Commentary on Martin Luther's Small Catechism, Part Three: The Lord's Prayer

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Commentary

In this part of the Catechism, Luther reveals how Jesus provided us with a daily pratice, a recommended prayer, which reinforces a loving relationship with God, and ultimately also with everyone and everything else.

Luther’s theology reasserted Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith. Justification by faith insist that we are “justified” before God (our failures to follow God’s law are forgiven) only as a free gift from God, and not by any actions on our part. This doctrine contrasts with legalism that is, the notion that our good behavior plus a sincerely repentant attitude cancels out our bad behavior in God’s ledger book. Luther viewed legalism as a psychologically cruel doctrine, since anyone with insight into their own behavior would have to live in constant terror of God’s wrath. Legalism not only contradicts Scripture, but also leads to terror, despair or a deliberate ignorance and cynicism.

The use of legalism in social control, however, is obvious: tell people to behave or they will go to hell. In the Middle Ages, the temptation to wield theology as an instrument of social control had proved irresistable to the Church. The notions of an ethical “balance sheet” of good and bad behavior, of Purgatory, even supported taxation in the form of indulgences.

The Reformation did away with this, in Protestant countries, at least. Rejection of legalism raises a question, however: what is the religious basis for ethical behavior? If you do away with the heaven-and-hell, carrot-and-stick construct, what enforces right-and-wrong? Luther’s answer was to return to love as the foundation of ethics, and in particular, a loving relationship with God through a deepened spirituality.

The full extent of the new German spirituality of the late Middle Ages can be seen in works like the Theologica Germanica, a mystical writing by an anonymous author wirtten around 1350, and published and promoted by Luther in 1518, just a few years before the Small Catechism. However, while this kind of deep mysticism was suitable for monks, the Small Catechism was written for ordinary people. For ordinary people, the will of God is made known through uncompromising presentation of the Ten Commandments (as in Part One). An introduction to a loving relationship with God is presented through the Lord’s Prayer.

To encourage prayer, however, Luther realized he had to address very basic questions. Who is God? What is prayer? What is it for? The “visitation” or inspection of the Saxon churches had shown him that outside the walls of his University, ignorance in religious matters was the rule.

Luther repeats frequently in the Catechism that the words of the prayer don’t have the same meaning they would have in ordinary conversation. God would provide these things whether we asked for them or not. God knows what we want, Luther must remind people. The prayer is for our benefit, not God’s.

Prayer reinforces humility. It is all too easy in the crush of human events to forget how little control we have. Indeed, it is to some degree a psychological necessity to think of ourselves as more effective, more powerful, and more in control than we really are. Just as necessary, though, Luther realized, is the recognition, daily or more often, that we are not the masters of our fate.

Note the specificity with which Luther defines “Daily Bread”. He expects the faithful to repeat this prayer frequently, applying this notion to all the concerns of daily life. While the concerns of “daily bread” are matters in which we provide for ourselves --God helps them who help themselves-- our loving relationship with God is inextricably bound with our conduct in the world. In Luther’s world --that is, in the spiritual world of a medieval monk-- in all our daily activities, no matter how trivial, we never act alone: God is always with us to help, the Devil is always present to hinder.

In the Small Catechism, Luther of course follows the lead of the Scripture and Jesus’ habit of referring to God as his “Father”. However, after the Small Catechism had been in print for awhile, and in the meantime Luther had married and had children of his own, he added a phrase inviting us to approach God “in the same way beloved children approach their beloved Father with their requests.” Clearly, this is not going to mean as much to people who, unlike Luther, have experienced difficult child-parent relations. However, the basic point is that children can expect to be fed and cared for by the parents without asking for it, and on the other hand, parents don’t always give you what you ask for.

When Jesus recommends this prayer, he uses an Aramaic word for Father: “Abba”. “Abba” is a childish expression, like “Daddy”. Jesus recommends approaching God like a child. To the agnostic, atheist or non-theist, I would invite the experiment of reading “God” to mean “the Other”, everything that is not “the Self”. The fact of the “Other” is not up for reasonable debate, and the “existence” of “God” is more a question of definition: what is the Other? Most religions and religious practices constitute reminders and methods of dealing with the fact that the part of the world under the control of “Self” is rather limited. The Lord’s Prayer approaches this self-other rift from the primordial or pre-rational perpective of a child. When we are infants we learn or experience that our bodies are finite, that there exist objects and people outside of our bodies, and that we must interact with these things outside us to satisfy our needs. The boundary between “Self” and “Other” is blurred, however, when it comes to Mother: her body remains connected with our body in an intimate way, and she responds to our needs almost as if we had only to think them. Eventually we recognize the existance of a person with a more independent existence, not as responsive and with his own agenda, who nonetheless cares about us: Father. Eventually we come to realize there are more than two people in the world as well as variety of things, but parents are the first and primordial “Other” we have to deal with.

The Small Catechism of Martin Luther

Part Three: The Lord's Prayer

(Translated by Robert E. Smith)

The Our Father

The Simple Way a Father Should Present it to His Household

I. Introduction

Our Father, Who is in Heaven...

Q. What does this mean?

A. In this introduction, God invites us to believe that He is our real Father and we are His real children, so that we will pray with trust and complete confidence, in the same way beloved children approach their beloved Father with their requests.

II. The First Request

May Your name be holy...

Q. What does this mean?

A. Of course, God's name is holy in and of itself, but by this request, we pray that He will make it holy among us, too.

Q. How does this take place?

A. When God's Word is taught clearly and purely, and when we live holy lives as God's children based upon it. Help us, Heavenly Father, to do this! But anyone who teaches and lives by something other than God's Word defiles God's name among us. Protect us from this, Heavenly Father!

III. The Second Request

Your Kingdom come...

Q. What does this mean?

A. Truly God's Kingdom comes by itself, without our prayer. But we pray in this request that it come to us as well.

Q. How does this happen?

A. When the Heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that we believe His holy Word by His grace and live godly lives here in this age and there in eternal life.

IV. The Third Request

May Your will be accomplished, as it is Heaven, so may it be on Earth...

Q. What does this mean?

A. Truly, God's good and gracious will is accomplished without our prayer. But we pray in this request that is be accomplished among us as well.

Q. How does this happen?

A. When God destroys and interferes with every evil will and all evil advice, which will not allow God's Kingdom to come, such as the Devil's will, the world's will and will of our bodily desires. It also happens when God strengthens us by faith and by His Word and keeps living by them faithfully until the end of our lives. This is His will, good and full of grace.

V. The Fourth Request

Give us our daily bread today...

Q. What does this mean?

A. Truly, God gives daily bread to evil people, even without our prayer. But we pray in this request that He will help us realize this and receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.

Q. What does ``Daily Bread'' mean?

A. Everything that nourishes our body and meets its needs, such as: Food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, yard, fields, cattle, money, possessions, a devout spouse, devout children, devout employees, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors and other things like these.

VI. The Fifth Request

And forgive our guilt, as we forgive those guilty of sinning against us...

Q. What does this mean?

A. We pray in this request that our Heavenly Father will neither pay attention to our sins nor refuse requests such as these because of our sins and because we are neither worthy nor deserve the things for which we pray. Yet He wants to give them all to us by His grace, because many times each day we sin and truly deserve only punishment. Because God does this, we will, of course, want to forgive from our hearts and willingly do good to those who sin against us.

VII. The Sixth Request

And lead us not into temptation...

Q. What does this mean?

A. God tempts no one, of course, but we pray in this request that God will protect us and save us, so that the Devil, the world and our bodily desires will neither deceive us nor seduce us into heresy, despair or other serious shame or vice, and so that we will win and be victorious in the end, even if they attack us.

VIII. The Seventh Request

But set us free from the Evil One.

Q. What does this mean?

A. We pray in this request, as a summary, that our Father in Heaven will save us from every kind of evil that threatens body, soul, property and honor. We pray that when at last our final hour has come, He will grant us a blessed death, and, in His grace, bring us to Himself from this valley of tears.

IX. Amen.

Q. What does this mean?

A. That I should be certain that such prayers are acceptable to the Father in Heaven and will be granted, that He Himself has commanded us to pray in this way and that He promises to answer us. Amen. This means: Yes, yes it will happen this way.

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