prayer, subjectivity, and politicsversion that we find in the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 6, verses
9–13 (in the NASB translation):
Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.^13The prayer begins by the person praying directing her- or himself-
towards heaven — a spatial metaphor that should be understood as a
circumscription of God himself — and thereby occupying a position of
dependence towards the “Father.” “Father” (in Arameic abba) is an
address that inevitably carries patriarchal connotations, but which
nevertheless aims at signifying an intimacy between the person pray-
ing and God; she places herself in the presence of a “You” and thus
abandons the orbit round her own self and her solipsistic aspiration
for security. Here it must be pointed out that the person who in prayer
positions herself towards a “You” thereby also positions herself in re-
lation to this “You” and lets herself be taken into account: “here I
am.” This is a recurrent theme in Biblical narratives of praying per-
sons, for instance of Samuel, one of the judges of Israel (1 Sam. 3) and
Mary, the mother of Jesus (Luke 1.26–38). Further, the praying person
directs herself towards God not as a solitary and private self but rath-
er as a part of a community when she prays “Our Father.” Prayer, in
general, is considered to be an action that establishes relationships and
ties the individual together with the community of prayer.
The position that the praying person takes in relation to God is
further accentuated by a threefold prayer — “Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done” — that places God at the
center of the praying person’s interest rather than the praying person
- The doxology — “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory for- The doxology — “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory for-
ever. Amen.” — which usually is read after Our Father is not a part of its original
formulation but came into use very early. Cf. Did. 8.2 and also 2 Tim. 4.18.