"Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory."

"When your congregation prays 'Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,' the folk at City Hall ought to get nervous. The church exists to sign, to signal, to sing about the tension whereby those who are at the bottom are being lifted up and those who are on top are being sent down" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 97).

Prayer of Allegiance

"The Lord's Prayer is training in how to understand the political significance of God's Messiah, Jesus. It is a pledge of allegiance to a king and his kingdom that throws all other allegiances into crisis" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 96).

Prayer: Getting Ready for a Fight

"Satan masquerades as an angel of light and resists being unmasked. Get ready for a fight" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 91).

Forgiveness

"Forgiveness is not natural. That's why we have to pray, 'Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us' every day" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 85).

Defiant

"Note that the Lord's Prayer is meant to be prayed aloud, as a public gesture. Rarely do we mumble this prayer quietly. It is meant to be a very audible, very public event. As we have said, this is one of the most defiant, politically charged, public things we Christians can do--pray the Lord's Prayer" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 69).

Hope Schooled by Patience

"We have just prayed, 'your kingdom come,' a petition full of hope. Now we are taught to say, 'your will be done,' a petition for patience. That the virtues of hope and patience should be so joined is not surprising for a people on a journey called kingdom. Indeed our hopes as Christians can make us dangerous if they are not schooled by patience" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 65).

The Christian Future: Leaning Forward! Leaning Forward!

"The Christian faith is eschatological, always leaning into the future, standing on tiptoes, eager to see what God is bringing to birth among us. We are created for no better purpose than the praise of God. This is our true destiny. Yet any fool can see that the world is not like that, at least not yet. So Christians, in the Lord's Prayer, are busy leaning forward toward that day when all creation shall be fulfilled in one mighty prayer of praise" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 57).

I've often talked about "leaning together into the Christian future." Now I remember where I picked up that thought-and-phrase.

Also, note their optimism: "Yet any fool can see that the world is not like that, at least not yet. At least not yet, indeed.

Prayer-Bomb

"The Lord's Prayer is like a bomb ticking in church, waiting to explode and demolish our temples to false gods" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 47).

The Prayer that Teaches

"The [Lord's Prayer] teaches us, in all that we do, to hallow the name of God and, in so doing, we discover our true being" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 44).

Created for Praise

"Not to know the name of God, not to know how God's name is hallowed, in other words, not to know how to worship, is to live in fundamental conflict with our true selves. We are created for no better purpose than praise. As Saint Augustine said, 'because you made us for yourself, our hearts find no peace until they rest in you'" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 43).

Luther on Prayer, Again

Martin Luther on prayer: "Or we recall Martin Luther saying to his students, 'I wish I could get you to pray the way my dog goes after meat!'" (quoted by William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 29).

On God Being "Our" Father

"We say 'Our' because of the astounding recognition that this God, the one who created the universe and flung the planets into their courses, the great God of heaven and earth, has willed to become our God. Before we reached out to God, God reached out to us and claimed us, promised to be our God, promised to make us God's people. Thus, not because of what we are or what we have done, but rather because of what God in Jesus Christ has done, we are privileged to say, 'Our Father'" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 25).

Bending Our Lives Toward God

"The Lord's Prayer is a lifelong act of bending our lives toward God in the way that God has offered -- "thy will be done, thy kingdom come" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 22).

Caught Up in the Purposes of God

"Being saved is not some individual achievement, not the result of some flash of personal insight, nor the securing of life's sense of meaning, although all of that may happen in the process of praying this prayer. Salvation is the delightful surprise of having your little life caught up in the purposes of God for the whole world. Salvation is having your life bent toward God when all you thought you were doing was memorizing a little prayer" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 21-22).

In Praise of Habits

"We eat, sleep, make love, shake hands, hug our children out of habit. Some things in life are too important to be left up to chance. Some things in life are too difficult to be left up to spontaneous desire - things like telling people that we love them or praying to God. So we do them "out of habit." Thus, in the church we generally do the same things over and over again, week after week, telling the same stories and singing the same songs" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 18).

Truth is Jesus Christ

"Jesus told those who believed in him: "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:31-32). He also said to them, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). Note that being formed as a disciple is prior to knowing the truth. As we submit to discipleship, we learn to be people who are truthful. Truth is not a set of propositions about the world; rather, truth is Jesus Christ. We know truth by coming to know this person and we know this person by learning to pray as he taught us" (William H. Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 16).

Christian Faith As Prayer

"So Lord, Teach Us presents the Christian faith not as a set of beliefs but rather as a prayer that you must learn to pray. Along the way, we will discuss doctrines, but Christian doctrines are like prayer, a set of practices. The doctrines are meant to help us pray, "Our Father. . . ." This book is shaped by the Lord's Prayer because the prayer is a mark of the journey called Christian. The prayer names the danger you will face as well as providing the help--the necessary skills--you will need for negotiating the dangers of the journey. Christianity means conflict. We never forget, as we pray, that the one who taught us to pray in this way was crucified" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 15).

Function of Doctrine

"The function of doctrine is to make Christian prayer as difficult as it ought to be" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer & the Christian Life, p. 22).