Church community becomes an agent for earthly reconciliation.
Moving Forward in Repentance
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
The repentance demonstrated in the previous petitions is meant to be solidified for the future as well. The final petitions of the prayer ask that God might not lead us into temptation but that he instead would protect us from evil. In joining God on his mission and seeking forgiveness for past sins, believers are reminded that they still have a long way to go. These final petitions evoke a sense of hope that God will not abandon those he has called but will protect them even through the dangers of temptation and sin.
What About the Last Part?
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
We often call the last part (“for thine is the kingdom,” etc.) the “doxology” of the Lord’s Prayer—a term that indicates worship. If you look at the relevant Bible passages, you might notice that this clause isn’t there. While our oldest manuscripts lack this little doxology, some of the old Greek copies of the Bible do contain it, and there is evidence that the Church was praying it in her earliest days.
This part summarizes the reality of all our prayers. We pray not only because God has adopted us as his children in Christ (as at the beginning) but also because of his power. The God we serve is a very big God, and he can give us all the things we ask from him in this prayer because they all belong to him.
The Lord’s Prayer and the Book of Common Prayer
The compilers of the Book of Common Prayer, led by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, took the Lord’s Prayer very seriously. If Jesus meant for us to use both the words and the themes of the prayer to teach us how to pray, then it only makes sense that the Lord’s Prayer should be a regular part of the Church’s worship life. For this reason, the architects behind the Book of Common Prayer made sure that the prayer found its way into every liturgy in the book at least once, and they were very intentional about where they placed it in each service.
The Lord’s Prayer and Holy Communion
Jesus left his fledgling Church with only a handful of liturgical directions: the disciples were to administer Holy Baptism and Communion and pray the Lord’s Prayer. Because he gave so few instructions, it’s only right that we see a close connection between these practices. Everything we do in the Eucharistic liturgy ties closely to one of the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer.
- When we declare that the Lord’s name and his kingdom are blessed at the beginning of the service, we live into our request that “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
- The bread of the Eucharist reminds us that God provides both the physical bread that sustains us for earthly life and the spiritual bread of the body of Christ, which sustains our souls for heaven.
- When we confess our sins, God is quick to “forgive us our trespasses.” We live into that reconciliation here on earth during peace, when “we forgive those who trespass against us.”
- During the Post-Communion Prayer, we ask the Lord to send us out to do good works rather than to lead us into temptation.
This guidance is reflected in where we pray the Lord’s Prayer during Holy Communion. In most Anglican churches, we pray the Lord’s Prayer right after the priest has prayed the Prayer of Consecration. Praying it here reminds us that we, the Church, enter into communion with God the Father in the context of Christ’s sacrifice. We re-enact this sacrifice at the Lord’s Table during Holy Communion, which serves as a perfect moment to bring our requests before God.
Say It Twice?
Churches that use older versions of the Prayer Book, such as the 1662 edition, will often have the Lord’s Prayer twice in a service of Holy Communion—once at the very beginning of the service and once immediately after everyone has taken Communion. The Lord’s Prayer at the beginning helps remind us that everything that follows in the service—communion with God, the announcement of forgiveness and reconciliation, etc.—is an answer to prayer. Meanwhile, the Lord’s Prayer after Communion reminds us that the needs in the prayer are a daily reality lived into for the rest of the week after Holy Communion.
The Lord’s Prayer and the Daily Office
The other service that most Anglicans are familiar with is the Daily Office, the liturgies of Morning and Evening Prayer. Here, the Lord’s Prayer leads us into the part of the Daily Office that is more recognizably prayerful.
The first half of the liturgy, with its Psalms, Canticles, and Lessons from the Old and New Testament, allows God to speak to the Church through his Word. The second half of the liturgy, from the Apostles’ Creed on, is essentially the Church speaking in response to that Word. The Lord’s Prayer comes early in this half and leads directly into the suffrages (short prayers said responsively) and the collects (the longer prayers the officiant prays).
The Lord’s Prayer helps bridge the gap between God speaking in the Lessons and the Church praying in response by drawing the Church to respond with the Lord’s own words.
Why Are There Two Versions of the Lord’s Prayer?
If you’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer out of a physical copy or PDF of the 2019 Book of Common Prayer, you’ve probably noticed that two versions exist in side-by-side columns wherever it appears. One uses older Elizabethan English, and the other uses more contemporary language.
This is for a reason. Many Christians, even those outside the Anglican tradition, have grown up memorizing the older English translation. It’s not uncommon to still hear the older version of the prayer in movies or on television, at a wedding or a funeral. For whatever reason, many people have come to know and love the older version. Many churches still use it in their worship as well because the familiarity is special to them.
The more contemporary translation, on the other hand, uses less archaic language that is easier to understand and might be easier to familiarize yourself with. Pray the version you’re most comfortable with. Is the older language familiar and beautiful to you? Go for it. Does the newer version feel more like something you would say to your heavenly Father? Put it to good use! When in a service, however, remember to use whichever version the church has selected to help the congregation stay tuned in.
How Can I Adopt the Lord’s Prayer in My Devotional Life?
The Lord’s Prayer’s value in corporate worship, well represented in the Book of Common Prayer, also extends to the devotional life of the individual believer. However, this value goes beyond merely repeating it verbatim. Believers today find themselves blessed by various practices surrounding the Lord’s Prayer.
One common practice involves prayerfully meditating on each of the prayer’s petitions. A believer might begin the prayer by meditating on what it means to call God their Father and pray for greater recognition of their adoption in Christ. They might find value in praying for those whom they have a hard time forgiving in light of the forgiveness of their own sins. Alternatively, each petition could serve as a meditation for a full day. The Church has also been blessed by centuries of musical settings which could make the Lord’s Prayer a singable act of worship.
For centuries, the Church has reflected on the doctrine and beauty of the Lord’s Prayer. Commentaries on this great prayer tend to be a simple way to explore the works of deeper theological writers from the Church’s history, such as Origen, Maximus the Confessor, William Perkins, or N.T. Wright.
Or perhaps the Lord’s Prayer could serve as the basis of your own written reflections. Pray it slowly, writing down your thoughts and adding your prayers to it, and then do the same a week, month, or even a year later. This could prove to be fruit for great reflection.
Regardless, the Lord’s Prayer has always blessed the Church. May it bless your spiritual life as well!
Photo by lpkoe from Getty Images, courtesy of Canva.
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