The Our Father and How We Pray

Summary:

In this episode of Speaking of Faith, Bishop DeDe and Adam explore the power of prayer—especially the Lord’s Prayer—as a way to navigate faith in today’s complicated world. They talk about prayer as a relationship rather than a checklist, the meaning of submission and forgiveness, and how prayer transforms the way we see God, ourselves, and our communities. This conversation invites listeners to reflect on the Lord’s Prayer with fresh eyes and discover how it shapes our daily lives.

Highlights:

• The Lord’s Prayer as a foundation for how we pray
• Why prayer is about relationship, not requests
• Submission as yielding to God’s greater power
• Forgiveness as an act of healing, not approval
• Seeing God beyond our fears and anxieties
• How prayer helps us live with generosity, kindness, and unity

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe (00:02.273)
Hey friends, welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith. Man, do we need to speak of our faith in this time. And we need to speak of our faith with generosity and kindness and invitation and perhaps most of all, inspiration and clear mindedness. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. I am the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York. That's Canada to Pennsylvania, Utica to Elmira and Finger Lakes, Thousand Islands, a little bit of the enderonex.

and all those beautiful places and people in between. I'm joined by Adam Eichelberger, and I am so glad to talk with you today about prayer. And we're gonna talk about prayer, specifically about the Lord's Prayer. Because one of the things I've been really thinking about, and I've heard people actually say is, I don't even know how to pray. I mean, where is God in this? I am just so confused. All this division and acrimony and...

You feel like you can't say anything and so speaking of faith is always a detrimental and dangerous possibility. How do we even talk about our faith? And so I was thinking about, know, the Lord's Prayer is one of those wonderful, rich traditions, histories, opportunities, invitations that we have and liturgical resources, clearly.

But often we overlook it. It's a moment in our liturgies where we kind of breeze through it, or for those of us who are Christian, and I want to acknowledge, dear listener, you may not be of the Christian faith, and you're welcome to this conversation, whatever is useful to your own faith. This is about how we are as people. So whatever our faith may be, we have those parts of our faith where we may breeze by it and not,

stop and take a moment and say, what is this actually teaching me? Now, I'm not gonna get too much into the history of the Lord's Prayer and all of the different versions. This wasn't originally called the Lord's Prayer, Jesus in the book of Matthew, the book of Luke. There's a reference to Jesus saying, this is how you pray. And then that has come down to us through the centuries through, you know,

Bishop DeDe (02:26.593)
the Vulgate, all of the things. And so now we have in the Episcopal Church, we have what's called the traditional version and then the contemporary version. And when we say contemporary listeners, if you're not familiar with the Episcopal Church, we kind of mean 1979. So when we say contemporary, it's not super contemporary. But these are our prayers that we have in our prayer book. There's also out.

in the world you will encounter the King James version of the prayer and another modern version. And so being an Episcopal bishop, I'm centering in on these two. Now, why would we talk about the Lord's Prayer with all that's going on in our world? With food instability and the treatment of people and especially refugees and those who are outcast and disempowered, the dehumanization, the vitriol.

the blaming, the shaming, all the things that are happening that are dehumanizing and terrible for our souls that really make us so weary and the division.

Because this is a foundation. This is a starting place. And when Jesus says pray like this, He's inviting us to think about how we pray. So first I wanna ask, how do you pray in this time? Is it kind of like a grocery list? Like, know, do Lord, fix this, fix that. We need to get this sorted. You know, need to pick up some of peace over here. You know, where we can kind of get into a grocery list model. Sometimes it's just sitting with God and thinking, you know, Lord,

I can't even do something, you know. Sometimes it's with joy and celebration. Lord, look at this, this is wonderful, I'm so excited. The Lord's Prayer helps us center in on some aspects of prayer that we might miss. First of all, in the traditional, our Father who art in heaven, or our Father in heaven, to acknowledge that when we pray, we're in a relationship with someone.

Bishop DeDe (04:35.291)
And for many of us, father relationships may be strained. And so when we talk about the our father, that may have some baggage for us. And so we're talking about a relationship though. And so God, you know, God in heaven, hallowed be your name, adoration of God. Often in our prayers, we forget to acknowledge who we're praying to.

and to extol the virtues of the being we're praying with. So who God is, acknowledging the bigness of God and expanding our concept of God, rather than starting off like God's kind of a pez dispenser, dispensing goodies, to expand it back and say, of the universe, the force that has put the sun and moon and stars into being, God, the source of all life.

the source of all foundation, hallowed, holy is your name. To change, and there's a repentance in this first sentence that we sometimes overlook. We're shifting our focus, we're changing our mind. Where instead of focusing so much on the world, we're turning our eyes up and saying, God, who is bigger than all the things that scare me and that I'm rejoicing in all of the things.

And that change in perspective is so essential because otherwise we run the risk of not, praying, but not praying out of relationship, praying out of need or want or gimme, gimme, gimme, but not acknowledging this force and the source. And when we don't acknowledge that, I think we lose the power of that moment of prayer. We may overlook that God is bigger than

the things that are around us, this temporal existence. And then to praise God is such a wonderful act of submission too, recognizing that God's bigger. We often keep God kind of like, they used to say, God in a box, like a little, like a small thing or a distant reality or an unknown reality. But to extol the virtues of God, God who is merciful, God who is light and life to all.

Bishop DeDe (07:00.961)
And then continuing to shift that submission and that focus to your kingdom come or thy kingdom come, your will be done. Not my way, but your way. To recognize that God's way is better than ours. We can see the virtues of our ways, greed and avarice and revenge and selfishness and all the stuff. That's what's led us to this place, this precipice of division in our.

on all of our world, but God's way is different. And so your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven, connecting what's happening around us to God's hope and dream and desire for this world to be different. And then I think a real crux here, give us today our daily bread. Provide for us the nutrients and the things we need for this life.

to recognize that relationship, because this whole first part of the prayer is submitting our power and saying, you know Lord, it's very much like the prayer with AA or Serenity Prayer. We are helpless. We are turning to you. May your will be done on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, our sustenance, and forgive our sinfulness. Forgive us that we have not been turning to you.

And those as we forgive those who sin against us, and I think this is a tough little, that word as is a little stinging. It's a little bit of a thing because it makes us look around and say, we forgiving others? Are we? Are we in that place of forgiveness? Or are we holding grudges? Are we resenting? Are we dehumanizing? Are we becoming part of the narrative of hate and just, you know,

of misunderstandings. And then save us from the time of trial and the contemporary, lead us not into temptation and the traditional, whichever one speaks to your heart. And sometimes we can have a whole discussion about how these two sentences are, but to deliver, help me Lord, to help me in this time, deliver me, protect me, guide me, show me the way.

Bishop DeDe (09:29.865)
and deliver us from evil for your King. And then here we have the doxology and of course in other denominations there's not a doxology here. In the Episcopal Church we end with the doxology. Once again remembering, calling back to the first part of the adoration and all, remembering for the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, not ours, yours now and forever.

succumbing to and releasing into the eternal nature of God that no matter what is before us, the goodness and the eternal nature of God is bigger than. I think in this time with so much happening in our world that's destabilizing, dehumanizing, confusing, challenging, the Lord's Prayer is a wonderful, wonderful foundational resource for all of us to start with an understanding and then to take it and maybe make it our own.

in our own daily prayer to say, know, God of all that is, we praise you that you're a God of mercy. And we want to seek your will. And I'm having trouble doing that. And I ask your forgiveness that I can't see past my own fear, my own anxiety, my own greed or my own need to engage with this world knowing that you are with me, that you are real. And I have a relationship with this power.

that is greater than all other powers. And so when we shift our focus that way, when we repent, when we change our mind, or when we change, or we lift up our hearts to God, when we shift that focus, it's so empowering. So Adam, I've done a whole thing on the Lord's Prayer. I welcome your questions, feedback. What sparks for you in this?

Adam Eichelberger (11:21.506)
Yeah, one of the first things that you shared Bishop is, and I found it really interesting is this idea, like for us who say that we're Christians is focusing in on a universal God because I feel like, and I'm going to speak out of my own experience, listener or viewer. don't know if yours is the same. My view of God oftentimes is very small. Like it's the God of

my particular community or it's the god of my particular country or it's the god of my particular denomination when it comes to the flavor of Christianity of which I prescribe. And the call in this prayer to acknowledge a god that is so much bigger is really difficult for me. And I guess my first question is when we are praying

Bishop DeDe (12:12.609)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (12:12.972)
especially in the context of the Lord's Prayer, how do we get to that point where we can acknowledge this universal God, this thing that is simultaneously so magnanimous and so huge, but also is supposed to be so intimately personal, especially in the context of like, God is for everybody. We don't get to kind of co-opt God into it's like, he's our God or God is our God and not.

Bishop DeDe (12:38.356)
And

Adam Eichelberger (12:40.084)
other people's God. And I think we see a lot of that, especially in what's happening in our country right now. How do we reconcile these different views of God when we are turning to God in prayer?

Bishop DeDe (12:53.819)
Such a great question and I don't know. Viewer or listener, you say viewer. Listener, how do you do that? I can say for me and I can say what I teach others. I think each of us has to wrestle through that narrative. And you know, there's been long heresy about universalism and on all. In this prayer, Jesus is saying, our Father in heaven on earth as in heaven.

Adam Eichelberger (12:59.406)
You

Bishop DeDe (13:23.563)
there's an expansiveness to those words of Jesus. So I wanna zero in, I'm kinda, I'm keeping this as, in some ways, as narrow as I can while we open it up. I think the way we do that is with humility. Because often we look at a denomination or a particular, you said flavor, when we look at denominations, we wanna be territorial. We wanna say, I'm on this team, you're on that team.

And that's really when we look at places, especially, you know, like Ireland, for instance, that has been a real, people have died for that division over your God is not my God, and yet we're both professing to be Christians. The humility to say, you know, God, you're bigger than our human narratives. You're bigger than this. And I don't always understand.

And the giftedness of our denominations and our flavors, to continue with that metaphor or narrative, the gift of that is it gives us an entry point, a way in which to begin to contemplate a God that is beyond all knowing. It's, you know, as saints have said before, that we're trying to understand God who is bigger than our concepts. And it's very easy to slide into

God getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. Because we feel helpless, we think God's helpless. We've tried loving our neighbor, it didn't work. We think God probably is gonna fail at that too. The difference is when we love our neighbor, usually, it's because we want our neighbor to change and be more palatable to us. We want our neighbor to be somebody we actually like. So we're gonna love them and hope they finally get together and see how right we are and then change their mind.

God loves our neighbor, understanding that they've been created in God's image with love and mercy and grace possible in them. When we think about the Psalms and the Proverbs about how we are created and that God is in us, so all of the denominational detritus falls away because who we are is not.

Bishop DeDe (15:43.581)
Methodist or Catholic or Presbyterian or Lutheran or Episcopal or whatever denomination, we are a child of God. And the person we're talking with is a child of God. And we get very locked into team mentality when God's vision is expansive. And so God, know, the maker of all, it's, we need to get in on what God's doing.

and who God is and recognize God is not in my pocket or my Jesus, but rather God of all that is. When I first went to the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, I remember walking in and there were all kinds of different groups, all Christian, claiming Christianity. But my goodness.

the diversity and how that belief was expressed was so different. And I remember being very convicted by, I've thought of Jesus as my Jesus and Jesus is Jesus of all. to repent of that territorialness and allow others into the conversation and to be transformed by their, you know, maybe their understanding.

That is challenging.

Adam Eichelberger (17:08.569)
That and that's a really big thing for me to remember as somebody who I mean for lack of a better word. I'm a convert to the Episcopal faith and you know, there are views of God and versions I guess if you want to call it that that I was given for a long time and I've had to do a lot of unspooling of that thread to look at God more expansively one of the things you said as as you were

Bishop DeDe (17:16.927)
Right. Right.

Adam Eichelberger (17:38.154)
starting off the episode is you talked about this idea of submission and I feel like that's a really sticky word in Christianity and I get especially I mean I'm gonna make my own inferences here especially in the Episcopal Church like when we talk about this idea of submission it almost feels kind of contrary to what we want to do when it comes to a relationship with Jesus and when it comes to relationship with God how do we

Bishop DeDe (17:45.513)
Yeah. Yeah.

Bishop DeDe (18:04.779)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (18:07.405)
wrestle with this idea of submission when we're looking at God as this expansive, massive, universal thing. But like also like that word has so many negative connotations with it, especially in American Christianity. There's a lot of Christian faiths that use it as a means of control. So when we talk about submission, what are we really talking about when we say that, especially in the context of our prayer life, which is what this whole conversation is about.

Bishop DeDe (18:36.481)
Great question. And again, listener, how would you answer this? Because somebody is going to ask you that same question if you talk about it. I think there are moments with our words when we have to redeem them. We have to renew them. Submission is a great word. It means I'm going to take the power that I have as a person and relinquish it to a greater power. Not by force, not by coercion.

Adam Eichelberger (18:51.671)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (19:06.035)
not by ought to, should, but because I desire a relationship with God. Submission with our faith, we're not submitting to a person, we're submitting to, the submission is, my power is finite, my power is this much, and my power comes from God, who's bigger. And so I think it's healthier to think of submission.

somewhat, and this is a little pedantic, but I'm gonna use it anyway, somewhat like a fan being plugged into the wall. It's probably better to have a battery, a phone that has its own battery. But in order for the phone to be recharged, you have to plug it in to a greater power source. We need a greater power source. And so submission in this regard doesn't mean giving way our power, it means remembering whose we are.

It means remembering God's bigger and it means submitting my opinion to a greater power. Because when God tells us to love our neighbor, we have to submit to do that. We don't wanna love our neighbor. They're annoying. They play their music loud. They don't take the garbage out. Come on. Whatever your neighbor may be like listener, our neighbors are tough. And so our...

Adam Eichelberger (20:11.279)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (20:30.197)
modus operandi, and you can see it all over the world, is to fight fire with fire and to wrestle over it. Compassion, mercy, grace, these are things where we're yielding to a higher power, where we're relinquishing our desire to be right in order to plug into God's ultimate rightness. And so it is nuanced and it's been so corrupted by people who want to make it

you know, ugly or want to do things. And it's been especially corrupted within Christianity, which has always wrestled with empire and faith. Are we a religion, are we a faith of relationship or are we a faith of empire? And for many centuries, unfortunately, was corrupted by this idea of empire, that we're, you know,

dominant, we're going to fight and you know all this. Jesus nowhere in the gospels says that. Jesus talks about turning the other cheek, offering a cup of cold water, forgiving seventy times seven, you know, and then even with when you look at Jesus with Pilate, look at Jesus on the cross with the thieves next to him. The only time Jesus is dominant is in the temple turning over the tables.

and saying, is my father's house, you will not act this way here, setting a boundary. And we insert into that, and maybe there was yelling, but we insert into it our human desire to get our way, to submit to God is to say, not my way, but God's. God's way is better, and I need to yield to God. I need to plug into that power, I need to yield as another.

good metaphor for that, that God's way is better than what I like.

Adam Eichelberger (22:34.285)
That's all really good. especially for me, when you just talked about that, that reframing of like Jesus in the temple, you know, turning over the tables, like I have a tendency that I think many people do, which is I have this tendency to like impose myself into the biblical narrative as like the protagonist. Like I'm the hero here. You know, it's the same reason why.

Bishop DeDe (22:42.689)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (22:55.585)
Right. We're going to save Jesus from all those that, you know, everything is going on. Yeah.

Adam Eichelberger (23:01.579)
Well, mean, yes, that, also it's the same reason why Keanu Reeves gets to be the hero in The Matrix, because he's just a blank face guy and we can impose ourselves onto that character. I get to impose myself as the good guy. And what it's really calling to mind for me is this idea of submission is God coming into my life and saying, like, I can give you the things that you need, not in a material sense, not in like this prosperity gospel sense, but like, I can give you what you need. I can give you this daily bread that you're looking for so desperately.

But you gotta you gotta plug back into me like you said, the

Bishop DeDe (23:34.707)
Mm-hmm. used to, one time I was teaching and I had a Bible in my hand and I had arranged with the person beforehand, because I told them, I said, don't take this from me. But to the group I said, I'm gonna give this to him. And then had this, the guy had a basket of, and we had, we happened to have some bread that we were taking to the homeless and he was holding the basket of bread. And I said, here, I wanna give you this Bible. Here, I wanna give it to you.

And we stood there for a minute and I said, his hands are full. He can't take it right now. So in order to take it, he had to sit down and then take the Bible. That is the kind of submission we're talking about. And what we often have to sit down is I'm right, you're wrong. I like thinking this way, I don't wanna do that. This is how I like things to be. I don't like that personality. I don't like that personality.

We often are very caught up in being so right that we can't receive God, because we're too busy focused on our own rightness to yield, to submit, to recognize God of all, creator of heaven and earth. And so with the Lord's Prayer, it starts off, it's actually probably one of the most challenging parts in our liturgies that we don't even see.

who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done.

Wow, talk about several things that we wanna wrestle with. forgive me my sins as I forgive others. Because I'm in relationship with God, part of that is to act like it. Part of it is to, and in any relationship there is a level of, if we wanna talk about submission. And of course it's usually very,

Bishop DeDe (25:42.133)
positively and negatively corrupted with sexuality. But when we're in a relationship with someone, if you think of a friend who has a need, part of being in relationship may be submitting to that that person has a need that means we're not gonna do some things that I love to do while I'm with them because they can't do it.

You know, I'm not going to take my friend who has mobility issues and go climb a mountain. I might go with another friend, but when we're in relationship with someone, it means we are conscious of that movement of yielding to what that relationship brings to our life. When we're talking about God, we're talking about a power that is so great. And for us to lay down what it is we're holding so close with all our rage and yield to God of all.

calling us to repentance, calling us to forgiveness, and then calling us to adore God. God's kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It's a huge, huge prayer, which is why it the test of time and why we always need to re-hear it.

Adam Eichelberger (27:00.656)
Yeah. And I guess my final kind of thought or question I have for you is, and you started to touch on it. So it's a great segue into this. When this prayer talks about forgiveness, right? We, we, we talk about it in the context of God forgiving us as we are supposed to forgive others. And I don't want to speak for anybody in particular, but I feel like because

Bishop DeDe (27:23.105)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (27:30.734)
the hurts and divisions that we feel in this country right now are so deep and everything kind of feels so raw. It feels like just when the wound is going to heal, something comes up and like pulls the scab off of it. How do we use this prayer to better get to a place to actually forgive? Because I mean, whether it's a broken relationship, whether it's

the ideological differences that we feel with our neighbors, which we've talked about on this podcast. Like how do we use this prayer? How can we start to use this prayer to begin the process of forgiveness? And why is that forgiveness so important for us, especially here and now?

Bishop DeDe (28:19.099)
my goodness. That's a, so that's next week's podcast is on forgiveness. and why, mean, I think we really can just connect that right on. That's a whole podcast right there, but let me say briefly. Forgiveness is not approval. Forgiveness is not saying it's okay. Forgiveness is not saying it doesn't matter. Forgiveness is an act of great, great power and mercy. It's a significant life saving.

action for all of us because it's letting it go and replacing it with something greater, which is God. And I'll say that in the short term, but let's do make that the next podcast because I think listener with the Lord's Prayer, we can talk about this for a lot longer than you'd think because it is, you know, when you pray, pray like this, that's what Jesus tells us.

And so we need to delve into that. What is forgiveness and what does it mean? And in this moment, how do we forgive others when there's real harm, real detriment, real misunderstanding and dehumanization? it's when there's, when the pain is, we're not just talking about somebody yells at you and we'll forgive that. We're talking about there's real, real damage being done in our homes and our families and our world.

What does forgiveness in that context look like? That's a great conversation for us to have. So dear friends, I thank you for this podcast. don't know, did we have any questions before I close up? Sean, I don't know.

Adam Eichelberger (29:58.608)
No questions this week Bishop, but we as always encourage all of you to visit our website CNYepiscopal.org and you can click on the podcast button. You'll see Bishop Deedee's podcast right there. You can use the form on the website to submit a question. We also keep our eyes on the comment section all the time on all the podcast platforms that you listen to, all the places where you view the podcast. Please feel free to just throw us a note, but we always look forward to answering your questions. So please, please feel free to submit them.

Bishop DeDe (30:28.093)
And since we're already saying we're going to talk about forgiveness next time, send in those questions in the comments and what you'd to talk about because this is a conversation. It's meant to be a conversation. And so now I'm passing the baton to you, your listener, to talk with and speak your faith with someone in a way where you can speak about whether it's the Lord's Prayer, what it means to yield to God's ways.

how it is that in this time we live and speak and embody our faith in this hurting world. So until next week, blessings to you. May you be blessed and be a blessing. And I look forward to speaking with you again soon.