A Response to 'The Shaping of the Lord's Prayer'

From Cliff L., Retired UCC Minister....

Barry, regarding your article about the changes in the "Lord's Prayer," it is unfortunate that we cannot get back to the person known as Jesus of Nazareth. We cannot know exactly what he said. We can only know what others said about him. Many have tried to isolate the sayings and the activities of Jesus, but have failed.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer was one of the first and foremost to begin this search in his 'The Quest for the Historical Jesus' (1906). The Bible literalists insist that Jesus actually said the things that the Bible says he said, but no serious scholar of the Bible would hold to that view, I think.

This means that the "Lord's Prayer" is a misnomer. Jesus may have prayed similar words, but we have no tape recording of his actual sayings. This, of course, has implications for worship. If we are to be honest, do we keep saying, "Let's pray the words Jesus taught us to pray?" Perhaps the best we can do is to pray as Jesus "might have prayed" or "the words ascribed to Jesus."

Worship is and ought to be always changing to reflect our understanding of our faith.