Narrative Lectionary Summer Series – Lord’s Prayer Series, Week Four (Final)
Luke 11:2-4
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Furthering the Power of God’s Story – Narrative Lectionary Commentary
by Rev. Dr. Clint Schnekloth
Now we get to the impossible part. Derrida famously remarked on the impossibility of giving a gift, and I include a long quote from Given Time, the chapter on Counterfeit Money, to facilitate our meditation on this part of the prayer:
“One cannot treat the gift, this goes without saying, without treating this relation to economy, even to the money economy. But is not the gift, if there is any, also that which interrupts economy? That which, in suspending economic calculation, no longer gives rise to exchange? That which opens the circle so as to defy reciprocity or symmetry, the common measure, and so as to turn aside the return in view of the no-return? If there is gift, the given of the gift (that which one gives, that which is given, the gift as given thing or as act of donation) must not come back to the giving (let us not already say to the subject, to the donor). It must not circulate, it must not be exchanged, it must not in any case be exhausted, as a gift, by the process of exchange, by the movement of circulation of the circle in the form of return to the point of departure. If the figure of the circle is essential to economics, the gift must remain aneconomic. Not that it remains foreign to the circle, but it must keep a relation of foreignness to the circle, a relation without relation of familiar foreignness. It is perhaps in this sense that the gift is impossible. Not impossible but the impossible. The very figure of the impossible.”
So etymologically in English, forgiveness and given-ness are related. To forgive is also to give. And Derrida is not wrong to connect all of this to economics, because as the Lord’s Prayer is often translated, in place of trespasses we can also say “debts.”
Whenever I pray the Lord’s Prayer, I think of one line from this quote: “Not that it remains foreign to the circle, but it must keep a relation of foreignness to the circle, a relation without relation of familiar foreignness.”
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive who trespass against us. Not because we forgive other’s trespasses, or inasmuch as we forgive others trespasses, or only if they forgive us our trespasses. But as.
At the heart of the Lord’s prayer is the very figure of the impossible. To forgive, and be forgiven. To give a true gift, or receive one.
And yet that is what God does. Which is why it is impossible. You don’t need God for the possible, after all.
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Historical Exegetical Resources
The Lord’s Prayer in the Gospel of Luke, Moira Izza.
Contemporary Resources
Great Quotes
““Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
I refuse to say this. If it means I will have to forgive Mrs. Smeath or else go to Hell when I die, I’m ready to go. Jesus must have known how hard it is to forgive, that was why he put this in. He was always putting in things that were impossible to do really, such as giving away all your money.”
― Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye”
A Good Read
The Our Father: A New Reading
by Gerhard Lohfink
Can Christians still pray the Our Father in the twenty-first century? We can, and we must.
Gerhard Lohfink breaks open its strange phrases like “hallowed be thy name,” its off-putting language like “Father” and “kingdom,” and its apparently harsh demands like forgive us as we have forgiven those who hurt us—all to shed light on Jesus’ original words and their meaning. By probing what the prayer meant for Jesus and his first disciples in their world Lohfink calls us to allow the Our Father to break open our own minds and hearts to its infinite invitation and challenge for our time and for all ages.
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Free Dramatic Reading For This Text (NRSV)
Readers: Narrator, Jesus
Narrator: He said to them,
Jesus: “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”