LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 359

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
We also need a weapon against greed. Consumer culture sucks us into
a whirlpool of desires that make us petulant amid prosperity. Gourmands
demand the exotic and fuss about presentation. But a child of God who prays
this Word can delight in a morsel of bread. Who is happier? And who is more
generous—one who has learned to pray confidently for daily bread or one who
is longing for more and better?155 Recognition of a generous God, not comparative wealth, creates generous people. In this petition our Lord returns to the
plural: “give us this day our daily bread.” I may have all the bread I need, but I
am not praying only for myself in this petition. I pray with those who are hungry, and gratefully realize that my plenty is the very means by which some of
them may be filled. There is enough for all in most times. Hunger is less often
due to a lack of God-given resources than it is to hoarding and greed.
If I may be the instrument by which another receives daily bread, then
my own daily bread also comes by means of others. The farmer, the miller, the
baker, the trucker, the merchant—all of them and others are God’s daily instruments for feeding me and the world. To see this is to realize that the fourth
petition cannot be narrow in scope, dealing only with a slice of bread or the
body’s need for food. Luther rightly explains “daily bread” to mean “everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body.”156 So, while the
simplicity of bread compels our prayerful meditation, this petition also rightly
leads us into prayers for other needs, from things to the people whose lives
touch our own.157 To pray the fourth petition with Jesus is to pray for the world,
this world, where neither laziness nor selfishness is a godly option (Ps. 128:2;
Eph. 4:28). So it is that “the breaking of bread and prayers” (Acts 2:42158) always
accompany one another, that we pray “for all people, for kings and all who are
in high positions” (1 Tim. 2:1–2), and we recognize that by the Word and prayer,
all that God has created is made holy (1 Tim. 4:4–5). With Luther we pray for all
that daily life requires.159 By such means God provides for us.
Cyprian suggested that daily bread “may be understood, both in the spiritual and in the simple meaning, seeing that either purport contains a divine
aid, for the advancing of our salvation.”160 By a “spiritual” meaning, Cyprian
155
Perhaps this is one reason that that those who make more money actually give a lower
percentage of income to charity than those with less. Rachel Gardyn, “Generosity and Income,”
BNET: The CBS Interactive Business Network, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/
is_11_24/ai_95309979/. See also facts from the 2000 census at http://www.allcountries.org/
uscensus/638_charity_contributions_average_dollar_amount_and.html.
156

Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, 189.

157
In Hebrew (bread) refers to food in general as well as to bread in specific, as Chemnitz, The
Lord’s Prayer, 57, points out, noting that in various passages, “bread” is goat’s milk (Prov. 27:27),
cattle feed (Ps. 147:9), and fruit (Jer. 11:19).

This applies whether we consider “breaking of bread” to refer to sharing of food or to the
Holy Sacrament.
158

159

See “What is meant by daily bread?” SC 3:14, KW, 357.

160

Cyprian, The Lord’s Prayer, §13, 187.

has in mind the One who said, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35). Having been
graciously given Christ, that Bread by which we never fear hunger, all fears
of body or soul are vanquished. Instead, with God’s people of old we praise
the Lord.
From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
You cause the grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth
and wine to gladden the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine
and bread to strengthen man’s heart [Ps. 104:13–15].

The Fifth Petition: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those
who trespass against us”
Jesus teaches penitent prayer: “Forgive us.” 161 This is not provisional, as in
“If we have sinned in any way, please forgive.” No, we have sinned and Jesus
compels us to admit it. We are God’s children, justified by grace through faith
in Christ alone. His cross is at the heart of this petition and of all Christian
prayer. Pride wilts in the face of the clear identification of our need for forgiveness. Cyprian draws the obvious conclusion: “That no man may plume
himself with the pretence of innocency, and perish more wretchedly through
self-exaltation, he is instructed and taught that he commits sin every day, by
being commanded to pray every day for his sins.”162 Humility prevents us
from praying “as we forgive those who trespass against us” as hypocrites.
Luther warns those who “are blind to their own sin and so magnify that of
their neighbor that they can declare: ‘I will not and cannot forgive him. I will
never be reconciled to him.’”163 It may be true that a refusal to forgive harms
the unforgiving individual psychologically, but a far greater danger is the
potential judgment that comes of a proud refusal to forgive others, as Luther
reminds us.164
161
The most common English form of the fifth petition is “Forgive us our trespasses, as we
forgive those who trespass against us.” But the less commonly used version, referring to
“debts,” follows the Greek more closely. A debt indicates a failed obligation, not a mere misstep
(“trespass”). The word “debt” will not allow us to quibble or trivialize, for we owe God and our
neighbor nothing less than the obligation of love. “You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your
neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). See Thielicke, 91–93.
162

Cyprian, The Lord’s Prayer, §15, 189–190.

163

AE 42:65.

“Beware O man! Not he who offends you but you who refuses to forgive inflicts a harm
on you greater than the whole world could do.” AE 42:66. Luther adds (p. 67) that gossip is a
frequent mark of unforgiving pride toward another: “O you hypocrite and charlatan! If you
really were your neighbor’s friend you would keep silent and not spread his misfortune with
such delight and relish. Your accursed displeasure would change into pity and compassion.
164

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Only God’s humbling work can prevent such pride that assumes that “my
sins are forgivable,” but not those of another. Yet, there is more here than a lesson in humility. These words are a promise. “God’s promise is that he will hear
our prayers. This promise implies the remission of sins, for nothing entitles us
to be heard except the mercy of God in Christ. Therefore we can pray only in
the confidence that God is willing to overlook our sins.”165 In a beautiful irony,
we are doubly assured of God’s forgiveness by the fact that God actually commands us to pray to be forgiven: “by this commandment [God] makes it clear
that he will not cast us out or drive us away, even though we are sinners; he
wishes rather to draw us to himself so that we may humble ourselves before
him, lament our misery and plight, and pray for grace and help.”166 When God
so graciously commands this, it’s as if a wealthy man insisted on giving a feast
to a beggar who only dared to hope for a morsel.
This astounding generosity provides the only weapon against our unforgiving hearts. Every pastor, sooner or later, will hear someone confess that the
hurt caused by another’s sin is so deep that the individual wants to forgive,
but cannot. “Pastor, I just can’t forget it.” The person molested as a child,
someone unjustly fired, the family of a murder victim—these and similar situations have often left Christians struggling and tearfully admitting that they
cannot forgive from their own hearts. Such raw honesty we dare not trivialize.
But it can be addressed by the strong love of God in Christ.
In the command and promise of the fifth petition, our Lord gives an allencompassing plural pronoun: “forgive us”! Consider, first, that Christ, who
became sin for us “that we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor.
5:21), leads us in this prayer for our own forgiveness even as He also prayed
“Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34) from the cross for us. That He “becomes
sin” for us results in atonement even for our sins of pride and “unforgiveness.” Here, too, His redeeming work is greater than our sin. He who atones
for our sin joins Himself to us in order to free us also from this sin.
Second, the “forgive us” of the fifth petition is placed on our lips so that we
are praying for all sinners, including the ones for whom we can feel no heartfelt forgiveness. It is not hypocrisy to pray against my feelings—it is my only
hope for victory against those feelings which, left unchecked, would drive me
from Christ. In so doing, I pray for an absolution far greater than any I could
give by myself—I pray with Christ and His church for us and the forgiveness
of our sins. This isn’t for “me” alone, rather it assures me of forgiveness for
me and my neighbor—including the one who gravely wounded me. Such grace
extends to all, even to me when, in pride or trauma, I am blinded to my own
You would excuse him, cover up his wrongdoing, bid others to be silent, pray to God on his
behalf, admonish him as a brother, and help him to rise again.”
Vilmos Vajta, Luther on Worship (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1958), 162. See SC, III,
KW, 16.
165

166

LC 3:11, KW, 442.

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serious guilt. Such grace that forgives the world cannot exclude me or my
neighbor. Instead it leads us all to pray together, “Lamb of God, you take away
the sin of the world, have mercy on us.” With David we pray that God, who
might justly condemn us, would instead create and renew “a clean heart” and
“a right spirit” within us (Ps. 51:10).

The Sixth Petition: Lead us not into temptation
Luther says, “This petition brings to our attention the miserable life that
we lead here on earth. It is nothing more than one great trial.”167 His comment
might seem an exaggeration if not outright nonsense to many. After all, one
does not have to be delusional to recognize the blessings of this created world
and to say, “Life is good.” Yet, Luther also points to another fact: “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”
(1 Peter 5:8). Satan’s roar may often be drowned out by the relative ease of our
age and our droning complacency, but our Lord gives a petition to shake us
out of any deceit, one that He repeated just before His own testing in Gethsemane. “Pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Luke 22:40).
A question arises: Why do we ask our heavenly Father not to lead us into
temptation? There is something frightening in such language. It suggests
that, in some way, God is connected with temptation. James tells us that “God
himself tempts no one” (1:13), which Luther’s catechism strongly affirms.168
Yet, the petition Jesus gives us is addressed to the Father and it addresses Him
saying, “Lead us not into temptation.” It does not say, “Do not let Satan lead
us into temptation.”
We rightly soften this by speaking of what God “allows” rather than what
He “purposefully wills,” but even then we need to ask: Is God somehow connected to the temptations we face?169 Luther helps us to remember that God’s
grace is experienced in a world of sin, death, and Satan. Though these enemies
assault us, they are really Christ’s enemies. We face them as He leads us in the
battle of life, yet we also pray for relief from such conflict.170 Life here and now
is such that we do face the reality that is translated into English as “temptation.” Jeffrey Gibbs helps us understand this reality without softening it by
noting that the sixth petition must be understood together with the seventh,
“but deliver us from evil.” Noting that the Spirit led Jesus to be tempted in
167

AE 42:71.

168

“It is true that God tempts no one. . . .” SC, III, 18.

Note the question as Guardini, 78, puts it: “Can God permit temptation to become so severe
that we must fall? If we deny that He can, and that, in view of His divinity, He may, we are
making God innocuous.”
169

170
See Luther’s comments on Psalm 110:2b: “We must live in the midst of Christ’s enemies
. . . . They are not especially our enemies but His, and they plague us because of Him. He will
rule and conquer in this manner: even though His Christians feel themselves in deepest anxiety,
weak, and the victims of death and hell, He will nevertheless be mighty in them against the
devil’s fright and terrors of sin and death by means of His comfort, power, victory, joy, and life.”
AE 13:279–280.

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2013 Convention Workbook