It is not enough that the Kingdom be established, that its boundaries be enlarged, and its glory delighted in ; there is an end for which all this is brought about, and that end is that the will of the Ruler may be done. We desire that God may assert His dominion over us and all men, and may give us to know that He is a living and near God by the force of His will upon us. From the " name " we pass to the work as displayed in His Kingdom, and from the work to the will. From the outskirts of His personality we pass to its heart.
1. The petition, " Thy will be done," is not only the summit or the climax of those petitions in which we seek God's honour and glory ; it is the foundation of all prayer. For what is prayer ? It is not, as is sometimes foolishly thought, a mere means of trying to extort something from God ; nor an attempt to change the will of God regarding us, as if, by our continual asking, we might obtain certain things which God had hitherto denied us. It is, first of all and chief of all, an acknowledgment on our part that God knows what is best for us, and a desire that He would enable us to submit our wills to His will. We cannot rightly ask for any- thing, unless we ask for it in humble dependence upon the will of God ; unless, in asking, we are conscious that we do not desire it, unless God desires it for us.
2. " Thy will be done," — that, then, is the spirit of every true prayer. But it is more, it ought to be the spirit of every true life. Apart from such acknowledgment as is here implied, how aimless our lives are apt to be, swayed hither and thither by every idle
ST. MATTHEW vi. 9 145
impulse, at the mercy of every gust of passion, or at the best centred in some selfish or worldly pursuit. But, on the other hand, once a man has realized that he has come forth from God, that God has need of him, and has a purpose for him to fulfil, what new strength and dignity of character he gains ! He learns that he does not stand alone, and gradually there is borne in upon him the triumphant consciousness of a life lived, not according to any self-willed object or desire, but step by step unfolding itself according to " the complete and perfect plan cherished for it in the heart of God." With the Hebrew Psalmist he can exclaim, " 0 Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust." " My times are in thy hand."
3. God's will is to be done here — here on earth — and now. We are not to wait for another life, as if then alone we could truly serve God. But our service here is to prepare us for our service hereafter. We are told of the angels of God that they " do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word," and that they are " all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation." And the ministry of the angels is, as this petition teaches us, to be the model of our ministry.
Tj When Hooker was lying on his deathbed, a friend visiting him found him in deep contemplation, and asking what his thoughts were, received the reply that he was "meditating the nature and number of angels, and their blessed obedience and order, without which peace could not be in heaven ; and, Oh ! that it might be so on earth." x
TJ When Gladstone was asked for his favourite quotation he gave the six words of Dante, " La sua volontade e nostra pace " — " His Will is our peace." 2
IV.
The Daily Bread.
"Give us this day our daily bread."
In the Lord's Prayer there are three petitions for God's glory, three for man's spiritual necessity, and in the midst is set one
1 G. Milligan, The Lord's Prayer, 83.
2 P. Deanner, in Churchmanahip and Labour, 249. ST. MATT. — lO
H6 the lords prayer
petition for man's bodily needs — only one, and that most full of significance, " Give us this day our daily bread."
Let us be reverent enough to take this sentence in its plain meaning. To give it some mystical or symbolic interpretation which our Lord did not mean it to have is to set up another prayer which is not the Lord's Prayer. " Daily bread " does not refer to the Eucharist. The word translated "daily" is very obscure, it occurs nowhere else in the Greek language; but all are agreed that the meaning is " bread for our daily subsistence," and the attempt made by Abelard in the twelfth century to translate it " supersubstantial " is undoubtedly wrong. The petition simply deals with the most fundamental of social questions — the need of sustenance.
^| There is no better commentary on this petition than that of old Bishop Barrow : " A noble heart will disdain to subsist like a drone on the honey gained by others' labour; or like vermin to filch its food from the public granary ; or like a shark to prey on the lesser fry : but will one way or other earn his subsistence, for he that does not earn can hardly be said to own his daily bread." *