The Reconstructed

“When you pray,” He said.

“Pray like this,” He said.

Our…

Two things, He did not put a timetable on how often, how many times a day or an exact moment of when. It’s just when. Yes, Paul writes, pray without ceasing, encouraging the conversation to keep going without end. 

The other thing is the how. He, Jesus, tells us how to pray, so we avoid the hang ups. 

I have much to say about the Lord’s prayer, how precise the words, how simple, how short it is, how my pentecostal, charismatic background had me believe improvised “heartfelt” long prayers mattered more and how often I’ve heard things like, “you pray so beautifully.” 

And how after praying thousands of heartfelt prayers, many unanswered and hardly miraculous, that I now find solace in something Jesus gave me, something akin to precise wording because many prayers I have heard have come to exhaust me. Perhaps this is a problem. I now question of the value of things I previously believed to be intercession, mostly because of costly disappointment. Maybe we will return to this.

For now I’m choosing to focus and expound on one word, Our, although in Greek the prayer starts with the word Father, and is rendered as Father of us. Perhaps that says something about an English translation or maybe it says nothing. Our translation is trying to capture the genitive case or the possessive, in order to highlight the connectivity of the relationship between us and the Father. In other words God is Our Father, and what makes that more astounding is that Jesus groups himself in with us.

Thus… our.

His, Yours, Mine. I’m going to write this again.

His, Yours, Mine. 

The book of James, says in chapter 4, verse 2. “…You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

Later in James 5:13-18, he does his best work of the entire five chapters (though each chapter ends with a particularly memorable nugget) tying together the essence of not just prayer but Christian community. Although, James almost loses it entirely with his analogy about the prophet Elijah. This is the section that usually gets usurped by the independent unaccountable Christian charismatic. 

“If I a human, like Elijah, can just be or pretend to be righteous, ignoring my own weakness, brokenness and sin, I can pray for rain and wealth and conquer without at all understanding the context before and after.”

None of it happens outside of us: 

Verse 13 is anyone among you (plural) in trouble? Let them pray.

Anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise

Is anyone among you (plural) sick? Let them call on the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord…. if they have sinned they will be forgiven.

Do you hear or see the language of Our?

Therefore confess your (not just yours, all) sins to each other and pray for each other so that you (middle voice) may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

This last one is a little more complex. Because the confession here never actually says your in the singular. Even if the implication is a command for you and me to do it, what is more, I think prescient, in this verse is the acknowledgment of sin in its entirety, that nothing should be held back and that this should be mutual. This to me is further evidenced through phrase “you may be healed” which is rendered in the middle voice which gives an implication that the subject is performing and receiving the action, which in the context of Christian fellowship should be the goal of every party involved. 

C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce renders this in a compelling way. In his depiction of Heaven humans will all be completely transparent. We can see through the perfected Christian because anything they had to hide has been completely cleansed and exposed. This is the goal of forgiveness and healing, to walk free, feel free and to be free from sin (the exploitation and harm of ourselves and others in offense to God. This conceptually is a lot to unpack and define on why or what is in fact sin) including the compulsion to participate in it. To me this feels impossible but hopeful. I don’t want to hurt people or myself or merely serve my own pleasure but here we are. 

I won’t comment on the final section regarding the prayer of the righteous person other than to say, the righteous person is Jesus, is by Jesus, is through Jesus. Anything we come up with in prayer is not entirely original, and it’s only powerful and effective because He wills it. In a sovereign sense, we cannot possibly be changing God’s mind about something. I don’t entirely know what that last sentence is implying about a righteous persons prayer being powerful and effective. Mostly because I have come to believe a lot of people claiming to be righteous who have claimed to answer prayers or have their prayers answered have done so through exploitation or lying or sometimes less maliciously exaggerated through a complete lack of self awareness. 

But I do believe in the context. Which takes us back to Our.

His, Yours, Mine. 

This prayer of mine and yours and even Jesus’ cannot be entirely or even mostly selfish. It cannot just benefit me. That is the only way I can account for many of my unanswered prayers and disappointments. It cannot just meet me in my own pleasure, it cannot be for my wealth, health, privilege, power if it is only serving me or even, I would argue mostly serving me. In fact, an answer to this prayer will probably fundamentally change me and break me further. If I pray for a spouse, am I prepared for self sacrifice. If I pray for a child, am I prepared for patience tested, my time escaping and again self-sacrifice. If I pray for success or wealth, why? So I can further exploit? or can I account for it as a blessing to others?

This I believe runs contrary to most, if not all of prosperity and charismatic teaching if not in word, then most certainly in practice. “Preachers/Pastors” that have abused power and words to further exploit humans will be held accountable. 

“Preachers/Pastors” that want something without performing the essential roles of a shepherd should not be in their role. A pastor shepherd is an Our ministry/job. 

Full stop, don’t give a shit if you are a good businessman, great speaker or even an amazing “leader.” It was never really required of the role. The role is mostly measured, I would argue entirely by not losing the sheep. 

Here is a quick google gemini search of what shepherds do. If you’re a pastor use this list. If you have a pastor measure them by this list. It’s six things:

Protection: Guard against predators, not questions. Guard against dangers. 

Guard doctrine, sure, don’t fear questions, guard against sin, guard against yourself.

Guidance: Leading the sheep to food, water, and safe pastures. 

pointing them to Jesus, but this involves more than preaching, it involves things like teaching people how to read scripture, how to share testimony, and providing the safe space to actually do it together rather than talking at people for an forty-five minutes to an hour

Gathering/Rescuing: Actively seeking out stray or lost sheep to return them to the flock.

If a pastor, you should frequently ask questions of yourself and others as to why people leave, sometimes people leave for very good reasons. If you as the pastor are the danger, maybe you should leave.

Providing Care (Tending): Bandaging injuries, treating illnesses, and shearing

like we actually need to visit and sit with people, how do we know if we are doing this, if people can say I feel like I’m healing under your care, if they are leaving under your care, they probably recognize their only hope for healing is somewhere with some others more capable. 

Knowledge of the Flock: Developing a familiar, trusting relationship with the sheep

If a pastor says they don’t want to know the people among them or be known by the people among them, run. Stop paying people to be faces of churches rather than the hands and feet of them. A pastor also should not only care for the favorites among them.

Use of Tools: Utilizing a rod for defense and a staff for guiding the sheep. 

You should probably know Scripture, know how to pray, know how to be self-aware, and how to be kind and you should probably know where you are going, I don’t mean Heaven or Hell. I mean, if this thing gets bigger do I have a plan to share the load or am I just trying to build a bigger kingdom and do I feel a compulsion to be the most important person in the room? Narcissistic personalities are attracted to the role.

One last thing. A sheep knows it’s a sheep or rather knows its shepherd, not by being told it’s a sheep, but by the shepherds voice. Do you sound like Jesus? Listen to yourself, ask the people around you, when I speak do I sound like how I imagine Jesus to be, how you imagine Him to be? 

The answer to that question is an Our question.