Saint Pauls Anglican Church

The Homily from Sunday July 28th, 2013 – Luke’s Lords Prayer is now available through the Homilies link on our website.

The reading today from Luke’s gospel presents us with an older version of our Lord’s prayer; you will notice the differences between the traditional version we recite during worship,
which is closely similar to the version presented in the gospel of Matthew: the simple, unadorned statements in Luke’s version direct attention to what is essential to Jesus, a relationship to God as Father and a commitment to God’s realm.
We must see this portrait of Jesus’ prayer life in the context of the entire passage that we
read this morning. It has three parts: prayer–parable—persistence. The Lord’s prayer followed by the parable of the persistent friend followed by the concluding exhortation to action: ask, seek, knock. And the three parts of the passage are connected by the symbol of bread. 

Note the emphasis throughout the three sections on action verbs:
Your kingdom come
Give us our daily bread
“lend me 3 loaves of bread”
ask, seek, knock
if your child asks for bread, will you give him a stone?