Trying to do an impossible thing with the ‘Our Father’

A Reflection for Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

Find today’s readings here.

In the early ’90s my brother Bill played guitar and sang in coffee shops and concert halls throughout Omaha. He even drove a red Dodge mini-bus to the Northwest one summer, performing in coffee houses for biscuits and scones throughout Washington. His song, “Debutantes of the World, Unite!” was perhaps the high point of any performance. 

“Debutantes…!” was about, as he told the crowd before he started playing, “heartbreak and loss.” (Granted, Bill introduced every single song he ever played by saying “this is a song about heartbreak and loss.”)

The song ends with a young woman, presumably one of the debutantes, giving Bill a list of demands that would make him a suitable man for her to go out with. Stand up straight, dress right, show her a good time every day and night. That kind of thing. Leave behind the biscuits and flannels Bill and plop your money down on the counter at The Gap and a decent Italian restaurant once in a while. 

Offensive!

Not to be topped, Bill responds with:

 “Well, there’s only one way that I would go out with you,
I said there’s only one way that I could go out with you.
If you could write the Lord’s Prayer,
On the back of a postage stamp,
In Magic Marker.”

The Lord’s prayer. The “Our Father.” Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.… You can say it while sleeping, mowing the lawn, scuba diving, eating Grape Nuts. You can probably say it while you are saying other things. The “Our Father” is a thing that is. It is out there. In the culture. 

(In this version of today’s reading, interestingly enough, they use “art” and “thou” instead of “are” and “you” like they do for the rest of the lectionary. With the “Lord’s Prayer” we are back to King James. I imagine because it is comforting, it is what everyone prays.)

And that last line, lead us not into temptation! Strange and captivating phrase! Why would God lead us into temptation! Does God actively do that? Take us directly into temptation such that we need to ask God not to lead us into temptation. No! Of course not! 

But yes, yes, he does lead us into temptation. Why? Because it says here he does; in the “Our Father,” which everyone prays all the time and no one has stopped praying. And we haven’t changed that part in the “Our Father.” At least not in the translation the American church uses. Why not? There may be a certain comfort, weirdly enough, in the idea that if we are going into temptation, it is God who is leading us there. At least we know that God is with us in our trials because he brought us to those trials. 

Who knows? Matter for a thousand theological treatises on the topic of why does a good God allow (or cause?) evil in our lives. But most of us don’t operate from a thousand theological treatises, or hear just the right kind of homily that will nimbly denude the tail end of the most famous prayer in the world of all its troubling connotations. We just pray and do our best. The “Our Father” sums up so much of what life is about. God’s will, and sustenance for daily living, and skirting evil, and mirroring our lives with life in heaven.

“Debutantes…!” always got a rousing response. It was an awesome song. I wonder now: What if the debutante had tried to write the “Our Father” on the back of a postage stamp in Magic Marker? She would be trying to do the impossible. With such a thick felt tip point you can barely write “OurFa.” But the debutante could still try. Try to do the impossible. Try to make it work. Because the crooner of the song means so much, she might drop her own demands and do this insane thing to win him over.

There is a sense that it is impossible to know precisely what a prayer like this means when we talk about God leading us into temptation, or figuring out exactly what God’s will is, or how to deal with it when we don’t get our daily bread. 

But the point, I guess, is not knowing. The point is showing up and doing. The point is not precisely figuring out God’s will, or the perfect answer to any contentious theological question about evil and suffering. The point, maybe, is to take up thy Magic Marker, plunk down thy stamp and write as much as thou can.

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