The Lord's Prayer, Line by Line

Prayer opens with relationship and reverence held together. 'Father' would have startled the disciples — this is family language for the God of Sinai. 'Our' means you are praying with the whole church, never alone. 'Hallowed be your name' asks that God be treated as holy, starting with you.

Two requests that reorder everything else. Before you ask for anything of your own, you ask for God's rule to arrive and his will to happen — on earth, now, in your street, and in the plan you were hoping he would rubber-stamp.

Permission to ask for ordinary, physical, immediate things. 'Daily' echoes the manna in the wilderness: enough for today, gathered again tomorrow, keeping you in contact rather than self-sufficient.

Confession, immediately joined to the hardest clause in the prayer. Jesus adds a comment afterwards to make sure nobody misses it: refusing to forgive while pleading for forgiveness is incoherent. Forgiving is not pretending the wrong was small; it is releasing the right to collect.

An honest confession of weakness and a request for rescue — from your own appetites and from evil outside you. Then the church's ancient ending returns the whole prayer to God: the kingdom, the power and the glory are his.