Critiquing Christians: A Founders Warning

The Lord’s Prayer is one of the most recited and well known prayers worldwide. Yet, it is probably the least understood. We speak it so freely and frequently in Western society implying that we understand its message and caution. As a child, the prayer carried me into my adult life, but not until college did I ask for its significance. What is the kingdom and this hallowed business all about? In fact, in college, I questioned what the gospels are really about. Is it just the simple forgiveness of the soul by God and a numbers game as to who gets to heaven or not? This was hardly a satisfactory answer. Was there more to it?

The gospel teaching is found in the Sermon on the Mount. The Lord’s Prayer represents a summary of it in the most personable forms, a prayer. Its movement from the sanctification of God’s name, the kingdom come, daily bread, forgiveness of debt, temptation, and its final doxology is a well developed prescription for the evil in man and society. It represents on one the most focused institutionalized mission statements governing those who want to claim His name. But what do these elements mean and where is the critique and caution?

Jesus takes us down a check list, like the one you start saying yes to until you get to the part that you want to say, “Hey, wait a minute.” First he calls for God’s name to be sanctified. Most of us who are theistic would easily concede this point. Give all that has been done in God’s name, sanctifying His name, or setting it apart from all the injustice, evil, or even just bad religion is a starting point for the renewal of good faith in society. No problem here. Second, Jesus’ comment about God’s will be done here, as it is in heaven, is something every believer would agree to as well. As most Christians and Jews believe that God is good, it’s a general enough statement that gets the positive approval. We can easily link together these two points, clearing His name and hoping for the goodness of God in this world.

The next statement, “give us our daily bread,” begins to get more specific, but in an appealing way. Yes, we want to eat, so bread, as a representation of the most basic of the food groups especially in that time, is that substance of lunch that we like so much. But, implicit in the lunch is commerce and money, and like the saying goes, there is no free lunch. Food is a good thing, and a daily struggle of the time which we can’t imagine in our modern 1st world countries. It’s the link between eating and commerce which take us to his next line and the core of the matter, “sanctifying” God’s name and His Kingdom on earth.

Here’s the punch line. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive those are indebted to us.” Yes, the word is debt, monetary debt in the original Greek and not the generic word “sin” as we so commonly learned for those of us that attended Sunday school as kids. The logic Jesus develops between bread and debt may be a bit disturbing. Debt is something that his Jewish audience were very familiar with, similar to the subprime crises of today, but much more widespread. Debt was the instrument of subjugation by the Romans (i.e. taxes), a common form of enslavement in business dealings (i.e. entire families who fall victim to it judicial precedence) and a necessary means to eat and prosper for whole communities. However, it had a terrible underbelly. Penalties were swift and harsh, no chapter 11 or 7 laws here. The reality of bread, health and prosperity, unfortunately, was tied to debt and abusive bondage unless you were a Roman or part of the Jewish priestly class. These modes of operating or economic abuse from the high levels of society rippled into the day to day dealing of the common man of his time. As such, His prayer strikes with precision at the aliments of society and for some, this prayer was not for the weak of wallet. Can you say Jubilee? Is there a banker reading this?

Of course, history later began to interpret this prayer as just sin and not debt, watering down it precise intent, but if we roll back the clock to the moment, the meaning is socially penetrating. Ok, so we’re starting to get the picture of what it means to say “hallow be your name.” and “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Are there debts in heaven? Maybe that’s the point.

Ok, now I get it. The kingdom has to do with the forgiveness of debt, and particularly those forms of debt that are socially destructive (not all debt is bad). This is what it means to be Christian and to pray as a Christian. God forgives me, I forgive others. Well, maybe. But what if no one owes me anything? This is too narrow a question. The better question in the spirit of the prayer is, can I by my means set another free? What and where are the monetary structures of abuse and bondage where the forgiveness of debt can set another free? And, can I do something about it? Are we slothful or vigilant in this matter? Is the hand that is able to set free cut off from the arm and unable to act?

Perhaps a social commentary from none other than the late Pope John Paul II may enlighten us. Pope John Paul II resonating voice includes a critique of western values and capitalism, what he calls the culture of death and consumerism. We won’t touch on the culture of death, but the excess of capitalism are consumerism and individualism, culture that is obsessed with “having” and not “being.” In other words, the owning and collecting of possession with no understanding on what it means to have so much. Being, the habit of one’s heart and mind in community, trump the pursuit of the goods. The Pope’s struggle and justified pessimism is, will our individualism leave room for the common good? Individualism, unfortunately, is not a call to set the captives of free. No Jubilee here. God and His kingdom exist when community and its forces of liberation trump the neurotic excess of individual priorities, when we become more concerned about our neighbor then our own skin. Can you say, “God help me!”

Dietrich Bonheoffer, the German theologian who was executed for his role to assonate Hitler in WWII, understood this kingdom principle with painful clarity. In his paper on “Sanctorum Communio,” the communion of saints, he sees the absence of Christ in the church because of a lack of community, or what he calls the divided Christ between class societies. No Kingdom come here. It is only within true community, an undivided Christ, that the gospel and Christ are revealed, where the bonds of oppression can be identified and address. Bonheoffer’s initial solution, in Nazi Germany, was to start the Confessing Church, a body of Christian pastors opposed Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. Ironically, in what was one of Hitler’s first act against the Jews, he took away there ability to eat, bread, not directly, but with the breaking of glass, he shuts down their ability to engage in commerce. The Jews became a people in debt and bondage.

One can think of many examples today of bondage, from the economic slavery in India and Asia, of children sold to settle debts usually for health issues into the sex slave trade, and of how the slave trade, human trafficking, is at its peak in human history. There is bondage in the lack of capital preventing families or communities from accessing working funds to pay for simple machinery or farm animals that could sustain them. Small capital injections by our standards can bring enormous freedom in a 3rd world. There are too many modern day examples that can be written here. You can fill in the blank. No one owes you money? We’re not off the hook. They kingdom come means the pursuit to set captive free. However, the question remains, will consumerism and individualism save the day? Or, are the values of “Sanctorum Communio” the communion of saints, a more effect means to the breaking of bondage?

Our prayer is not done. “And deliver us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” What is the axis of evil here? Perhaps it is the combination of consumerism, individualism and those structures, companies and institutions that perpetuate bondage and violence the through free markets. “Fair Trade,” in the coffee business, although not perfect, highlights our temptation to evil. Yes, Adam Smith is right when he say that the markets, or the invisible hand, make the most efficient economies. We need this, profit is a good thing. It is the target of enterprise, but is it tempered by other values? Who said it was the end game? Is Donald Trump reading this?

One last final thought. The Lord’s Prayer is not a critique of Capitalism or America. It critiques Christians, how WE should pray, those who claim Christ’s name, in whatever society or time we find ourselves. Perhaps, in the spirit of the prayer, it is a contract with God about our own actions in the world of commerce. Bertrand Russell, the French Philosopher, commented that the values of Sermon on the Mount were great ideals, but of little use as Christians in general do not practice them. A penetrating observation on his part. It’s not easy to claim His name.