This straightforward sermon series takes the Lord’s Prayer line by line, offering those of us who can rattle it off without thinking a chance to reconnect with the powerful simplicity of the prayer Jesus gave us. While this sermon series was designed for the six weeks of Lent and Easter Sunday, it could also be used during Ordinary Time with a few modifications.
Week 1: “Our Father”
Scripture: Psalm 103:1-14,19 + Matthew 4:1-11
Petition: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name
The first two lines of the Lord’s Prayer offer a radical reorientation to God and to the world. The very first word, our, turns us away from self-seeking. This is a communal prayer, not a private request for a favor. In calling God Father, Jesus echoes many references to the compassion of God (Psalm 103:13) while also naming a new intimacy with the divine creator. (Depending on your context, it may be helpful to give people permission to re-identify God, like Jesus did.) To Jesus, deeply formed by Jewish poetry and theology, placing God in the heavens does not suggest the distance of God, but the height and power of his presence and love (Psalm 103:11). And finally, the commandment to hallow God’s name, while an echo of the kaddish, also reminds us that we have a responsibility to make God’s name holy, rather than aggrandizing ourselves. In the traditional first reading of Lent, Jesus is tempted three times. Each time, he demonstrates what it is to trust in a loving God, and to prioritize God’s holiness before his own convenience, power or prestige. Already in this prayer, we see how it can change our daily attitude and action.
Week 2: “Kingdom Come”
Scripture: Isaiah 56:1-8 + Matthew 13:18-21
Petition: Thy kingdom come
Compared to last week, this line of the prayer is mercifully short. And yet, when we pray for God’s kingdom to come, or even talk about the kingdom of God, do we really know what we’re saying? Like the word “Father” in the opening petition, “kingdom” is a metaphor–the closest thing the ancient Israelites could name to the kind of immense power and majesty of God. Yet the Old Testament rarely speaks of the kingdom of God. I chose one of the Isaiah prophecies about the holy mountain for the paired scripture, where the community of God looks strikingly different than a human kingdom. It certainly looked different than the kingdom (basileia) of the Roman Empire. And yet in the face of that empire, Jesus prays for God’s kingdom to come, and spends a significant portion of his earthly ministry teaching us to look for it and live by its rules. How can you help your congregation more clearly see and yearn for the coming of God’s kingdom?
Week 3: “As In Heaven”
Scripture: Micah 6:6-8 + Luke 10:25-36
Petition: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Once again, the Lord’s prayer nudges us away from ourselves and our desires towards God’s. But what is God’s will, and how can we tell? Micah has an answer, but his is not the only one. It may be fruitful to spend some time discussing paths of discernment with your congregation. But there is also a distinction between knowing God’s will and doing God’s will, and the parable of the Good Samaritan leads us to that next step. The young lawyer knows the will of God; but the Good Samaritan does it. By telling such an earthy parable, Jesus emphasizes that the will of God can be done on earth, just as it is in heaven — that our eyes should be turned to our neighbor as often as they are turned heavenward.
Week 4: “Daily Bread”
Scripture: Exodus 16:2-21 + Acts 6: 1-6
Petition: Give us this day our daily bread
Here, halfway through the prayer, we come to our first request for God to fulfill a personal, physical need. It is a simple request–enough bread for the day, but not more. In a world full of people praying for winning lottery tickets, this request for daily bread is still radical. It is grounded in the story of the manna, offered to the hungry Israelites in the desert, which disappeared each morning, forcing the people to trust in the giver, not the gift. Jesus himself offered several miracles that fed hungry crowds, and chose bread to be spiritual symbol of the gift of his own body. The early church found providing daily bread to widows to be an important enough mission to ordain a whole new class of leaders, deacons, to the task. When we pray for God to give us our daily bread, are we also willing to be the answer to that prayer for hungry people around us?
Week 5: “Forgive Us”
Scripture: Leviticus 15:1-11 + Colossians 2: 8-15
Petition: Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors*
To be in debt today can destroy a person’s life; not only your financial safety but your physical, mental, emotional, even spiritual wellbeing. In Jesus’ day, those who owed debts they could not pay had two options: be thrown into debtor’s prison, or sell themselves or a family member into debt slavery. Jesus tells many parables that echo this harsh reality: to be in financial debt was to be treated as less than human. On the converse, to be forgiven a debt was not just to be released from a financial worry; it was to be given a chance at freedom, at dignity, at life. In the law code of Leviticus, God commands the people to forgive all debts every seven years, a commandment meant to set the whole community free on a regular basis. It is no wonder, then, that early preachers took up this literal image of the forgiveness of a debt and applied it to Jesus’ own sacrifice for us. Both halves of this petition–to forgive others and to accept that we are forgiven by God–are rife with theological, psychological, and pastoral challenges. And yet it is part of why this prayer grips us at the roots; if we were to live out this prayer, it would change the world.
*a brief explanation of the historical reasoning for debts, trespasses, and sins can be helpful, but I don’t recommend making it the focus of your entire sermon
Week 6: “Deliver”
Palm/Passion Sunday
Scripture: Luke 19:28-40 + Luke 22:39-46
Petition: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
Out of the entire Lord’s Prayer, I have experienced that folks have the most trouble with the concept that God leads us where we will be tested. Yet we see it repeatedly in Jesus’ own life, that the work of the Spirit brought him into perilous tests, traps, and temptations. The two movements of the Luke gospels this week–the parade in Jerusalem and the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane–again show Jesus living out the prayer he taught us to pray. Jesus resists the temptation to stop the story at Palm Sunday, where he is applauded, but persists towards the cross. And in that garden, he prays again that he would not have to be tested, to drink the cup. It is a prayer that will not be granted. This, I think, is the depth of the Lord’s Prayer; it trains us to the deeper faithfulness of being able to pray without always getting what we ask for. It also trains us to stay close to our Father in heaven, even when we are tested. Jesus’ prayer ends, abruptly, with the request for God to deliver us from evil. It is a prayer we are still praying, but also one that has been answered, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Week 7: “Glory Forever”
Easter Sunday
Scripture: Psalm 145:1-13 + Matthew 28:1-10
The final line of the Lord’s prayer does not appear in the Gospels. The earliest record we have of it is from the Didache, an ancient Christian instruction manual, which adds this doxology to the Lord’s Prayer, and commands that the Lord’s Prayer be prayed three times daily. In adding this coda, the church redirects its attention away from its own rule, power, and glory, and endlessly back towards God’s. We have seen what God’s power and glory looks like: the defeat of death on Easter, so that all people might live abundantly. From beginning to end, the Lord’s Prayer turns us away from self-seeking and towards a one-ness with the glorious, life-giving will of God.
Ministry Resources
The Lord’s Prayer Liturgy
- Weekly Call to Worship
- Weekly Confessional Prayer
- Weekly Affirmations of Faith from the Heidelberg Catechism
The Lord’s Prayer Graphics (editable Canva templates)
Deep Well Worship 