Pastor's Message

So now you want to take the Lord’s Prayer out of the Ontario Legislature! What’s next?

On Thursday morning, February 21, 2008, the CBC Radio program called “Sounds Like Canada” featured a round table discussion by their so-called “panel of experts” on the topic of the removal of the Lord’s Prayer from the opening of the Ontario Legislature. The experts included a new citizen of Canada (a woman from South America who recently became a Canadian Citizen), a fairly conservative middle aged man from Ontario and a man from Newfoundland who had once spent time in jail for smuggling. The debate began with a minute long sound bite from Premier Dalton McGinity of the province of Ontario.  The premier is self described as a nominal Christian. He proposed the removal of the Lord’s Prayer on very practical grounds. His point was that the inside of the legislature should reflect the province outside the legislature. There was a time that the population of province of Ontario consisted primarily of Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians. The Lord’s Prayer was a common prayer which was acceptable to all Christians. The Lord’s Prayer reflected both the beliefs of those who governed in the legislature and those who were governed by the legislature. McGinty argued that Canada and Ontario have changed. Parliament and each provincial legislature and territorial government administers the affairs of Canadians who represent most all of the world’s religions as well as people who profess no religion, that is, do not believe in the existence of the divine. The Lord’s Prayer reflects the beliefs of only a portion of the Canadian public and therefore should not be used, or replaced with a more inclusive prayer.

The panel weighed in on the question. The fairly conservative man from the east made the usual argument. The founding fathers and mothers of Canada were Christians. They had brought Christianity from the Old World to this New World. They established Canada and the Canadian legal system based upon Judeo-Christian beliefs. The recitation of the Lord’s prayer is a tradition with respect to the opening of Parliament and every other governing body in Canada and this tradition must be continued.  The new Canadian citizen argued that the content of the prayer should be thoroughly analyzed as should the effect of the prayer on the legislature. The question must be asked as to whether the prayer has shaped and influenced the way that the legislature or governing body has performed. She also argued that spirituality is a private matter which should be reflected in private prayer and reflection outside the legislature.     
The man from Newfoundland argued that this is a prayer which comes from a tradition, from a Canadian past in which white settlers stole Canada from the Aboriginal peoples. In his opinion, because of the mistakes and evils perpetrated in the past by Canadians, this prayer should not be repeated in the present.

I have to tell you that I am not very impressed with the responses of the CBC “think tank,” inasmuch as their opinions demonstrated very little originality. They argued from the point of view of tradition, utility and historical prejudice. The argument from tradition says we have always done it that way and we should continue to do it that way. We have always said the Lord’s Prayer to begin governmental sessions and we should keep on doing it for that reason. The problem with the argument from tradition is that it is a weak argument. Traditions only survive if a generation of people embraces them. Church attendance has taken a nose dive in Canada. There is no need for the tradition of prayer because fewer and fewer people pray.   The argument from utility says that, if we believe the substance of the Lord’s Prayer and it has been beneficial for our country, then we should keep on doing it. The Lord’s Prayer has been said to open parliament and provincial legislatures over the last 140 years.  Canada has prospered over the last 140 years. During that 140 year period, Canada has been populated predominantly by Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians who knew the content of and believed Lord’s Prayer. However, many argue that over the last several decades the religious and cultural climate of Canada has changed. Fewer and fewer Canadians know and even believe the contents of the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer therefore has no more utility for our society and therefore should be discontinued. The argument from Historical prejudice links the Lord’s prayer with the Church in Canada. This argument links the church with the history of white Europeans who took this country from the aboriginal peoples and then abused them by placing them on reservations and then later in residential schools. This argument’s premise is that the Lord’s Prayer’s link to Canada’s colonial past and abusive present disqualifies its use in the halls and legislatures of Canada’s governing bodies.

The think tank presented their arguments and summarily dismissed the Lord’s Prayer as having no utility for our country today, a dead tradition which has no use for us today, and the prayer of an abusive past. These arguments must be addressed and must be responded to. The Lord’s prayer is no lame and vestigial tradition from the past. The Lord’s prayer has great utility and worth. We must get our side of the story out.

The Lord’s Prayer reflects a living democratic truth for our nation. Not one of the “think tank” bothered to look at the governing documents of our dominion. The Constitution Act of 1982, which includes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, begins this way:  “Whereas Canada is founded upon the principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.” Our Canadian constitution clearly and unequivocally states that a foundational principal of our dominion is that God reigns supreme in our nation.  It is also very clear and very unequivocal that when the Constitution Act was passed into law that “God” was defined as God the Father and the creator of the world, God the Son, who redeemed the world on the cross, and God the Holy Spirit who calls, gathers and sanctifies us through the proclamation of the Gospel. The Queen of England was, in 1982, and still is the sovereign and titular head of the Canadian government and the Church of England (who, up until this point, confess the Apostle’s Creed and thereby confess the Triune God).  It was also clear and unequivocal that the governing bodies of our nation embodied, declared, practiced and confessed the sovereignty of God in Canadian life by repeating the words of the Lord’s Prayer at the opening of Canadian Parliament and all other governing bodies of our land. To take the Lord’s Prayer out Parliament, provincial legislatures and official meetings of other governmental bodies in Canada is to deny a founding principal of our nation, namely, that God is sovereign in our land. The rule of law in Canada is based on the common law of England, which in turn is based on the laws of the Old Testament of the Holy Bible. If you want to take the Lord’s Prayer out of Canadian Government, you have to take God and the Holy Bible out of the Constitution. Let’s see a political party take that to the poles.

            I don’t believe that any Canadian politician or Canadian political party has the courage or the will to take the question of God’s supremacy and sovereignty in Canada to the poles. What I am afraid of is that they will amend the constitution by acting unconstitutionally. I fear legislatures will enact rules of procedure that will take the Lord’s Prayer out of  governmental life,  or substitute another “inclusive prayer” in the Lord’s Prayer’s place. The Canadian public will be fed the propaganda which mirrors the arguments advanced by the “CBC think tank.” They will say that the term “God” means so many things to so many people in Canada that it is impossible to find one prayer that covers all. The best is to have no prayer whatsoever. They will say that religion, and the free practice of it, is a private matter. They will say to select one prayer, a Christian prayer, over all the prayers of the other religions represented in Canada is an affront against all other religions and the free practice of religion.  I am afraid that the public will be convinced of these arguments and will at best grumble about it and at worst will say nothing about the removal of the Lord’s prayer. I am afraid that one morning we will wake up and find God taken out of every aspect of public life in Canada and that God will not be supreme in Canada.

Luther’s Small Catechism teaches us that each petition of the Lord’s Prayer is of great utility for each citizen of Canada and our entire nation.  It is meant to be prayed as a group and each petition asks God to answer our prayer individually and corporately. When we pray the petition, “Our Father who art in heaven,”  each person praying the prayer  comes to and approaches God, regardless of their age or standing in the community, as and like a little child approaching a beloved earthly father. Just as a child has faith and trust that an earthly father will give them good gifts, so God’s children approach Him. (See Matthew 7:7-12).

When we pray “Hallowed be Thy name,” we acknowledge that God’s name is holy whether we believe it or acknowledge God. Luther declares that when we pray this prayer we ask God that His name be holy in our lives. God helps us to hallow His name as we hear his Word taught in its purity and step out in faith and obey the same.

When we pray “Thy kingdom come,” we pray that God’s eschatological, or eternal kingdom would come. We pray for Christ’s second coming. Luther reminds us that the second coming of Christ and the eschatological kingdom will come whether we pray for it or not and whether we believe in that kingdom or not. What we pray for is that God’s kingdom would come in our lives today. God’s kingdom comes to us through the Holy Spirit as we hear the Gospel and our lives are transformed and conformed to God’s will.

Luther reminds us that when we pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we acknowledge that God’s heavenly will is done on earth whether we pray for it or not. However, in this petition, we ask that God’s will be done in our lives. We pray that we become conduits of God’s will and intention in heaven and allow it to be brought to fruition on this earth through us.

When we pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” we must acknowledge that God gives good things to believers  and non-believers without distinction. In this petition we give praise and thanks for God’s grace in feeding us this day and giving us our “daily bread.” Luther reminds us that “daily bread” means: Everything required to satisfy our bodily needs, such as food and clothing, house and home, fields and flocks, money and property; a pious spouse and good children, trustworthy servants, godly and faithful rulers, good government; seasonable weather, peace and health, order and honor; true friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

When we pray “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” Luther reminds us: We pray in this petition that our heavenly Father may not look upon our sins, and on their account deny our prayers, for we neither merit nor deserve those things for which we pray. Although we sin daily and deserve nothing but punishment, we nevertheless pray that God may grant us all things by his grace. And assuredly we on our part will heartily forgive and cheerfully do good to those who may sin against us.
 
When we pray “Lead us not into temptation,” Luther reminds us: “God tempts no one to sin, but we pray in this petition that God may so guard and preserve us that the devil, the world, and our flesh may not deceive us or mislead us into unbelief, despair, and other great and shameful sins, but that, although we may be so tempted, we may finally prevail and gain the victory.”
 
When we pray the words “Deliver us from evil,” we pray that “our Father in heaven may deliver us from all manner of evil, whether it affect body or soul, property or reputation, and that at last, when the hour of death comes, he may grant us a blessed end and graciously take us from this world of sorrow to himself in heaven.”

What is amazing about this prayer is that it has great utility for our country and each citizen of Canada. It takes us back to our founding principles; namely, that we are a nation which was founded on the belief that God is supreme in our individual and national lives. The Lord’s prayer reminds us that God provides for our lives in this world and the next. Canada is a nation of immigrants and the children of immigrants. All experienced a call or inward desire to come to this nation from another place or are the descendants of those called to come here. Those that where called to Canada felt a call to leave their old life and come to Canada for a new life in the promised land of Canada.  The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that God calls us to a new land, a Kingdom in which there will be no tears, injuries, wars, hurt, sickness and death. God calls us to an eternal kingdom. The cares of life and the pursuit of the Canadian dream often detracts us from God’s call to His heavenly kingdom. The Lord’s Prayer brings our mortality before us and renews God’s invitation to participate in His eternal kingdom to us as individuals and as a nation.

The petition “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” is a most important one. It calls us first and foremost to look at our own sinfulness in the sight of God. This petition calls us to see that we have sinned and continue to sin grievously against when we fail to recognize that we have prospered individually and as a nation because of God’s divine providence. It is God who has peppered Canada with natural resources as a trust from God to be used, managed and shared. Instead, we have treated our nation and its resources as if we have the absolute and unbridled right to everything and the prosperity of our nation is due solely to our individual efforts and that it’s continued prosperity is due to strategic planning and tax cuts. We have individually, corporately, and even as the body of Christ (residential schools), abused the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. We believe that religious, individual and political freedoms can be preserved by a “Charter of Rights and Freedoms” and not the hand of God protecting us. We have banished God from our schools and places of higher learning. We, as a nation, have truly bit the hand that feeds us as individuals and as a nation. We have to admit that as individuals and as a nation we have been led into temptation. We hear of scandals in government. Cash changes hands for favors. There are long lines for surgery and other healthcare services. There are tens of thousands of children who live below the poverty line in a rich nation. We decry welfare for the poor and say nothing about the cash which flows in and out of government coffers which the government can’t even account for. We need to be forgiven as individuals and as a nation.

Humble and contrite sinners who have been forgiven by God, are in a position to forgive one another. Perhaps if we truly confessed our individual, corporate and historical sin to God and received forgiveness we could forgive one another the sins of the past, the present and the future. Perhaps with humble and contrite hearts we can speak about official languages, transfer payments, infrastructure repairs and construction, healthcare and other needs in a way which reflects and is based on the needs of people of Canada rather than history, geography and law.

I believe that there is power in prayer. But the power in prayer is the one you pray to God. The power in prayer is the faith of the one who prays the prayer in the one prayed to. We cannot be like the traditionalist who believes that engaging in a tradition, just repeating the Lord’s Prayer will make everything alright. We can never, never, never, forget the words of Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” God finds no pleasure in rote recital of a prayer, even the perfect prayer Jesus taught us. God gave the Christian church on earth and in Canada in particular as a gift to our nation. God calls the church and each Christian to be:

Prophetic, that is, to challenge our secular society’s understanding of the place of Christianity and prayer in Canada.

Evangelical, to proclaim the Gospel in its purity in Canada, for it is only in the proclamation of the Gospel, that the Holy Spirit, calls, gather, and enlightens individuals and incorporates them into the body of Christ, the Holy Christian Church.

Sacramental, God calls us to baptize people into the very name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and to administer the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Transformed, the proclamation of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments leads to our transformation into a new creation. This transformation leads to a hunger to study God’s word  and conform our lives to God’s will for us as stated in his word.

Transformational, the process of conforming our lives to God’s will by stepping out in faith based on  God’s word permits us to bring the transformational  power of the Gospel into the lives of others. It permits us to be God’s conduits of transformation.

It is in being and acting in this way that the position of the Lord’s Prayer in Canadian life and our lives remains secure. It will never be from legal or political action.

Lent is a great time of the year for the Church. It reminds us that there are problems, concerns, challenges and sins in our lives. It reminds us that these problems seem insurmountable and there is no escape and relief. It seems like all will fail and collapse. It seems that Good Friday is just around the corner for us all as a people and a nation. However, Lent and Good Friday are followed by Easter, Resurrection and new Life. I pray that following Holy Week, we will have an Easter attitude toward our individual lives and our lives as Canadian Citizens. I pray we will become more prophetic, evangelical, sacramental, transformed and transformational.

In Christ,
Pastor Ed

© Grace Lutheran Church Kelowna 2006
Grace Lutheran Church is a member congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada