Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Scripture Readings

In today’s Gospel Jesus’ disciples are earnestly trying to follow him correctly. They want to be taught how to pray. Jesus responds with “When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test."

While this prayer does not go into as much depth as the version taught in Matthew, there are still bold statements we make through this prayer. Let’s take a moment and examine some.

“Give us each our daily bread.” Inherent in this prayer is trust and community. We ask God to give each and every one of us our sustenance for the day.   We do not say that we will take it or that only some of us will receive bread. We are not given bread based on who has more value, fame or power. We do not pray that we are able store a month’s worth of food and stockpile for a rainy day. We are saying that we trust the Lord to provide what we need this day. When we say this, do we mean it?

“Forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us”. In this prayer we admit we are sinful but also that we need forgiveness. At the same time we promise to forgive those who hurt us, no matter the sin. This prayer specifies that we should forgive EVERYONE that is in debt to us. Holding on to grudges, debt, hurt – this is not our call as people of Christ. Just as we ask to be forgiven, to live in freedom, we must forgive EVERYONE who sins against us or owes a debt – this is our work.

We close the prayer asking “do not subject us to the final test.” In this we admit again that we are sinful, broken people. We are not perfect. We are not God. We know that if subjected to the final test we may not be strong enough to say no. We need God in our lives to give us the strength to overcome temptation. We trust our loving God to help us avoid these temptations. We know we will be tested. The only way to pass this test is to put our faith, our trust, our hope, our everything in Christ Jesus.

May we spend some time today sitting with this prayer. What is Jesus saying to you today? Amen.

AJ Grimm