Jesus of Nazareth_ From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration Part 3

But this is exactly the connection that Jesus calls into question. He is told that his mother and brothers are outside waiting to speak to him. His answer: "Who is my mother and who are my brothers?" And he stretches out his hand over his disciples and says: "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Mt 12:4650).

Faced with this text, Neusner asks: "Does Jesus not teach me to violate one of the two great commandments.... that concern the social order?" (p. 59). The accusation here is a twofold one. The first problem is the seeming individualism of Jesus' message. While the Torah presents a very definite social order, giving the people a juridical and social framework for war and peace, for just politics and for daily life, there is nothing like that to be found in Jesus' teaching. Disciples.h.i.+p of Jesus offers no politically concrete program for structuring society. The Sermon on the Mount cannot serve as a foundation for a state and a social order, as is frequently and correctly observed. Its message seems to be located on another level. Israel's ordinances have guaranteed its continued existence through the millennia and through all the vicissitudes of history, yet here they are set aside. Jesus' new interpretation of the fourth commandment affects not only the parent-child relation, but the entire scope of the social structure of the people of Israel.

This restructuring of the social order finds its basis and its justification in Jesus' claim that he, with his community of disciples, forms the origin and center of a new Israel. Once again we stand before the "I" of Jesus, who speaks on the same level as the Torah itself, on the same level as G.o.d. The two spheres-on one hand the modification of the social structure, the opening up of the "eternal Israel" into a new community, and on the other hand Jesus' divine claim-are directly connected.

It should be pointed out that Neusner does not try to score any easy victories by critiquing a straw man. He reminds his reader that students of the Torah were also called by their teachers to leave home and family and had to turn their backs on wife and children for long periods in order to devote themselves totally to the study of the Torah (p. 60). "The Torah then takes the place of genealogy, and the master of Torah gains a new lineage" (p. 63). In this sense, it seems that Jesus' claim to be founding a new family does remain after all in the framework of what the school of the Torah-the "eternal Israel"-allows.

And yet there is a fundamental difference. In Jesus' case it is not the universally binding adherence to the Torah that forms the new family. Rather, it is adherence to Jesus himself, to his Torah. For the rabbis, everyone is tied by the same relations.h.i.+ps to a permanent social order; everyone is subject to the Torah and so everyone is equal within the larger body of all Israel. Neusner thus concludes: "I now realize, only G.o.d can demand of me what Jesus is asking" (p. 68).

We come to the same conclusion as in our earlier a.n.a.lysis of the commandment to keep the Sabbath. The Christological (theological) argument and the social argument are inextricably entwined. If Jesus is G.o.d, then he is ent.i.tled and able to handle the Torah as he does. On that condition alone does he have the right to interpret the Mosaic order of divine commands in such a radically new way as only the Lawgiver-G.o.d himself-can claim to do.

But here the question arises: Was it right and proper to create a new community of disciples founded entirely on him? Was it good to set aside the social order of the "eternal Israel," founded on and subsisting through Abraham and Jacob according to the flesh? To declare it to be an "Israel according to the flesh," as Paul will put it? Is there any point that we can discover to all of this?

Now, when we read the Torah together with the entire Old Testament canon, the Prophets, the Psalms, and the Wisdom Literature, we realize very clearly a point that is already substantially present in the Torah itself. That is, Israel does not exist simply for itself, in order to live according to the "eternal" dispositions of the Law-it exists to be a light to the nations. In the Psalms and the prophetic books we hear more and more clearly the promise that G.o.d's salvation will come to all the nations. We hear more and more clearly that the G.o.d of Israel-being, as he is, the only G.o.d, the true G.o.d, the Creator of heaven and earth, the G.o.d of all peoples and all men, who holds their fate in his hands-does not wish to abandon the nations to themselves. We hear that all will come to know him, that Egypt and Babylon-the two secular powers opposed to Israel-will give Israel their hand and join together in wors.h.i.+ping the one G.o.d. We hear that the boundaries will fall and that the G.o.d of Israel will be acknowledged and revered by all the nations as their G.o.d, as the one G.o.d.

It is our Jewish interlocutors who, quite rightly, ask again and again: So what has your "Messiah" Jesus actually brought? He has not brought world peace, and he has not conquered the world's misery. So he can hardly be the true Messiah, who, after all, is supposed to do just that. Yes, what has Jesus brought? We have already encountered this question and we know the answer. He has brought the G.o.d of Israel to the nations, so that all the nations now pray to him and recognize Israel's Scriptures as his word, the word of the living G.o.d. He has brought the gift of universality, which was the one great definitive promise to Israel and the world. This universality, this faith in the one G.o.d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-extended now in Jesus' new family to all nations over and above the bonds of descent according to the flesh-is the fruit of Jesus' work. It is what proves him to be the Messiah. It signals a new interpretation of the messianic promise that is based on Moses and the Prophets, but also opens them up in a completely new way.

The vehicle of this universalization is the new family, whose only admission requirement is communion with Jesus, communion in G.o.d's will. For Jesus' "I" is by no means a self-willed ego revolving around itself alone. "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Mk 3:34f.): Jesus' "I" incarnates the Son's communion of will with the Father. It is an "I" that hears and obeys. Communion with him is filial communion with the Father-it is a yes to the fourth commandment on a new level, the highest level. It is entry into the family of those who call G.o.d Father and who can do so because they belong to a "we"-formed of those who are united with Jesus and, by listening to him, united with the will of the Father, thereby attaining to the heart of the obedience intended by the Torah.

This unity with the will of G.o.d the Father through communion with Jesus, whose "food" is to do the Father's will (cf. Jn 4:34), now gives us a new perspective on the individual regulations of the Torah as well. The Torah did indeed have the task of giving a concrete juridical and social order to this particular people, Israel. But while Israel is on one hand a definite nation, whose members are bound together by birth and the succession of generations, on the other hand it has been from the beginning and is by its very nature the bearer of a universal promise. In Jesus' new family, which will later be called "the Church," these individual juridical and social regulations no longer apply universally in their literal historical form. This was precisely the issue at the beginning of the "Church of the Gentiles," and it was the bone of contention between Paul and the so-called Judaizers. A literal application of Israel's social order to the people of all nations would have been tantamount to a denial of the universality of the growing community of G.o.d. Paul saw this with perfect clarity. The Torah of the Messiah could not be like that. Nor is it, as the Sermon on the Mount shows-and likewise the whole dialogue with Rabbi Neusner, a believing Jew and a truly attentive listener.

That said, what is happening here is an extremely important process whose full scope was not grasped until modern times, even though the moderns at first understood it in a one-sided and false way. Concrete juridical and social forms and political arrangements are no longer treated as a sacred law that is fixed ad litteram ad litteram for all times and so for all peoples. The decisive thing is the underlying communion of will with G.o.d given by Jesus. It frees men and nations to discover what aspects of political and social order accord with this communion of will and so to work out their own juridical arrangements. The absence of the whole social dimension in Jesus' preaching, which Neusner discerningly critiques from a Jewish perspective, includes, but also conceals, an epoch-making event in world history that has not occurred as such in any other culture: The concrete political and social order is released from the directly sacred realm, from theocratic legislation, and is transferred to the freedom of man, whom Jesus has established in G.o.d's will and taught thereby to see the right and the good. for all times and so for all peoples. The decisive thing is the underlying communion of will with G.o.d given by Jesus. It frees men and nations to discover what aspects of political and social order accord with this communion of will and so to work out their own juridical arrangements. The absence of the whole social dimension in Jesus' preaching, which Neusner discerningly critiques from a Jewish perspective, includes, but also conceals, an epoch-making event in world history that has not occurred as such in any other culture: The concrete political and social order is released from the directly sacred realm, from theocratic legislation, and is transferred to the freedom of man, whom Jesus has established in G.o.d's will and taught thereby to see the right and the good.

This brings us back to the Torah of the Messiah, to the Letter to the Galatians. "You were called to freedom" (Gal 5:13)-not to a blind and arbitrary freedom, to a freedom "understood according to the flesh," as Paul would say, but to a "seeing" freedom, anch.o.r.ed in communion of will with Jesus and so with G.o.d himself. It is a freedom that, as a result of this new way of seeing, is able to build the very thing that is at the heart of the Torah-with Jesus, universalizing the essential content of the Torah and thus truly "fulfilling" it.

In our day, of course, this freedom has been totally wrenched away from any G.o.dly perspective or from communion with Jesus. Freedom for universality and so for the legitimate secularity of the state has been transformed into an absolute secularism, for which forgetfulness of G.o.d and exclusive concern with success seem to have become guiding principles. For the believing Christian, the commandments of the Torah remain a decisive point of reference, that he constantly keeps in view; for him the search for G.o.d's will in communion with Jesus is above all a signpost for his reason, without which it is always in danger of being dazzled and blinded.

There is another essential observation. This universalization of Israel's faith and hope, and the concomitant liberation from the letter of the Law for the new communion with Jesus, is tied to Jesus' authority and his claim to Sons.h.i.+p. It loses its historical weight and its whole foundation if Jesus is interpreted merely as a liberal reform rabbi. A liberal interpretation of the Torah would be nothing but the personal opinion of one teacher-it would have no power to shape history. It would also relativize both the Torah itself and its origin in G.o.d's will. For each statement there would be only human authority: the authority of one scholar. There can be no new faith community built upon that. The leap into universality, the new freedom that such a leap requires, is possible only on the basis of a greater obedience. Its power to shape history can come into play only if the authority of the new interpretation is no less than the authority of the original: It must be a divine authority. The new universal family is the purpose of Jesus' mission, but his divine authority-his Sons.h.i.+p in communion with the Father-is the prior condition that makes possible the irruption of a new and broader reality without betrayal or high-handedness.

We have heard that Neusner asks Jesus whether he is trying to tempt him into violating two or three of G.o.d's commandments. If Jesus does not speak with the full authority of the Son, if his interpretation is not the beginning of a new communion in a new, free obedience, then there is only one alternative: Jesus is enticing us to disobedience against G.o.d's commandment.

It is fundamentally important for the Christian world in every age to pay careful attention to the connection between transcendence and fulfillment. We have seen that Neusner, despite his reverence for Jesus, strongly criticizes the dissolution of the family that for him is implied by Jesus' invitation to "transgress" the fourth commandment. He mounts a similar critique against Jesus' threat to the Sabbath, which is a cardinal point of Israel's social order. Now, Jesus' intention is not to abolish either the family or the Sabbath-as-celebration-of-creation, but he has to create a new and broader context for both. It is true that his invitation to join him as a member of a new and universal family through sharing his obedience to the Father does at first break up the social order of Israel. But from her very inception, the Church that emerged, and continues to emerge, has attached fundamental importance to defending the family as the core of all social order, and to standing up for the fourth commandment in the whole breadth of its meaning. We see how hard the Church fights to protect these things today. Likewise it soon became clear that the essential content of the Sabbath had to be reinterpreted in terms of the Lord's day. The fight for Sunday is another of the Church's major concerns in the present day, when there is so much to upset the rhythm of time that sustains community.

The proper interplay of Old and New Testaments was and is const.i.tutive for the Church. In his discourses after the Resurrection, Jesus insists that he can be understood only in the context of "the Law and the Prophets" and that his community can live only in this properly understood context. From the beginning, the Church has been, and always will be, exposed to two opposite dangers on this score: on one hand a false legalism of the sort Paul fought against, which throughout history has unfortunately been given the unhappy name of "Judaizing," and on the other hand a repudiation of Moses and the Prophets-of the Old Testament. This was first proposed by Marcion in the second century, and it is one of the great temptations of modernity. It is no accident that Harnack, leading exponent of liberal theology that he was, insisted that it was high time to fulfill the inheritance of Marcion and free Christianity from the burden of the Old Testament once and for all. Today's widespread temptation to give the New Testament a purely spiritual interpretation, in isolation from any social and political relevance, tends in the same direction.

Conversely, political theologies, of whatever sort, theologize one particular political formula in a way that contradicts the novelty and breadth of Jesus' message. It would, however, be false to characterize such tendencies as a "Judaizing" of Christianity, because Israel offers obedience to the concrete social ordinances of the Torah for the sake of the "eternal Israel's" ethnic community and does not hold up this obedience as a universal political recipe. All in all, it would be good for the Christian world to look respectfully at this obedience of Israel, and thus to appreciate better the great commandments of the Decalogue, which Christians have to transfer into the context of G.o.d's universal family and which Jesus, as the "new Moses," has given to us. In him we see the fulfillment of the promise made to Moses: "The LORD your G.o.d will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren" (Deut 18:15). your G.o.d will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren" (Deut 18:15).

Compromise and Prophetic Radicalism In following the dialogue of the Jewish rabbi with Jesus, adding our own thoughts and observations, we have already moved some distance beyond the Sermon on the Mount and have accompanied Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem. We must now go back once more to the ant.i.theses of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus takes up questions a.s.sociated with the second tablet of the Decalogue and brings a new radicalism to bear on the old commandments of the Torah in their understanding of justice before G.o.d. Not only are we not to kill, but we must offer reconciliation to our unreconciled brother. No more divorce. Not only are we to be even-handed in justice (eye for eye, tooth for tooth), but we must let ourselves be struck without striking back. We are to love not simply our neighbor, but also our enemy.

The lofty ethics that is expressed here will continue to astonish people of all backgrounds and to impress them as the height of moral greatness. We need only recall Mahatma Gandhi's interest in Jesus, which was based on these very texts. But is what Jesus says here actually realistic? Is it inc.u.mbent upon us-is it even legitimate-to act like this? Doesn't some of it, as Neusner objects, destroy all concrete social order? Is it possible to build up a community, a people, on such a basis?

Recent scholarly exegesis has gained important insights about this question through a precise investigation of the internal structure of the Torah and its legislation. Particularly important for our question is the a.n.a.lysis of the so-called Book of the Covenant (Ex 20:2223:19). Two kinds of law [Recht] can be distinguished in this code: so-called casuistic law and apodictic law.

What is called casuistic law stipulates legal arrangements for very specific juridical issues: those pertaining to the owners.h.i.+p and emanc.i.p.ation of slaves, bodily injury by people or animals, recompense for theft, and so forth. No theological explanations are offered here, just specific sanctions that are proportionate to the wrong done. These juridical norms emerged from practice and they form a practically oriented legal corpus that serves to build up a realistic social order, corresponding to the concrete possibilities of a society in a particular historical and cultural situation.

In this respect, the body of law in question is also historically conditioned and entirely open to criticism, often-at least from our ethical perspective-actually in need of it. Even within the context of Old Testament legislation, it undergoes further development. Newer prescriptions contradict older ones regarding the same object. These casuistic provisions, while situated in the fundamental context of faith in the G.o.d of Revelation who spoke on Sinai, are nonetheless not directly divine law, but are developed from the underlying deposit of divine law, and are therefore subject to further development and correction.

And the fact of the matter is that social order has to be capable of development. It must address changing historical situations within the limits of the possible, but without ever losing sight of the ethical standard as such, which gives law its character as law. As Olivier Artus and others have shown, there is a sense in which the prophetic critique of Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, and Micah is also aimed at casuistic law that, although it is contained in the Torah, has in practice become a form of injustice. This happens when, in view of Israel's particular economic situation, the law no longer serves to protect the poor, widows, and orphans, though the Prophets would see such protection as the highest intention of the legislation given by G.o.d.

There are affinities to this critique of the Prophets, though, in parts of the book of the Covenant itself, the parts concerned with so-called apodictic law (Ex 22:20, 23:912). This apodictic law is p.r.o.nounced in the name of G.o.d himself; there are no concrete sanctions indicated here. "You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or orphan" (Ex 22:21f.). It was these great norms that formed the basis of the Prophets' critique, serving as a constant touchstone for challenging concrete legal provisions, so that the essential divine nucleus of law could be vindicated as the standard and rule of every juridical development and every social order. F. Crusemann, to whom we owe much of our essential knowledge on this subject, has termed the commandments of apodictic law "metanorms," which provide a platform for critiquing the rules of casuistic law. He explains the relations.h.i.+p between casuistic and apodictic law in terms of the distinction between "rules" and "principles."

Within the Torah itself, then, there are quite different levels of authority. As Artus puts it, the Torah contains an ongoing dialogue between historically conditioned norms and metanorms. The latter express the perennial requirements of the Covenant. Fundamentally, the metanorms reflect G.o.d's option to defend the poor, who are easily deprived of justice and cannot procure it for themselves.

This is connected with a further point. The fundamental norm in the Torah, on which everything depends, is insistence upon faith in the one G.o.d (YHWH): He alone may be wors.h.i.+ped. But now, as the Prophets develop the Torah, responsibility for the poor, widows, and orphans gradually ascends to the same level as the exclusive wors.h.i.+p of the one G.o.d. It fuses with the image of G.o.d, defining it very specifically. The social commandments are theological commandments, and the theological commandments have a social character-love of G.o.d and love of neighbor are inseparable, and love of neighbor, understood in this context as recognition of G.o.d's immediate presence in the poor and the weak, receives a very practical definition here.

All of this is essential if we are to understand the Sermon on the Mount correctly. Within the Torah itself, and subsequently in the dialogue between the Law and the Prophets, we already see the contrast between changeable casuistic law, which shapes the social structure of a given time, and the essential principles of the divine law itself, in terms of which practical norms constantly have to be measured, developed, and corrected.

Jesus does nothing new or unprecedented when he contrasts the practical, casuistic norms developed in the Torah with the pure will of G.o.d, which he presents as the "greater righteousness" (Mt 5:20) expected of G.o.d's children. He takes up the intrinsic dynamism of the Torah itself, as further developed by the Prophets, and-in his capacity as the Chosen Prophet who sees G.o.d face-to-face (Deut 18:15)-he gives it its radical form. Obviously, then, these words do not formulate a social order, but they do provide social orderings with their fundamental criteria-even though these criteria can never be purely realized as such in any given social order. By giving actual juridical and social ordinances a new dynamism, by removing them from the immediate purview of the divine and transferring responsibility for them to enlightened reason, Jesus reflects the internal structure of the Torah itself.

In the ant.i.theses of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus stands before us neither as a rebel nor as a liberal, but as the prophetic interpreter of the Torah. He does not abolish it, but he fulfills it, and he does so precisely by a.s.signing reason its sphere of responsibility for acting within history. Consequently, Christianity constantly has to reshape and reformulate social structures and "Christian social teaching." There will always be new developments to correct what has gone before. In the inner structure of the Torah, in its further development under the critique of the Prophets, and in Jesus' message, which takes up both elements, Christianity finds the wide scope for necessary historical evolution as well as the solid ground that guarantees the dignity of man by rooting it in the dignity of G.o.d.

CHAPTER FIVE.

The Lord's Prayer The Sermon on the Mount, as we have seen, draws a comprehensive portrait of the right way to live. It aims to show us how to be a human being. We could sum up its fundamental insights by saying that man can be understood only in light of G.o.d, and that his life is made righteous only when he lives it in relation to G.o.d. But G.o.d is not some distant stranger. He shows us his face in Jesus. In what Jesus does and wills, we come to know the mind and will of G.o.d himself.

If being human is essentially about relation to G.o.d, it is clear that speaking with, and listening to, G.o.d is an essential part of it. This is why the Sermon on the Mount also includes a teaching about prayer. The Lord tells us how we are to pray.

In Matthew's Gospel, the Lord's Prayer is preceded by a short catechesis on prayer. Its main purpose is to warn against false forms of prayer. Prayer must not be an occasion for showing off before others; it requires the discretion that is essential to a relation of love. G.o.d addresses every individual by a name that no one else knows, as Scripture tells us (cf. Rev 2:17). G.o.d's love for each individual is totally personal and includes this mystery of a uniqueness that cannot be divulged to other human beings.

This discretion, which is of the very essence of prayer, does not exclude prayer in common. The Our Father is itself a prayer uttered in the first person plural, and it is only by becoming part of the "we" of G.o.d's children that we can reach up to him beyond the limits of this world in the first place. And yet this "we" awakens the inmost core of the person; in the act of prayer the totally personal and the communal must always pervade each other, as we will see more closely in our exposition of the Our Father. Just as in the relations.h.i.+p between man and woman there is a totally personal dimension that requires a zone of discretion for its protection, though at the same time the relations.h.i.+p of the two in marriage and family by its very nature also includes public responsibility, so it is also in our relation to G.o.d: The "we" of the praying community and the utterly personal intimacy that can be shared only with G.o.d are closely interconnected.

The other false form of prayer the Lord warns us against is the chatter, the verbiage, that smothers the spirit. We are all familiar with the danger of reciting habitual formulas while our mind is somewhere else entirely. We are at our most attentive when we are driven by inmost need to ask G.o.d for something or are prompted by a joyful heart to thank him for good things that have happened to us. Most importantly, though, our relations.h.i.+p to G.o.d should not be confined to such momentary situations, but should be present as the bedrock of our soul. In order for that to happen, this relation has to be constantly revived and the affairs of our everyday lives have to be constantly related back to it. The more the depths of our souls are directed toward G.o.d, the better we will be able to pray. The more prayer is the foundation that upholds our entire existence, the more we will become men of peace. The more we can bear pain, the more we will be able to understand others and open ourselves to them. This orientation pervasively shaping our whole consciousness, this silent presence of G.o.d at the heart of our thinking, our meditating, and our being, is what we mean by "prayer without ceasing." This is ultimately what we mean by love of G.o.d, which is at the same time the condition and the driving force behind love of neighbor.

This is what prayer really is-being in silent inward communion with G.o.d. It requires nourishment, and that is why we need articulated prayer in words, images, or thoughts. The more G.o.d is present in us, the more we will really be able to be present to him when we utter the words of our prayers. But the converse is also true: Praying actualizes and deepens our communion of being with G.o.d. Our praying can and should arise above all from our heart, from our needs, our hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, and from our grat.i.tude for the good. It can and should be a wholly personal prayer. But we also constantly need to make use of those prayers that express in words the encounter with G.o.d experienced both by the Church as a whole and by individual members of the Church. For without these aids to prayer, our own praying and our image of G.o.d become subjective and end up reflecting ourselves more than the living G.o.d. In the formulaic prayers that arose first from the faith of Israel and then from the faith of praying members of the Church, we get to know G.o.d and ourselves as well. They are a "school of prayer" that transforms and opens up our life.

In his Rule, Saint Benedict coined the formula Mens nostra concordet voci nostrae Mens nostra concordet voci nostrae-our mind must be in accord with our voice (Rule, 19, 7). Normally, thought precedes word; it seeks and formulates the word. But praying the Psalms and liturgical prayer in general is exactly the other way round: The word, the voice, goes ahead of us, and our mind must adapt to it. For on our own we human beings do not "know how to pray as we ought" (Rom 8:26)-we are too far removed from G.o.d, he is too mysterious and too great for us. And so G.o.d has come to our aid: He himself provides the words of our prayer and teaches us to pray. Through the prayers that come from him, he enables us to set out toward him; by praying together with the brothers and sisters he has given us, we gradually come to know him and draw closer to him.

In Saint Benedict's writings, the phrase cited just now refers directly to the Psalms, the great prayer book of the People of G.o.d of the Old and New Covenant. The Psalms are words that the Holy Spirit has given to men; they are G.o.d's Spirit become word. We thus pray "in the Spirit," with the Holy Spirit. This applies even more, of course, to the Our Father. When we pray the Our Father, we are praying to G.o.d with words given by G.o.d, as Saint Cyprian says. And he adds that when we pray the Our Father, Jesus' promise regarding the true wors.h.i.+pers, those who adore the Father "in spirit and in truth" (Jn 4:23), is fulfilled in us. Christ, who is the truth, has given us these words, and in them he gives us the Holy Spirit (De dominica oratione 2; 2; CSEL CSEL III, 1, pp. 267f.). This also reveals something of the specificity of Christian mysticism. It is not in the first instance immersion in the depths of oneself, but encounter with the Spirit of G.o.d in the word that goes ahead of us. It is encounter with the Son and the Holy Spirit and thus a becoming-one with the living G.o.d who is always both in us and above us. III, 1, pp. 267f.). This also reveals something of the specificity of Christian mysticism. It is not in the first instance immersion in the depths of oneself, but encounter with the Spirit of G.o.d in the word that goes ahead of us. It is encounter with the Son and the Holy Spirit and thus a becoming-one with the living G.o.d who is always both in us and above us.

While Matthew introduces the Our Father with a short catechesis on prayer in general, we find it in a different context in Luke-namely, Jesus' journey to Jerusalem. Luke prefaces the Lord's Prayer with the following remark: Jesus "was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray...'" (Lk 11:1).

The context, then, is that the disciples see Jesus praying and it awakens in them the wish to learn from him how to pray. This is typical for Luke, who a.s.signs a very special place in his Gospel to Jesus' prayer. Jesus' entire ministry arises from his prayer, and is sustained by it. Essential events in the course of his journey, in which his mystery is gradually unveiled, appear in this light as prayer events. Peter's confession that Jesus is the Holy One of G.o.d is connected with encountering Jesus at prayer (cf. Lk 9:18ff.); the Transfiguration of Jesus is a prayer event (cf. Lk 9:28f.).

The fact that Luke places the Our Father in the context of Jesus' own praying is therefore significant. Jesus thereby involves us in his own prayer; he leads us into the interior dialogue of triune love; he draws our human hards.h.i.+ps deep into G.o.d's heart, as it were. This also means, however, that the words of the Our Father are signposts to interior prayer, they provide a basic direction for our being, and they aim to configure us to the image of the Son. The meaning of the Our Father goes much further than the mere provision of a prayer text. It aims to form our being, to train us in the inner att.i.tude of Jesus (cf. Phil 2:5).

This has two different implications for our interpretation of the Our Father. First of all, it is important to listen as accurately as possible to Jesus' words as transmitted to us in Scripture. We must strive to recognize the thoughts Jesus wished to pa.s.s on to us in these words. But we must also keep in mind that the Our Father originates from his own praying, from the Son's dialogue with the Father. This means that it reaches down into depths far beyond the words. It embraces the whole compa.s.s of man's being in all ages and can therefore never be fully fathomed by a purely historical exegesis, however important this may be.

The great men and women of prayer throughout the centuries were privileged to receive an interior union with the Lord that enabled them to descend into the depths beyond the word. They are therefore able to unlock for us the hidden treasures of prayer. And we may be sure that each of us, along with our totally personal relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d, is received into, and sheltered within, this prayer. Again and again, each one of us with his mens, mens, his own spirit, must go out to meet, open himself to, and submit to the guidance of the his own spirit, must go out to meet, open himself to, and submit to the guidance of the vox, vox, the word that comes to us from the Son. In this way his own heart will be opened, and each individual will learn the particular way in which the Lord wants to pray with him. the word that comes to us from the Son. In this way his own heart will be opened, and each individual will learn the particular way in which the Lord wants to pray with him.

The Our Father has been transmitted to us in a shorter form in Luke, whereas it comes down to us in Matthew in the version that the Church has adopted for purposes of prayer. The discussion about which text is more original is not superfluous, but neither is it the main issue. In both versions we are praying with Jesus, and we are grateful that Matthew's version, with its seven pet.i.tions, explicitly unfolds things that Luke seems in part only to touch upon.

Before we enter into the detailed exposition, let us now very briefly look at the structure of the Our Father as Matthew transmits it. It comprises an initial salutation and seven pet.i.tions. Three are "thou-pet.i.tions," while four are "we-pet.i.tions." The first three pet.i.tions concern the cause of G.o.d himself in this world; the four following pet.i.tions concern our hopes, needs, and hards.h.i.+ps. The relations.h.i.+p between the two sets of pet.i.tions in the Our Father could be compared to the relations.h.i.+p between the two tablets of the Decalogue. Essentially they are explications of the two parts of the great commandment to love G.o.d and our neighbor-in other words, they are directions toward the path of love.

The Our Father, then, like the Ten Commandments, begins by establis.h.i.+ng the primacy of G.o.d, which then leads naturally to a consideration of the right way of being human. Here, too, the primary concern is the path of love, which is at the same time a path of conversion. If man is to pet.i.tion G.o.d in the right way, he must stand in the truth. And the truth is: first G.o.d, first his Kingdom (cf. Mt 6:33). The first thing we must do is step outside ourselves and open ourselves to G.o.d. Nothing can turn out right if our relation to G.o.d is not rightly ordered. For this reason, the Our Father begins with G.o.d and then, from that starting point, shows us the way toward being human. At the end we descend to the ultimate threat besetting man, for whom the Evil one lies in wait-we may recall the image of the apocalyptic dragon that wages war against those "who keep the commandments of G.o.d and bear testimony to Jesus" (Rev 12:17).

Yet the beginning remains present throughout: Our Father-we know that he is with us to hold us in his hand and save us. In his book of spiritual exercises, Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the Superior General of the Jesuits, tells the story of a staretz, staretz, or spiritual advisor of the Eastern Church, who yearned "to begin the Our Father with the last verse, so that one might become worthy to finish the prayer with the initial words-'Our Father.'" In this way, the or spiritual advisor of the Eastern Church, who yearned "to begin the Our Father with the last verse, so that one might become worthy to finish the prayer with the initial words-'Our Father.'" In this way, the staretz staretz explained, we would be following the path to Easter. "We begin in the desert with the temptation, we return to Egypt, then we travel the path of the Exodus, through the stations of forgiveness and G.o.d's manna, and by G.o.d's will we attain the promised land, the kingdom of G.o.d, where he communicates to us the mystery of his name: 'Our Father'" ( explained, we would be following the path to Easter. "We begin in the desert with the temptation, we return to Egypt, then we travel the path of the Exodus, through the stations of forgiveness and G.o.d's manna, and by G.o.d's will we attain the promised land, the kingdom of G.o.d, where he communicates to us the mystery of his name: 'Our Father'" (Der osterliche Weg, pp. 65f.). pp. 65f.).

Let both these ways, the way of ascent and the way of descent, be a reminder that the Our Father is always a prayer of Jesus and that communion with him is what opens it up for us. We pray to the Father in heaven, whom we know through his Son. And that means that Jesus is always in the background during the pet.i.tions, as we will see in the course of our detailed exposition of the prayer. A final point-because the Our Father is a prayer of Jesus, it is a Trinitarian prayer: We pray with Christ through the Holy Spirit to the Father.

OUR F FATHER W WHO A ART IN H HEAVEN.

We begin with the salutation "Father." Reinhold Schneider writes apropos of this in his exposition of the Our Father: "The Our Father begins with a great consolation: we are allowed to say 'Father.' This one word contains the whole history of redemption. We are allowed to say 'Father,' because the Son was our brother and has revealed the Father to us; because, thanks to what Christ has done, we have once more become children of G.o.d" (Das Vaterunser, p. 10). It is true, of course, that contemporary men and women have difficulty experiencing the great consolation of the word father father immediately, since the experience of the father is in many cases either completely absent or is obscured by inadequate examples of fatherhood. immediately, since the experience of the father is in many cases either completely absent or is obscured by inadequate examples of fatherhood.

We must therefore let Jesus teach us what father father really means. In Jesus' discourses, the Father appears as the source of all good, as the measure of the rect.i.tude (perfection) of man. "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good" (Mt 5:4445). The love that endures "to the end" (Jn 13:1), which the Lord fulfilled on the Cross in praying for his enemies, shows us the essence of the Father. He is this love. Because Jesus brings it to completion, he is entirely "Son," and he invites us to become "sons" according to this criterion. really means. In Jesus' discourses, the Father appears as the source of all good, as the measure of the rect.i.tude (perfection) of man. "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good" (Mt 5:4445). The love that endures "to the end" (Jn 13:1), which the Lord fulfilled on the Cross in praying for his enemies, shows us the essence of the Father. He is this love. Because Jesus brings it to completion, he is entirely "Son," and he invites us to become "sons" according to this criterion.

Let us consider a further text as well. The Lord reminds us that fathers do not give their children stones when they ask for bread. He then goes on to say: "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" (Mt 7:9ff.). Luke specifies the "good gifts" that the Father gives; he says "how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Lk 11:13). This means that the gift of G.o.d is G.o.d himself. The "good things" that he gives us are himself. This reveals in a surprising way what prayer is really all about: It is not about this or that, but about G.o.d's desire to offer us the gift of himself-that is the gift of all gifts, the "one thing necessary." Prayer is a way of gradually purifying and correcting our wishes and of slowly coming to realize what we really need: G.o.d and his Spirit.

When the Lord teaches us to recognize the essence of G.o.d the Father through love of enemies, and to find "perfection" in that love so as to become "sons" ourselves, the connection between Father and Son becomes fully evident. It then becomes plain that the figure of Jesus is the mirror in which we come to know who G.o.d is and what he is like: through the Son we find the Father. At the Last Supper, when Philip asks Jesus to "show us the Father," Jesus says, "He who sees me sees the Father" (Jn 14:8f.). "Lord, show us the Father," we say again and again to Jesus, and the answer again and again is the Son himself. Through him, and only through him, do we come to know the Father. And in this way the criterion of true fatherliness is made clear. The Our Father does not project a human image onto heaven, but shows us from heaven-from Jesus-what we as human beings can and should be like.

Now, however, we must look even more closely, because we need to realize that, according to Jesus' message, there are two sides of G.o.d's Fatherhood for us to see. First of all, G.o.d is our Father in the sense that he is our Creator. We belong to him because he has created us. "Being" as such comes from him and is consequently good; it derives from G.o.d. This is especially true of human beings. Psalm 33:15 says in the Latin translation, "He who has fas.h.i.+oned the hearts of all, considers all their works." The idea that G.o.d has created each individual human being is essential to the Bible's image of man. Every human being is unique, and willed as such by G.o.d. Every individual is known to him. In this sense, by virtue of creation itself man is the "child" of G.o.d in a special way, and G.o.d is his true Father. To describe man as G.o.d's image is another way of expressing this idea.

This brings us to the second dimension of G.o.d's Fatherhood. There is a unique sense in which Christ is the "image of G.o.d" (2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). The Fathers of the Church therefore say that when G.o.d created man "in his image," he looked toward the Christ who was to come, and created man according to the image of the "new Adam," the man who is the criterion of the human. Above all, though, Jesus is "the Son" in the strict sense-he is of one substance with the Father. He wants to draw all of us into his humanity and so into his Sons.h.i.+p, into his total belonging to G.o.d.

This gives the concept of being G.o.d's children a dynamic quality: We are not ready-made children of G.o.d from the start, but we are meant to become so increasingly by growing more and more deeply in communion with Jesus. Our sons.h.i.+p turns out to be identical with following Christ. To name G.o.d as Father thus becomes a summons to us: to live as a "child," as a son or daughter. "All that is mine is thine," Jesus says in his high-priestly prayer to the Father (Jn 17:10), and the father says the same thing to the elder brother of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:31). The word father father is an invitation to live from our awareness of this reality. Hence, too, the delusion of false emanc.i.p.ation, which marked the beginning of mankind's history of sin, is overcome. Adam, heeding the words of the serpent, wants to become G.o.d himself and to shed his need for G.o.d. We see that to be G.o.d's child is not a matter of dependency, but rather of standing in the relation of love that sustains man's existence and gives it meaning and grandeur. is an invitation to live from our awareness of this reality. Hence, too, the delusion of false emanc.i.p.ation, which marked the beginning of mankind's history of sin, is overcome. Adam, heeding the words of the serpent, wants to become G.o.d himself and to shed his need for G.o.d. We see that to be G.o.d's child is not a matter of dependency, but rather of standing in the relation of love that sustains man's existence and gives it meaning and grandeur.

One last question remains: Is G.o.d also mother? The Bible does compare G.o.d's love with the love of a mother: "As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you" (Is 66:13). "Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should have no compa.s.sion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you" (Is 49:15). The mystery of G.o.d's maternal love is expressed with particular power in the Hebrew word rahamim rahamim. Etymologically, this word means "womb," but it was later used to mean divine compa.s.sion for man, G.o.d's mercy. The Old Testament constantly uses the names of organs of the human body to describe basic human att.i.tudes or inner dispositions of G.o.d, just as today we use heart heart or or brain brain when referring to some aspect of our own existence. In this way the Old Testament portrays the basic att.i.tudes of our existence, not with abstract concepts, but in the image language of the body. The womb is the most concrete expression for the intimate interrelatedness of two lives and of loving concern for the dependent, helpless creature whose whole being, body and soul, nestles in the mother's womb. The image language of the body furnishes us, then, with a deeper understanding of G.o.d's dispositions toward man than any conceptual language could. when referring to some aspect of our own existence. In this way the Old Testament portrays the basic att.i.tudes of our existence, not with abstract concepts, but in the image language of the body. The womb is the most concrete expression for the intimate interrelatedness of two lives and of loving concern for the dependent, helpless creature whose whole being, body and soul, nestles in the mother's womb. The image language of the body furnishes us, then, with a deeper understanding of G.o.d's dispositions toward man than any conceptual language could.

Although this use of language derived from man's bodiliness inscribes motherly love into the image of G.o.d, it is nonetheless also true that G.o.d is never named or addressed as mother, either in the Old or in the New Testament. "Mother" in the Bible is an image but not a t.i.tle for G.o.d. Why not? We can only tentatively seek to understand. Of course, G.o.d is neither a man nor a woman, but simply G.o.d, the Creator of man and woman. The mother-deities that completely surrounded the people of Israel and the New Testament Church create a picture of the relation between G.o.d and the world that is completely opposed to the biblical image of G.o.d. These deities always, and probably inevitably, imply some form of pantheism in which the difference between Creator and creature disappears. Looked at in these terms, the being of things and of people cannot help looking like an emanation from the maternal womb of being, which, in entering time, takes shape in the multiplicity of existing things.

By contrast, the image of the Father was and is apt for expressing the otherness of Creator and creature and the sovereignty of his creative act. Only by excluding the mother-deities could the Old Testament bring its image of G.o.d, the pure transcendence of G.o.d, to maturity. But even if we cannot provide any absolutely compelling arguments, the prayer language of the entire Bible remains normative for us, in which, as we have seen, while there are some fine images of maternal love, "mother" is not used as a t.i.tle or a form of address for G.o.d. We make our pet.i.tions in the way that Jesus, with Holy Scripture in the background, taught us to pray, and not as we happen to think or want. Only thus do we pray properly.

Finally, we need to consider the word our our. Jesus alone was fully ent.i.tled to say "my Father," because he alone is truly G.o.d's only-begotten Son, of one substance with the Father. By contrast, the rest of us have to say "our Father." Only within the "we" of the disciples can we call G.o.d "Father," because only through communion with Jesus Christ do we truly become "children of G.o.d." In this sense, the word our our is really rather demanding: It requires that we step out of the closed circle of our "I." It requires that we surrender ourselves to communion with the other children of G.o.d. It requires, then, that we strip ourselves of what is merely our own, of what divides. It requires that we accept the other, the others-that we open our ear and our heart to them. When we say the word is really rather demanding: It requires that we step out of the closed circle of our "I." It requires that we surrender ourselves to communion with the other children of G.o.d. It requires, then, that we strip ourselves of what is merely our own, of what divides. It requires that we accept the other, the others-that we open our ear and our heart to them. When we say the word our, our, we say Yes to the living Church in which the Lord wanted to gather his new family. In this sense, the Our Father is at once a fully personal and a thoroughly ecclesial prayer. In praying the Our Father, we pray totally with our own heart, but at the same time we pray in communion with the whole family of G.o.d, with the living and the dead, with men of all conditions, cultures, and races. The Our Father overcomes all boundaries and makes us one family. we say Yes to the living Church in which the Lord wanted to gather his new family. In this sense, the Our Father is at once a fully personal and a thoroughly ecclesial prayer. In praying the Our Father, we pray totally with our own heart, but at the same time we pray in communion with the whole family of G.o.d, with the living and the dead, with men of all conditions, cultures, and races. The Our Father overcomes all boundaries and makes us one family.

This word our our also gives us the key to understanding the words that come next: "Who art in heaven." With these words, we are not pus.h.i.+ng G.o.d the Father away to some distant planet. Rather, we are testifying to the fact that, while we have different earthly fathers, we all come from one single Father, who is the measure and source of all fatherhood. As Saint Paul says: "I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named" (Eph 3:1415). In the background we hear the Lord himself speaking: "Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven" (Mt 23:9). also gives us the key to understanding the words that come next: "Who art in heaven." With these words, we are not pus.h.i.+ng G.o.d the Father away to some distant planet. Rather, we are testifying to the fact that, while we have different earthly fathers, we all come from one single Father, who is the measure and source of all fatherhood. As Saint Paul says: "I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named" (Eph 3:1415). In the background we hear the Lord himself speaking: "Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven" (Mt 23:9).

G.o.d's fatherhood is more real than human fatherhood, because he is the ultimate source of our being; because he has thought and willed us from all eternity; because he gives us our true paternal home, which is eternal. And if earthly fatherhood divides, heavenly fatherhood unites. Heaven, then, means that other divine summit from which we all come and to which we are all meant to return. The fatherhood that is "in heaven" points us toward the greater "we" that transcends all boundaries, breaks down all walls, and creates peace.

HALLOWED B BE T THY N NAME.

The first pet.i.tion of the Our Father reminds us of the second commandment of the Decalogue: Thou shalt not speak the name of the Lord thy G.o.d in vain. But what is this "name of G.o.d"? When we speak of G.o.d's name, we see in our mind's eye the picture of Moses in the desert beholding a thornbush that burns but is not consumed. At first it is curiosity that prompts him to go and take a closer look at this mysterious sight, but then a voice calls to him from out of the bush, and this voice says to him: "I am the G.o.d of your fathers, the G.o.d of Abraham, the G.o.d of Isaac, and the G.o.d of Jacob" (Ex 3:6). This G.o.d sends Moses back to Egypt with the task of leading the people of Israel out of that country into the Promised Land. Moses is charged with demanding in the name of G.o.d that Pharaoh let Israel go.

But in the world of Moses' time there were many G.o.ds. Moses therefore asks the name of this G.o.d that will prove his special authority vis-a-vis the G.o.ds. In this respect, the idea of the divine name belongs first of all to the polytheistic world, in which this G.o.d, too, has to give himself a name. But the G.o.d who calls Moses is truly G.o.d, and G.o.d in the strict and true sense is not plural. G.o.d is by essence one. For this reason he cannot enter into the world of the G.o.ds as one among many; he cannot have one name among others.

G.o.d's answer to Moses is thus at once a refusal and a pledge. He says of himself simply, "I am who I am"-he is is without any qualification. This pledge is a name and a non-name at one and the same time. The Israelites were therefore perfectly right in refusing to utter this self-designation of G.o.d, expressed in the word YHWH, so as to avoid degrading it to the level of names of pagan deities. By the same token, recent Bible translations were wrong to write out this name-which Israel always regarded as mysterious and unutterable-as if it were just any old name. By doing so, they have dragged the mystery of G.o.d, which cannot be captured in images or in names lips can utter, down to the level of some familiar item within a common history of religions. without any qualification. This pledge is a name and a non-name at one and the same time. The Israelites were therefore perfectly right in refusing to utter this self-designation of G.o.d, expressed in the word YHWH, so as to avoid degrading it to the level of names of pagan deities. By the same token, recent Bible translations were wrong to write out this name-which Israel always regarded as mysterious and unutterable-as if it were just any old name. By doing so, they have dragged the mystery of G.o.d, which cannot be captured in images or in names lips can utter, down to the level of some familiar item within a common history of religions.

It remains true, of course, that G.o.d did not simply refuse Moses' request. If we want to understand this curious interplay between name and non-name, we have to be clear about what a name actually is. We could put it very simply by saying that the name creates the possibility of address or invocation. It establishes relations.h.i.+p. When Adam names the animals, what this means is not that he indicates their essential natures, but that he fits them into his human world, puts them within reach of his call. Having said this, we are now in a position to understand the positive meaning of the divine name: G.o.d establishes a relations.h.i.+p between himself and us. He puts himself within reach of our invocation. He enters into relations.h.i.+p with us and enables us to be in relations.h.i.+p with him. Yet this means that in some sense he hands himself over to our human world. He has made himself accessible and, therefore, vulnerable as well. He a.s.sumes the risk of relations.h.i.+p, of communion, with us.

The process that was brought to completion in the Incarnation had begun with the giving of the divine name. When we come to consider Jesus' high-priestly prayer, in fact, we will see that he presents himself there as the new Moses: "I have manifested thy name to...men" (Jn 17:6). What began at the burning bush in the Sinai desert comes to fulfillment at the burning bush of the Cross. G.o.d has now truly made himself accessible in his incarnate Son. He has become a part of our world; he has, as it were, put himself into our hands.

This enables us to understand what the pet.i.tion for the sanctification of the divine name means. The name of G.o.d can now be misused and so G.o.d himself can be sullied. The name of G.o.d can be co-opted for our purposes and so the image of G.o.d can also be distorted. The more he gives himself into our hands, the more we can obscure his light; the closer he is, the more our misuse can disfigure him. Martin Buber once said that when we consider all the ways in which G.o.d's name has been so shamefully misused, we almost despair of uttering it ourselves. But to keep it silent would be an outright refusal of the love with which G.o.d comes to us. Buber says that our only recourse is to try as reverently as possible to pick up and purify the polluted fragments of the divine name. But there is no way we can do that alone. All we can do is plead with him not to allow the light of his name to be destroyed in this world.

Moreover, this plea-that he himself take charge of the sanctification of his name, protect the wonderful mystery of his accessibility to us, and constantly a.s.sert his true ident.i.ty as opposed to our distortion of it-this plea, of course, is always an occasion for us to examine our consciences seriously. How do I treat G.o.d's holy name? Do I stand in reverence before the mystery of the burning bush, before his incomprehensible closeness, even to the point of his presence in the Eucharist, where he truly gives himself entirely into our hands? Do I take care that G.o.d's holy companions.h.i.+p with us will draw us up into his purity and sanct.i.ty, instead of dragging him down into the filth?

THY K KINGDOM C COME.

In connection with the pet.i.tion for G.o.d's Kingdom, we recall all our earlier considerations concerning the term "Kingdom of G.o.d." With this pet.i.tion, we are acknowledging first and foremost the primacy of G.o.d. Where G.o.d is absent, nothing can be good. Where G.o.d is not seen, man and the world fall to ruin. This is what the Lord means when he says to "seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well" (Mt 6:33). These words establish an order of priorities for human action, for how we approach everyday life.

This is not a promise that we will enter the Land of Plenty on condition that we are devout or that we are somehow attracted to the Kingdom of G.o.d. This is not an automatic formula for a well-functioning world, not a utopian vision of a cla.s.sless society in which everything works out well of its own accord, simply because there is no private property. Jesus does not give us such simple recipes. What he does do, though-as we saw earlier-is to establish an absolutely decisive priority. For "Kingdom of G.o.d" means "dominion of G.o.d," and this means that his will is accepted as the true criterion. His will establishes justice, and part of justice is that we give G.o.d his just due and, in so doing, discover the criterion for what is justly due among men.

The order of priorities that Jesus indicates for us here may remind us of the Old Testament account of Solomon's first prayer after his accession to office. The story goes that the Lord appeared to the young king in a dream at night and gave him leave to make a request that the Lord promised to grant. A cla.s.sic dream motif of mankind! What does Solomon ask for? "Give thy servant therefore a listening heart to govern thy people, that I may discern between good and evil" (1 Kings 3:9). G.o.d praises him because instead of asking for wealth, fortune, honor, or the death of his enemies, or even long life (2 Chron 1:11), tempting as that would have been, he asked for the truly essential thing: a listening heart, the ability to discern between good and evil. And for this reason Solomon receives those other things as well.

With the pet.i.tion "thy Kingdom come" (not "our kingdom"), the Lord wants to show us how to pray and order our action in just this way. The first and essential thing is a listening heart, so that G.o.d, not we, may reign. The Kingdom of G.o.d comes by way of a listening heart. That is its path. And that is what we must pray for again and again.

The encounter with Christ makes this pet.i.tion even deeper and more concrete. We have seen that Jesus is the Kingdom of G.o.d in person. The Kingdom of G.o.d is present wherever he is present. By the same token, the request for a listening heart becomes a request for communion with Jesus Christ, the pet.i.tion that we increasingly become "one" with him (Gal 3:28). What is requested in this pet.i.tion is the true following of Christ, which becomes communion with him and makes us one body with him. Reinhold Schneider has expressed this powerfully: "The life of this Kingdom is Christ's continuing life in those who are his own. In the heart that is no longer nourished by the vital power of Christ, the Kingdom ends; in the heart that is touched and transformed by it, the Kingdom begins.... The roots of the indestructible tree seek to penetrate into each heart. The Kingdom is one. It exists solely through the Lord who is its life, its strength, and its center" (Das Vaterunser, pp. 31f.). To pray for the Kingdom of G.o.d is to say to Jesus: Let us be yours, Lord! Pervade us, live in us; gather scattered humanity in your body, so that in you everything may be subordinated to G.o.d and you can then hand over the universe to the Father, in order that "G.o.d may be all in all" (1 Cor 15:28).

THY W WILL B BE D DONE ON E EARTH AS I IT I IS IN H HEAVEN.

Two things are immediately clear from the words of this pet.i.tion: G.o.d has a will with and for us and it must become the measure of our willing and being; and the essence of "heaven" is that it is where G.o.d's will is unswervingly done. Or, to put it in somewhat different terms, where G.o.d's will is done is heaven. The essence of heaven is oneness with G.o.d's will, the oneness of will and truth. Earth becomes "heaven" when and insofar as G.o.d's will is done there; and it is merely "earth," the opposite of heaven, when and insofar as it withdraws from the will of G.o.d. This is why we pray that it may be on earth as it is in heaven-that earth may become "heaven."

But what is "G.o.d's will"? How do we recognize it? How can we do it? The Holy Scriptures work on the premise that man has knowledge of G.o.d's will in his inmost heart, that anch.o.r.ed deeply within us there is a partic.i.p.ation in G.o.d's knowing, which we call conscience (cf., for example, Rom 2:15). But the Scriptures also know that this partic.i.p.ation in the Creator's knowledge, which he gave us in the context of our creation "according to his likeness," became buried in the course of history. It can never be completely extinguished, but it has been covered over in many ways, like a barely flickering flame, all too often at risk of being smothered under the ash of all the prejudices that have piled up within us. And that is why G.o.d has spoken to us anew, uttering words in history that come to us from outside and complete the interior knowledge that has become all too hidden.

The heart of this historically situated "complementary teaching" contained in biblical Revelation is the Decalogue given on Mount Sinai. As we have seen, this is by no means abolished