If you missed them, read Part One or Part Two of The Ethics of the Lord’s Prayer.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.
Matthew 6:11-13 NRSV
Verse 11: Asking for Daily Bread
After establishing God’s holiness and praying for God’s Kingdom to come on earth as in heaven, the Lord’s Prayer turns to supplication. However, this supplication does not establish an ethic of accumulation, but an ethic of trust. Rather than asking God for prosperity, Jesus prays for daily bread. He asks for enough for today, trusting that his Father will care for him.
So much of the modern world operates by the logic of comfort, pleasure, and prosperity. Consequently, the Lord’s Prayer is a scandalous reminder of the ethics of simplicity, trust, and allegiance to Jesus. The Christian disciple can imagine a different way of economy, which trusts the Father for daily bread - not Mammon for plenty.
Of course, the theme of this series is the inescapable relationship between prayer and ethics. An economic ethic of trust still requires action. We should work hard, steward God’s gifts, and practice generosity. For affluent Christians, the Lord’s Prayer is a challenge to an ethic of generosity that partners with God to provide daily bread for others. Even further, to call on God for daily bread reminds us that we are needy creatures, not self-sufficient creators.
This prayerful ethic of trust transforms economy from a Kingdom-hindrance to an act of discipleship.
Verse 12: Commitment to Forgiveness
This verse spells out its ethical implications: we must forgive our debtors! This verse certainly includes forgiving others’ sins. Forgiveness is foundational to Christian ethics and discipleship. The Lord’s Prayer suggests that it’s in forgiving that we can request forgiving. Yet, you might also imagine a variety of debts… forgive them all! In doing so, we mimic our Father in heaven.
Miroslav Volf describes forgiveness this way: “To forgive is to condemn the wrongdoing but not count the wrongdoing against the wrongdoer.” I appreciate this description because it resists simplistic portraits of forgiveness and acknowledges that true forgiveness must confront the wrongdoing. The Lord’s Prayer, then, evokes deep repentance by leading us to confront our own sins. By praying this prayer, we commit to the ethics of humility and forgiveness.
Verse 13: Rescue Us!
The Lord’s Prayer culminates in the ultimate plea to God: rescue us! Protect us from evil and its devastating effects. Deliver us from trials, Lord.
This conclusion is about the ethics of dependence. I am not God. I am limited. There is a limit to the power of human ethics. Ultimately, our ethics require prayerful humility. I need a savior, and so I continue to pray to the God who brought Israel out of Egypt, raised Jesus from the dead, and fills all believers with the power of the Holy Spirit.
In this series, I’ve contended that ethics and prayer should not be engaged at each other’s expense. In our prayer, we can imagine more Christlike ethics. In our ethics, we can imagine new prayers. I pray that these simple reflections might inspire you to reengage the Lord’s Prayer with redemptive imagination.