Our Father in heaven

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation

but deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power

and the glory are yours

now and for ever.

Amen

Another Sunday – another look at the prayer-of-all-prayers… Rowan Williams once said that if asked to summarise the Christian faith on the back of an envelope, you could do no better than to write down the Lord’s Prayer. Is it this succinct but all-encompassing quality which makes it the go-to prayer for people in extremis, whether they are tiptoeing round the edges of faith or already fully immersed? Or that they’ve known it since childhood? Or that it came from Jesus himself? Or is it to do with that opening phrase which boldly claims a close, familial relationship with God?    

The Lord’s Prayer tells us that, awaiting the fullness of God’s kingdom, we live in a vulnerable world where there’s uncertainty about tomorrow and evil is powerfully at work. “To stand with dignity and freedom in a world like that,” reflected Williams, “we need to know that God is God, present and powerful and holy, and that we are members of God’s family in an intimate and direct way. With that confidence, that kind of child-like dependence, we’re actually free. We know this is a relationship nothing can break.”

The Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic, Jesus’ mother tongue, sits on the page above (read right to left). And, by clicking on the link below, you’ll get movingly close to hearing what the disciples heard from him. You may also like to listen to a sung version of these words from northern Israel.