[Thread]

I don’t go a day without praying The Our Father. A remarkable prayer for the personal, communal and political realities before us.

1) Our Father in heaven - We are reminded that God is fundamentally a tender and embracing parent. This is arguably the most important revelation Jesus gives us of God. God's tenderness and embrace is to make us tender as well.

2) Hallowed be your name - there's no name (country, leader, ideology, etc) that we are to deem sacred/holy but God's name alone. Every other name is subject to critique.

3) Your Kingdom Come/Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. - We pray for heaven's reality to become our reality.

There are no bans on refugees in heaven. There are no executive orders that marginalize people in heaven.
There is no poverty, violence, or racism in heaven.

4) Give us this day our daily bread - we pray for what we need, and pray for those without for their needs, whether physical, economic, social or spiritual.

5) Forgive us our trespasses - We're all messed up. We're all complicit in the mess of this world. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, "the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being."

6) As we forgive those who trespass against us - life in the kingdom is about forgiveness at its core. Followers of Jesus must resist the pull to hate and return evil with evil.

7) Lead us not into temptation - We are weak and frail. We are liable to do that which we don't want to. We turn back to our sins so easily.

8) Deliver us from the evil one - We are wrestling not with flesh and blood but powers/principalities. Legislation alone isn't the answer. We need the mighty power of God.

9) Yours is the kingdom, power, glory forever, Amen.

All kingdoms and empires will pass away. God's kingdom, power and glory will always remain. Amen.