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The Lord’s Prayer When Bread Is Scarce and Debts Are High
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Perhaps the most well-known words from the Bible are the “Lord’s Prayer.” Versions of the prayer occur in both the “The Sermon On The Mount” in Matthew 6:9-13 and “the Sermon on the Plain” in Luke 11:1-4. Although it is not immediately obvious to most people who pray this prayer, this prayer is deeply concerned with economic issues.
Even though every Christian church uses the Lord’s Prayer, following Matthew’s version rather than Luke’s, there are variations in the exact wording.
Some churches use the archaic English, “thy” and “thine.” Protestant churches usually end the prayer with the words, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory.” Roman Catholics do not recite this ending.
The most critical vocabulary difference is whether a church refers to “debts,” “trespasses,” or “sins.”
Jesus was referring to real bread and real debts when he taught his followers to pray for daily bread and forgiveness of debts. He was not simply teaching a prayer about spiritual nurture and forgiveness of sins.
In his prayer, Jesus makes clear that his followers are to pray for real bread and forgiveness of financial debts. In Greek, the word for debt is a financial term. Jesus’ concern for bread and debts is consistent with his social and ethical approach to his society. He focused on the injustices of his society against the poor and dispossessed.
The most important belief expressed in the prayer is that the time will come when God will establish God’s rule on earth, in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God does not refer to Heaven. It refers to God’s rule on earth, when God will end oppression, poverty, and suffering on earth. This is clear in the language, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
The economic foundation of the prayer is lost when the words “bread” and “debts” become spiritual metaphors with no connection to real food and economic debt
No one who heard Jesus speak would have limited his words about bread and debts to spiritual metaphors. Jesus spoke to a population who were underfed and overtaxed. Most of the peasants were in debt, because the king and the elite class owned the land. They claimed proprietary rights to the land and everything grown on it. The demands from the ruling class were so high that the peasants were deeply in debt. In addition, many of the beggars were people who had been forced off the land because they could not pay their debts to the ruling class.
Jesus condemned the society, which had created such a vast gap between the haves and the have-nots. He criticized the rich for exploiting and oppressing the poor. He also criticized the religious system for judging so many groups of people in the society to be “unclean” and unworthy of God’s blessing.
He saw firsthand the extent of hunger, poverty, sickness, and suffering endured by most of the population. He saw how the rich landowners grew rich at the expense of the poor. He saw people who were homeless because they had been driven off their land by high rents and taxes. He saw people living in poverty because the largest percentage of what they grew or made or caught was confiscated by taxes. He knew what it was to live under Roman occupation, where Roman soldiers could force people to do almost anything. He saw how the Temple system collaborated with the Roman occupiers to bleed the people of their money and their power.
It is also true that Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer preserves an Aramaic idiom. Aramaic writings show that the language of “debt” and “debtors” was used regularly for “sin” and “sinners.” Jesus spoke Aramaic and clearly intended that the word “debts” in the prayer refer to both money debts and sins.
In Luke, the financial reality behind the metaphor is lost because Luke uses the word “sin” rather than “debt.” This obscures the underlying concern with real bread and real debts.
Especially in these times of food shortages and rampant debts, Christians who want to pray as Jesus intended need to restore the basic economic meaning to the prayer. This is especially significant at a time when basic staples such as wheat, rice, and corn have become more and more scarce. It is also significant for the millions of people who are swamped in debt and facing foreclosure and bankruptcy because of debts they cannot repay.
Jesus intended his words to refer to suffering and injustice in his own society. This prayer for bread and debts referred to real bread and forgiveness of real financial debts.
Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D. What if most of what you believe about Jesus and money is not true? Don’t let Bible study lessons based on mistranslations and biblical urban legends fill you with guilt and confusion about money. I have written a book about 8 sayings of Jesus, Going Broke With Jesus:How Heroic Stories Intended To Liberate The Poor Become Biblical Urban Legends About The Evils Of Money to show how often Christian teaching misunderstands the true intentions of what Jesus said about money. Get your copy at www.GoingBrokeWithJesus.com.
