Each week, I listen to the Undeceptions podcast by John Dickson. Most times John is either interviewing someone on a topic or sharing his own historical research on a topic. In the middle of a podcast, John will take a diversion that he calls a “Five Minute Jesus.” In this week’s podcast, his “Five Minute Jesus” was on the topic of fixed liturgies and prayers in comparison to contemporaneous liturgies and prayers that a pastor pulls from her/his own head. I share this small piece of this week’s podcast. I encourage you to listen to the podcast in full.
5 Minute Jesus on Undeceptions – History Wars podcast Episode 134 pages 25-28
FIVE MINUTE JESUS
Let’s press pause. I’ve got a 5 min Jesus.
There’s an aversion in modern Christianity to fixed prayers, liturgies, prayer books and all that. And it is a very modern worry. Hardly anyone in church history would recognise a modern Christian church service or a modern Christian private prayer time or devotional.
The demise of fixed prayers like in the Prayer Book coincided with the rise of the seemingly superior values of individualism and authenticity. Unless my devotional practices (public or private) are my own—formed by me, expressing who I am in this moment—then they probably lack true significance.
. . .
That’s how I think about the prayers of the Prayer Book. They are the best of Christian history. They lift me above my own ordinary self. I don’t want to pray just according to my ever-changing spiritual mood. Praying how I feel in the moment might be authentically ‘me’; but I’m not sure the best spiritually resides in me! I’m a pretty low bar. Set prayer lifts me. I’ll put in the show notes my favourite Prayer Book prayers.
More importantly, Jesus himself taught a fixed, permanent prayer, to be said word for word, by anyone who wanted to be his student.
We call it the Lord’s Prayer, or the Our Father, because it begins, “Our Father, in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily break. Forgive us our sins (or ‘trespasses’ in old language), as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Then there’s a little extra bit the church added a few decades later “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.”
There is a modern evangelical aversion even to seeing the Lord’s Prayer as a fixed prayer. This would seem totally weird to just about every Christian from the first century to the 19th century. I mean, one of the earliest Christian documents outside the NT is the Didache — from the end of the first century — and it urges people to say the Lord’s Prayer three times a day.
The modern aversion to this is sometimes justified by reference to the word ‘how’ in Matt 6:9 (Jesus introduces his prayer with the words: “This is how you should pray … Our Father in heaven, etc”).
Some say Jesus just meant, “This is the ‘how’, the ‘style’, the ‘vibe’ of prayer”.
But there’s no ‘How’ in the Greek. It is literally “Thusly you are to pray …”
And in the Lord’s Prayer recorded in Luke 11:2, it is even clearer. Jesus introduces his Lord’s Prayer with “When you pray, say … Our Father in Heaven” etc …
Contemporary culture sometimes dismisses traditions like saying of the Lord’s Prayer daily as inauthentic.
I’d say refusing to pray set prayers—and settling only for my own creations—is evidence I believe in my own soul more than external truths.
I’ve grown tired of chasing authenticity, striving for what is new.
I’m sick of Christian ‘fads’—faddish books, faddish preachers, faddish programs …
I want an anchor. I don’t want to be ‘at sea’.
I don’t want to be captive to my little moment of Christian history—the ‘blip’ of my culture.
I want to swim in the great stream of the very best of Christian history.
. . .
You can press play now.
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