The Lord’s Prayer is one of the most recited and well known prayers worldwide. Yet, it is probably the least understood. We speak it so freely and frequently in Western society, but do we understand its historical message. As a child, I memorized the prayer, but not until college did I ask for its meaning. What is the “kingdom” all about? Is “hallowed” no more than a vague feeling cosmic importance? It was this prayer that led me to question the Gospel’s demands of me.  Was the Gospel simply a call for private moral forgiveness of the soul by God, which plays outs as a numbers game of winners and losers, of heaven or hell, a Monty Python stereotype of religion? This was hardly a satisfactory answer.  Even a causal reading of the Gospel writings tells a broader story.  What does the Lord’s Prayer teach in its historical, grammatical and literal setting?

A Prescription for Evil

The prayer was Christ’s instructions on how to pray. For the writer Matthew, he places it after Christ’s teaching of Gospel in the Gospel’s most concentrate form, the Sermon on the Mount, in contrast on how not to pray. Luke puts it later in his writings as a direct response to the disciples request on how to pray. Either way, it was a common prayer often repeated by Jesus in his teaching on how to pray. For Jesus, this prayer was a summary of good news in the most personable forms, a petition for forgiveness. Its movement from the sanctification of God’s name, the kingdom come, daily bread, forgiveness of debt, temptation, and its final doxology (although later added) was a well developed prescription for the evil within man and society. As a prayer, it later became the church’s most focused institutionalized mission statements governing those who want to claim His name. But what do these elements mean and what is the critique and caution?

The Historical Setting

To understand the prayer, we must take a quick journey back to the historical context it was written in. There is no better person then the writer Luke who sets the stage. Luke’s preamble in his first four chapters is obsessed to inform us that the mission of Jesus will be a Gospel of good news to the poor and of setting captives free. The prayer is foreshadowed by:

• the foretelling of the birth of John (message of personal righteousness),
• the angel Gabriel’s message of a messiah (a liberating King from the House of David),
• Mary’s Magnificent proclaiming the scattering of rulers and the proud,
• Zacharias’s prophecy at John’s birth for deliverance from subjugation,
• Luke’s notes about census, taxation, the message of peace among men to the shepherds,
• Simenon’s proclamation of international reform,
• John the Baptist call for social repentance (honest taxation and wealth distribution),
• the temptation of Jesus to seek power through conventional politics, and
• Finally in Jesus own words launching himself into public to “preach the gospel to the poor … to proclaim release to the captives … to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord,” (Jubilee).

This message of social reform linked to money and debt is unmistakable and dominates Luke’s preamble. Luke, as the writer, makes no attempt to correct their perceptions of the coming liberation as though they were mistaking a spiritual kingdom for an earthly one. Even Matthew, in locating the prayer after the Sermon on the Mount, links the prayer to social and spiritual reform, not to mention the parables that following directly addressing the topic of monetary debt and wealth distribution.

Private Morality or Public Debt?

But what was this oppression and captivity? The quick answer is moral sin, but we limit our understanding and loose the historical meaning if we stop here. Subjugation to the Jews came in the form of Roman occupation, and Jewish pain was felt in the excessive taxation by Rome, particularly the large scale building projects of Herod the Great. Like all effective forms of empire, it required collaborators on the ground to collect taxes to fund regional development and Rome. For the Romans in Jerusalem, collaboration was provided by the Jewish priesthood and temple built by Herod for the Jewish hierarchy. The temple function was more the just religion, it was bank, the Jewish judicial and mediator of Roman policy. In effect, the temple functioned as both the “IRS” and courts of Rome in Jerusalem. In the class structure that Judaism became as the elite and privileged priesthood (i.e. the blessed) verses the struggling working class, debt was the common instrument for tax collection and the resulting bankruptcy of many who could not pay their bills into slavery.  Rome’s appetite for taxes reduced the common family to Maslow’s struggle for basic needs. Such were the times and the penetrating focus of the Lord ’s Prayer.

In this short prayer, Jesus walks his listeners them through a check list, like the one you start saying “yes” to until you get to the part that you want to say, “Hey, wait a minute.” First he calls for God’s name to be sanctified. Most of us would easily concede this point. The text literally says, “Let your name be sanctified…” The verb “hollowed” or literally “to sanctify,” in its original form, is not a call to the adoration of the holiness of God, but rather an exhortation that God be sanctified by His people (agiasthato – 3 p. sing. 1 aor. pass. imper). Sanctifying is something that is done to God’s name. Give all that has been done in God’s name, sanctifying His name, or setting it apart from all the injustice, evil, or even just bad religion is a starting point for the renewal of good faith in society. Thus, the following words, “thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” makes sense. No problem here. Jesus’ comment about God’s will be done here, as it is in heaven, is something every believer would agree to as well. As most Christians and Jews believe that God is good, it’s a general enough statement that gets the positive approval. We can easily bring together these two points, clearing or redeeming His Name and looking for the goodness of God in this world.

Bread, Money, and Debt – Temptation or Salvation

The next statement, “give us our daily bread,” begins to be more specific, but in an appealing way. Yes, we want to eat, especially in such financially constrained and taxation heavy society. So bread, as a representation of the most basic of the needs in that time, is that substance of “lunch” that we all need. But, implicit in the lunch is commerce and money, and like the saying goes, there is no free lunch. Food is a good thing, and a daily struggle which we can’t imagine in our modern 1st world countries. It’s the link between eating and commerce which take us to his next line and the core of the matter, “sanctifying” God’s name and His Kingdom on earth.

Here’s the punch line. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive those are indebted to us.” Yes, the word is debt, monetary debt in the original Greek and not the generic word “sin” as we commonly learned in Sunday school (Kittle, Theological Dictionary, Vol V, 1977, p.559ff).  Over time, the term debt became to mean moral debt to God.  However, both the preamble (ie noted above) and post amble of the content (ie Matt 18 – the  unforgiving servant, Luke 7 – the two debtor, etc.) and Jesus’ own qualification of the term (“those that are indebted to us” ie money) link the word to its obvious historical meaning, monetary debt .

The logic Jesus develops between bread and debt may be a bit disturbing. Debt is something that his Jewish audience was very familiar with, similar to the subprime crises of today, but much more widespread. As mentioned, debt was the instrument of subjugation by the Romans (i.e. taxes), a common form of enslavement in business dealings (i.e. entire families who fall victim to it judicial precedence) and a necessary means to eat and prosper for whole communities. However, it had a terrible underbelly. Penalties were swift and harsh, no chapter 11 or 7 laws here. The reality of bread, health and prosperity, unfortunately, was tied to debt and abusive bondage unless you were a Roman citizen or part of the Jewish priestly class. These modes of economic abuse from the highest levels of society were front and center issues for the common man. As such, our Lord’s Prayer strikes with precision at the aliments of society and for some. This prayer was not for the weak of wallet. Can you say Jubilee? Are there any bankers reading this?

Of course, history later began to interpret this prayer as just sin and not debt, watering down its original message, but if we roll back the clock to the moment, the meaning is socially insightful. Being honest to the text incorporates monitory debt and what it means to say “hallow be your name.” and “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Are there debts in heaven or structures of monetary subjugation? Maybe that’s the point.

God’s kingdom has much to do with the forgiveness of debt, and particularly those forms of debt that become socially destructive (not all debt is bad). The focus on debt is an important part of what it means to be Christian and to pray as a Christian. God forgives me, I forgive others. Well, maybe. But what if no one owes me anything? Perhaps this question is too narrow. The better question in the spirit of the prayer is, can I though my own means set another free? What and where are the monetary structures of abuse and bondage where the forgiveness of debt can set another free? And, can I do something about it? Are we slothful or vigilant in this matter? Is the hand that is able to set free cut off from the arm and unable to act?

The Culture of Consumption vs. the Common Good

Perhaps a social commentary from none other than the late Pope John Paul II may help us understand this prayer. Pope John Paul II insight in his Papacy was a critique of western values and capitalism, what he called the culture of death and consumerism. We won’t touch on the culture of death, but the excess of capitalism are consumerism and individualism, culture that is obsessed with “having” and not “being.” In other words, the owning and collecting of possession with no understanding on what it means to have so much. Being, the habit of one’s heart and mind in community, trumps the pursuit of the material or consumption. The Pope’s struggle and justified pessimism is, will our individualism to consume compel us to seek the common good? Individualism, unfortunately, is not a call to set the captives of free. No Jubilee here, just lots of toys. God and His kingdom exist when community and its forces of liberation trump the neurotic excess of individual priorities, when we become more concerned about our neighbor then our own skin. Can you say, “God help me!”

Dietrich Bonheoffer, the German theologian who was executed for his role to assonate Hitler in WWII, understood this kingdom principle with painful clarity. In his paper on “Sanctorum Communio,” the communion of saints, he sees the absence of Christ in the church because of a lack of community, or what he calls the divided Christ between class societies. No Kingdom come here. It is only within true community where the rich know the poor, an undivided Christ, that the gospel and Christ are revealed, where the bonds of oppression can be identified and address. Bonheoffer’s initial solution, in Nazi Germany, was to start the Confessing Church, a body of Christian pastors who opposed Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. Ironically, in what was one of Hitler’s first act against the Jews, he took away their ability to eat bread, not directly, but with the breaking of glass, he shuts down their ability to engage in commerce. The Jews became a people in debt and bondage.

One can think of many examples today of bondage, from the economic slavery in India and Asia, of children sold to settle debts usually for health issues into the sex slave trade, and of how the slave trade, human trafficking, is at its peak in human history. There is bondage in the lack of capital preventing families or communities from accessing working funds to pay for simple machinery or farm animals that could sustain them. Small capital injections by our standards can bring enormous freedom in a 3rd world. There are too many modern day examples that can be written here. You can fill in the blank. No one owes you money? We’re not off the hook. “Thy kingdom come” is a mission for the pursuit to set captive free. However, the question remains, will consumerism and individualism save the day? Or, are the values of “Sanctorum Communio” the communion of saints, a more effect means to break human bondage?

Evil’s Nemesis

Our prayer is not done. “And deliver us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” What is the axis of evil here? Perhaps it is the combination of consumerism, individualism and those structures, companies and institutions that perpetuate bondage and violence the through free markets. “Fair Trade,” in the coffee business, although not perfect, highlights the practice of unfair trade and our temptation to evil. Yes, Adam Smith was right when he stated that markets, or the invisible hand, make the most efficient economies. He also warned of the excesses of the market.  Profit is a good thing, but is it tempered by other values? Who said profit was the end game alone?  What about liberation?

One last final thought. The Lord’s Prayer is not a critique of Capitalism or America. It critiques Christians, how WE should pray, those who claim Christ’s name, in whatever society or time we find ourselves, Rome or modern America. Perhaps, in the spirit of the prayer, it can be a contract with God governing our own actions in the world of commerce. Saint Augustine called the prayer the terrible petition.  Bertrand Russell, the French Philosopher, commented that the values of Sermon on the Mount were great ideals, but of little use as Christians in general do not practice them, a penetrating observation on his part. It’s not easy to claim His name, especially when to hallow his Name on earth means to forgive and fight abusive monetary debts.

This editoral was originally posted on the Aletheia Forum under The Lord’s Prayer

Holding the economic bailout of the Wall Street to a higher standard may sound trite, trivial or worse, irrelevant in our age of analysis and analytic antidotes. It takes intellectual courage to suggest that our cure may lie outside the temples of higher education and think tanks. But in time of crisis, we often look to the measure of morality for guidance.

On the marble frieze of the façade of the US Supreme Court is the court’s pantheon of 18 prominent lawgivers of history, from Moses to Muhammad. Concerning the matter of social and monetary debt, only one had more to say then Moses as the great interpreter of the Law of Moses, Jesus Christ. Are there forgotten lessons hidden in the pages of wisdom asking to be told again? Are there obligations and insights for Wall Street? What about Main Street? In our age of financial modernity, can the past offer us anything?

Business Ethics: An Historical Case Study

Two historic stories resonate for today’s financial bailouts and shoring up institutions too big to fail. They are not the narratives of economic due diligence, but of vice and virtue. They are told to confront conventional financial wisdom, yet accessible and intuitive to the listener of any education. Their message is immortalize, not in the text book, but in the language of a parable. For Wall Street, it is the parable of the unforgiving servant. For Main Street, it is the prodigal’s son. Both parables address remedies for large scale debt, social obligations, and our attitudes to the recipients of monetary release. These remedies inform our cultural values and give us different tools to guide our policy decisions. The question remains, do we have the moral sophistication to adopt such truth telling narratives, or will we ignore the tools of inner and outer freedom that could lift us out of our crisis?

Ethical Issues of a Financial Bailout: Suspending Moral Hazard

For Wall Street, the unforgiving servant tells of a king who reconsiders his judgment against a servant. The servant, who owed millions of dollars, lacked the assets on his balance sheet to pay it back. The servant appealed, and the king was moved by compassion. Compassion trumped the servant’s sentence and the mechanics of the servant’s liquidation into slavery. But here’s the rub of the matter. What does the servant do with his new found freedom? Does the servant reciprocate or “pay forward” the same forgiveness and compassion to those who owe him significantly smaller sums of money? As a creditor, the servant sends his debtors into a debtor’s prison, liquidating their assets and personal freedom until the debt is paid. Oddly enough, it was the common folk, who now felt compassion for servant’s debtors in prison. Their appeal to the king results in a reconsideration of his decision. The king reprimands the servant, revokes his debtor’s forgiveness and liquidates the servant’s assets and freedom.

Regrettably, the message of financial forgiveness was not a spiritualize lesson to be conveniently reduced to the realm of private morality. The listeners of the parable recognize what it meant. In a world of debtor and creditors, the values propagated by this parable would directly impact the creditor’s balance sheets. So if, by any standard, we claim that in “God we Trust” or invoke His favor at time of war or claim Him as a “Christian nation,” then we elicit principles by which we will be measured by. Ironically, the actions of the US Government to provide financial aid to the tottering financial giants without oversight could be considered that great act of compassion and forgiveness aimed at mitigating a market disaster.

This is bit to noble for politics, but here is the rub. As the Government pours billions of dollars into these faltering institutions, how do these creditor institutions treat their debtors in financial difficulties? Do they apply the same standards of help, attention, restoration, or even better, forgiveness? Where are the community voices telling the stories of how an AIG or Countrywide extended the same measures of financial freedom they received? To whom have they forgiven, restructure, or restored human flourishing in communities of foreclosures? The parable begs significant questions for the behaviors of our sacred institutions of capitalism, only of course if in “God we Trust.”

An Ethical Example for Main Street

What about Main Street? Should Main Street be bailed out? Is there not explicit resentment by those who managed their money towards those that did not? Are the victims of predatory financing, by their own choosing, reaping the risks they have taken? Why should they be rescued from their mistakes at the expense of the taxpayer? Are we in risk of perpetuating a socialist agenda that devalues our country?

The parable of the prodigal son does not finish the story with a son who returns home to the delight of his father. The prodigal son returns home broke after he exhausted his father’s inheritance on variety of sinful delights. Is this the kind of son we would want to see returning home? This situation sets the stage for the message of the parable. The parable ends on the examination of the attitude of responsible bother, a son who remained in the service of his father and his feelings toward the prodigal brother, his father’s forgiveness and extravagance acceptance of this undisciplined family member.

The brother’s attitude, characterize by anger and resentment that the father never extended such special favors to him, is contrasted and trumped by the importance of the prodigal son’s restoration. Human flourishing is to be prized, even if the recipients deserve a lesser fate. If a member of the community is lost, compromised, trapped by debt, do we value their restoration even at the expense of the taxpayer? Regardless of how they arrived at their situation, whether by just deserts or by folly, is our hope for their ability to thrive? If my neighbor is threatened by foreclosure and the government by reasonable means funds his or her home (i.e. reduces the debt to a manageable load), what is my attitude? Most American’s would most likely side with the resentment of the responsible brother. The parable poses the question of how really “Christian” a nation America is or if it can be properly said that God is on our side. To be on God’s side, according to the parable, is to celebrate human flourishing.

Redefining Moral Hazard

Moral hazard is the belief that we should be punished for financial risk when those risks go bad. This is the conventional wisdom of the banks and home foreclosures, even when alternate arrangements may keep people in their homes. The hazard it to those that take risk (i.e. the debt) and punishment maintains the morality or integrity the borrower. Often, at event of eviction, the quip, “it’s nothing personal, just the market” evokes the principle of moral hazard. However, maybe it is personal and personal at the most fundamental level, at the level that evolves not only our moral relationship of man to man, but man to God. Perhaps what trumps moral hazard is when the powerful are forgiven and in turn, fail to extend that same forgiveness. Is not this double standard the situation that makes moral hazard morally wrong and carries the dire warning of the parable above?

The “Terrible Petition” is what St. Augustine called the Lord’s Prayer because it evoked the call to forgive debt. With St Augustine’s insight, is it still appropriate to recite the prayer in public when our institutions evoke moral hazard to evict families from their most sacred possession, their home? The Prayers invocation to forgive our monetary debts as we forgive others of monetary debt is a frightening proposition and a uniquely Christian vision. Do we really want to do that? Yet, it was the measure of God’s banking values in community. Perhaps it is just best to leave behind the wisdom of the ages and focus on the benign tools of monetary and fiscal policy and listen to the convention of moral hazard. Morality and money have always been strange bedfellows.

This editorial was originally posted on the Aletheia Forum.