14 April 2024
Here we begin another section of the book (four chapters), which is devoted to the Model Prayer, Matthew 6:5-9.
Bailey testifies that he was one of the first Christian professors to teach in Latvia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the conference he encountered a woman who had grown up under communism, and whose sole point of introduction to the gospel was that they were permitted to cite the Model Prayer at funerals, even under communism.
We note that Jesus begins with the admonition that we avoid praying as Gentiles do, spilling out vast quantities of verbal noise as ritual. The Father in not impressed with a recitation of all His various titles among men. Save that for fragile egos, like human emperors who demand a ton of protocol.
In our modern high tech lives, the price for everything includes a healthy dose of advertising noise and attempts to capture your eyeballs. Even medical offices offer no peace, but feature screens blaring senseless blather. And if you happen to be in some place like an airport, you endure the racket of multiple cellphone conversations laid over the TVs, announcements, etc. Excessive words can be pretty cheap, just like inflated currency. The biblical admonition is to consider carefully what you should say and keep the value high.
There are both similarities and differences between the Model Prayer and those demanded by the Talmudic traditions of Jesus' day. The Lord acted like a customary three prayer times per day had become an excuse not to pray at any other time, so He tended to ignore the custom, sometimes praying all night long. However, common elements of the memorized ritual prayers of the Talmud (there were 18) do show up in the one Jesus recommended: daily bread (appearing in the middle of both), mention of the coming Kingdom, some of the rhythms and the doxology, plus the intention that it be used both privately and publicly.
The opening lines are consistent in Semitic texts: "Our Father who is in Heaven, let it be hallowed Your name" (baldly literal translation). Bailey notes that Jesus departs from the tradition of reciting prayers in the obscure ancient Hebrew, and preferred the common vernacular Aramaic of His day. Unlike ritual Judaism and Islam (with their 7th Century Arabic), there is no sacred language in Christianity. There is no unique "language of God". This opened the door for the New Testament scriptures to be written in Greek, and encouraged further translations later.
Bailey tells us that the choice to address God with the Aramaic abba means that He transcends the single ethnic nation of Israel and covers all nations. In some ways, it is roughly equivalent to our "sir", but can be used personally. The Apostles seem to have hung onto it, inserting the Aramaic word in Greek texts. Yet it was clearly more personal than Hebrews had come to expect. You can bet it choked most Jews to address God that way. Today, Arabs teach abba as the first word a child should say, rather like our "da-da" on the way to "daddy", so it makes them uncomfortable, too.
The author tells us that early churches were laid out with a section for church family and a section in the back for "catechumens" -- people who had not professed faith in Christ, and thus were not baptized. They were ushered out before communion, and it appears many churches recited the Model Prayer at the beginning of it. The point is that they didn't want outsiders call God "our Father".
There is a danger of slipping into sloppy thinking about God as "daddy" because of our earthly associations. Jesus used the Parable of the Prodigal Son to paint the same image as Hosea 11:1-9 -- God as a very powerful but compassionate father. His heart aches for us when we stray. Because Judaism had forgotten so much about God, this parable was a strong reassertion of the ancient Hebrew outlook. Bailey also warns against the feminist cult that demands God be rendered with female imagery, too. But he does it with way too much virtue signaling, and does not assert it with firmness.
Still, he does manage to make the point that, if God as patriarch is so threatening, how about we discuss adding feminine characteristics to the image of Satan? The Devil is also portrayed overwhelmingly male. Still, the Bible incorporates imagery of God and His servants acting as mothers, too.
We really need to keep an eye on our Father "who is in Heaven". He's not daddy in the same extended family household -- at least, not yet. Not until we are in Heaven, too. For now, His transcendence is critical to our awareness. We cannot afford to forget that we are still flesh. And by all means, let's not start thinking of Him merely as "my Father".
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