24 Feb 26 | The Lord's Prayer
Jesus replaces anxious verbosity with filial trust and gives His disciples a prayer that reorders desire around the Father’s name, kingdom, and mercy.
The Gospel: Matthew 6:7-15
Jesus said to his disciples:
“In praying, do not babble like the pagans,
who think that they will be heard because of their many words.
Do not be like them.
Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“This is how you are to pray:
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”
“If you forgive men their transgressions,
your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men,
neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”
Today’s Focus
In this portion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reorients prayer away from performance and toward relationship. He rejects mechanical verbosity and ritual manipulation, emphasizing instead that the Father already knows what His children need. The Lord’s Prayer itself forms the disciple’s heart by placing God’s name, kingdom, and will before personal requests. It teaches dependence rather than excess, mercy rather than transaction, and trust rather than control. Prayer becomes alignment with God’s purposes, not persuasion of His will.
In the Margins
This Gospel passage is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has just warned of giving to the poor for attention, praying for the sake of being admired, and fasting so others will see you fasting. Now He clarifies the nature and purpose of prayer. It continues the Sermon’s emphasis on interior righteousness rather than outward display.
He opens by telling the people to not babble like pagans. The Greek term battalogeō likely refers to empty repetition or mechanical verbosity. In many Greco-Roman religious practices, prayer often functioned as ritual precision. The focus was on length and formula that were believed to secure divine favor. The divine was often approached as needing persuasion or ritual appeasement. Here, Jesus does not condemn repetition itself (He prays repetitively in Gethsemane) but does condemn the belief that quantity compels divine action. He is telling the people that prayer should be intentional, not just repetitive and meaningless, which is in keeping with the sermon’s focus on internal devotion to God.
In Jewish prayer, God was acknowledged as Father (cf. Isaiah 63:16), but Jesus intensifies the intimacy and personal trust. Jesus makes the point that the prayer is not to transfer information to God. It is not informing Him of something He may have missed. It is participation in the relationship. The Father’s knowledge precedes the request, eliminating the performative pressure or notion of manipulation that we saw in Greco-Roman practices. Prayer becomes alignment rather than persuasion.
The prayer unfolds in two movements, the first is God-oriented petitions and the second is human dependence. The order is important, and Jesus teaches it in this way. The opening puts God’s glory before our personal need. We hear that we are supposed to give all glory to God, and this is one of the earliest examples of this, with Jesus teaching that the basic prayer puts glory to God ahead of personal desire.
Exploring the prayer has some interesting subtleties that may otherwise be missed. The prayer itself uses plural pronouns. This shows that even when prayed alone, it binds the prayer to the covenant community. The “Father in heaven” shows our communal intimacy and God’s heavenly transcendence. The one section that is most debated though is the Greek word epiousios, it is a rare word. It is likely tied to daily sustenance, necessary provision, and Bread for the coming day. In this way it would echo the manna of Exodus 16 and sufficiency of Proverbs 30:8. While the exact nuance of epiousios is debated, the petition clearly expresses dependence rather than excess. The Lord’s prayer is not transactional, the reciprocity of forgiveness does not imply earning forgiveness, but reveals that mercy received must become mercy extended. We are connected with mercy. The last sections to touch on is the “lead us not into temptation.” This doesn’t imply God causes temptation, rather calls on the Lord to preserve us in trial, to not permit us to be overwhelmed in testing.
At its core, this Gospel teaches us how to pray the way of the Disciples. It even gives us a prayer that we can memorize and use every day to stay connected to God. It transcends the troubles of first century Jews to the issues we face today. The Lord’s Prayer is not merely recited; it forms identity, desire, dependence, mercy, and perseverance in every generation. In this passage, we learn a prayer that when used today can still reshape our heart.
Reflection Question
When I pray, am I trying to control outcomes or allowing my desires to be reshaped by the will of the Father?
A Small Invitation
If this reflection helped you, consider sharing it with someone who may be carrying more than they think they can handle.