“The Ethics of the Lord’s Prayer” is a three-part reflection about the way that prayer and ethics must be interrelated in the Christian life.
The Lord’s Prayer is more than a collection of random words. No, this prayer is overflowing with real-life implications. If I have properly understood my prayer, then my life cannot be the same after “amen.” If my prayer has not impacted my ethics, then I have flattened and pacified this imaginative, participatory, and relational thing called “prayer.”
Prayer is not a passive, one-way monologue that conditions God to do what we want, as if we have unloaded all responsibility of the matter. Rather, prayer is a relational act and two-way conversation that moves God’s heart AND shapes me and envisions me to act in accordance with God’s shalom in my particular situation.
While prayer is a clear Christian responsibility, we sometimes view ethics as an “add-on” topic. I believe, however, that there is an inescapable relationship between ethics and prayer. We must pray fervently and persistently, believing wholeheartedly that God answers prayer in miraculous ways. However, Christians should also embody the ethics of the Kingdom of God in our day. One is not at the expense of the other. Both are integral to discipleship.
In response to the Uvalde school shooting last week, we have heard another round of “thoughts and prayers.” While some criticize this response out of a spiteful, anti-religious bias, many are rightly acknowledging that prayer without action is meaningless. However, the Christian vision of prayer is accompanied by the formation of our ethics. There is a reason that Jesus taught the Lord’s Prayer in the very middle of the Sermon on the Mount, which is the pinnacle of New Testament ethics. Prayer is transformative and it moves the heart of God – but it should also move our own hearts to act justly.
Acknowledging the “thoughts and prayers” phenomenon, Richard Beck writes: “The problem here isn’t with prayer. The problem is the dislocation between prayer and moral action. Christians are well aware of this dislocation. James says, ‘Faith without works is dead.’ The same could be said of prayer.”
The above picture is a great example of the relationship between prayer and ethics. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) played an important part in the Civil Rights Movement through sit-ins and nonviolent resistance. This picture was taken outside of a segregated pool, where this child was turned away from swimming. In response, SNCC leaders came, knelt, and prayed.
This is not passive prayer – they prayed as they actively resisted injustice.
Yet, they also believed that resisting segregation required more than human action – their ethics were grounded in faith and prayer.
In these days marked by violent tragedy, may God’s people cultivate a redemptive imagination in our prayers and through our ethics.
In Part Two, we’ll dive into the text of the Lord’s Prayer and consider the ethics of Matthew 6:9-10.