“Getting the proper perspective”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Matthew 6:7-15 (Forward, p. 19) CEV p. 988

Unfortunately, many of us have a vending machine attitude toward God, and particularly toward God when it comes to prayer and prayer requests. The vending machine sits there in the hallway, virtually unseen and unnoticed, until, that is, we have need of it. Then we plug in our money and press the button for our choice of goods, be that a snack food or a soft drink—and, we, having ‘done our thing’ expect it to produce and are easily (and understandable) miffed if it doesn’t! It is easy to have the same attitude and mentality when it comes to prayer. And, not only it often totally me-centred (I want this, or I want that), it is almost invariably limited. With a vending machine, we are quite sure that there are certain things it won’t produce—like a new set of tires or a new pair of jeans—and so don’t even bother asking. Same thing with God: we figure that there some things—maybe too big or maybe too small--that we needn’t even ‘bother’ God about.

The problem with all this is that it is entirely me-centred, rather than God centred. He recognizes that we need a different perspective, a proper perspective, when it comes to prayer. Perhaps this is why Jesus starts His model prayer, ‘the Our Father’ or Lord’s Prayer, the way He does. He doesn’t start with us at all, but with God, and with God as our heavenly Father. Please notice something here, two things in fact. God is not our personal possession, our personal ‘vending machine’ as it were, but rather the God of a collective body, the Church. That alone should give us a different perspective on how we might very well see God as here ‘to do our personal bidding.’ And He is also our ‘heavenly’ Father. He is indeed like an earthly parent, but far, far more than that, and far fairer and more reliable and able. He is able to understand our needs as no other can and give us exactly as we need.

Jesus, however, doesn’t just end there with regards to this matter of perspective. He follows up this initial salutation with two prayer requests, prayer requests directly not at all at us, but towards God:

a) “Help us to honour your name.” (“May your holy name be honoured”)

-before we gloss over this quickly, or dismiss it as being of no or little consequence, let us ask ourselves some piercing and searching questions. Do our actions, and our words, really bring honour to God’s name? What about the nit-picking or the sense of judgment or the personal possessiveness that we sometimes find in the Church? And what about the judgments that we often cast elsewhere? My list, I’m afraid, could go on.

b) “Come and set up your kingdom, so that everyone on earth will obey you, as you are obeyed in heaven” (“May your Kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”)

-whoa: just what are we asking for here? We are asking God something pretty specific—and serious. We are asking that everyone on earth—us included—will do God’s will, will obey Him. But do we really mean this?

In a sense, this honouring of God and His name, and this prioritizing of His kingdom, are the perquisites to our more personal prayer requests. And, interestingly then, all of this comes before we even make any of our personal requests to God, before, as it were, we even put our coins into the celestial vending machine. We are merely standing there before God, equipped now with a ‘proper’ perspective on how we should address our prayers and how we should treat God.

So, our requests for our daily food, our daily sustenance, for forgiveness, for protection from the evil one, all come after we have given God His proper place. They are, in a sense, the outworking of having treated God correctly, the outworking of having gained a proper perspective on how God is and how we are to relate to Him. It is a good and salutary reminder that He, after all, is God, and that we are not! And so, He gets ‘to call the shots’! Now, that is a proper perspective. Amen.

Forward notes: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (verses 14-15).

“I have many sins against others, and many will not be forgiven. I am a stumbling block. I have failed many trials, and the resulting hard feelings may be forgotten only because the children do not share the memories.

“Many of the sins have to do with timeliness. I often underestimate how long a task will take and make an impossible promise. Once in a while, I lack discipline. Sometimes, I succumb to the pressure to tell someone what they want to hear.

“Thank you, God, that your forgiveness is not based upon how others forgive me, but in how I forgive. Assist me in not putting others to this test.”

MOVING FORWARD: “Do you need help forgiving today? Take it to the Lord in prayer.”

A concluding note: Today’s author picks up on something that I have actually heard some sincere Christians try to deny, something that I happen to think is enunciated in the plain words of Scripture, namely that our forgiveness from God is dependent upon our forgiving others. The passage quoted today, from verses 14-15 of chapter 6, is, to my way of thinking, pretty straight forward: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” And later on in this gospel, in His parable of the unforgiving servant, Jesus is even more explicit: “That is how my Father in heaven will treat you, if you don’t forgive each of my followers with all your heart” (Matthew 18:35).