Tag: Minneapolis Westminster Presbyterian Church

The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)    

I am a member and non-ruling elder of Westminster Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis), which is a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) denomination. The latter’s Constitution consists of the following two parts.

Part I: The Book of Confessions

This Book contains the following confessions:

  1. The Nicene Creed (A.D. 381)
  2. The Apostles’ Creed (A.D. 180)
  3. The Scots Confession (1560)
  4. The Heidelberg Catechism [Germany] (1562)
  5. The Second Helvetic Confession [Switzerland/Germany] (1561)
  6. The Westminster Confession of Faith [Scotland/England] (1647, 1649)
  7. The Shorter Catechism [Scotland/England] (1649)
  8. The Larger Catechism [Scotland/England] (1649)
  9. The Theological Declaration of Barmen [Germany] (1934)
  10. The Confession of 1967 [U.S.A.]
  11. The Confession of Belhar [South Africa] (1980)
  12. A Brief Confession of Faith—Presbyterian Church [U.S.A.](1983)

Some of these confessions are very short while others are very long. The only one I recall reading or studying is The Confession of Belhar, which was created in South Africa as a result of its struggles over apartheid and which was discussed in my blog post, The Confession of Belhar Is Adopted by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), dwkcommentaries.com (July 21, 2016).

Part II: The Book of Order 2019-2023.

The Book of Order consists of the following:

  • The Foundations of Presbyterian Polity (The Mission of the Church, The Church and Its Confessions and Principles of Order and Government)
  • The Form of Government,
  • Directory for Worship, and
  • Rules of Discipline.

I do not recall reading or studying any parts of The Book of Order, except for three of the Principles of Order and Government that were or will be discussed in the following sermons by Rev. Dr. Timothy Hart-Andersen, our Senior Pastor, and that will be examined in subsequent posts to this blog:

  • Presbyterian Principles: God alone is Lord of the Conscience (April 30, 2023);
  • Presbyterian Principles: Truth is in order to goodness (May 7, 2023); and
  • Presbyterian Principles: It is our duty to exercise mutual forbearance toward each other (May 14, 2023).

 

 

The Prayer Jesus Taught: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”   

On March 26, 2023, Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, the Senior Pastor at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered the last of his five sermons on different passages of the Lord’s Prayer.[1] This sermon was on the following portion of the third sentence (in bold) of that Prayer:

  • “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. “

Scripture: Psalm 46 

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar; the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice; the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

Come, behold the works of the Lord;
see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
 Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations;
I am exalted in the earth.”
 The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

Sermon[2]

The annual Art-A-Whirl in northeast Minneapolis is like a pub crawl through hundreds of artist studios. We try to go every year, and we always stop in to see artist James Nutt, a Westminster member. One evening a few years ago, standing in his studio, I found myself staring at a painting showing bands of color arranged in horizontal lines.

“What do you think it is?” he asked.

It took me awhile before I realized I was looking at an artistic representation of the prayer Jesus taught. It now hangs on the wall above my desk at home, as if guiding me in my work. James’ watercolor has been on the cover of our worship bulletins during Lent and is currently in the Westminster Gallery.

I invite you to take a moment to look at the bulletin cover. Slowly say the prayer in your mind and watch the colors bring the words to life. Notice how the colors correspond to different terms in the prayer. “Father” and “Name” are both burgundy; “heaven” and “kingdom” both blue.

Can you find And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil? Those words are in the third and fourth lines up from the bottom.

The colors used for the words temptation and evil stand out. They’re among the largest blocks of color in the prayer. The strong red of temptation looms and intimidates – as temptation does in real life. The midnight darkness of the word evil appears as a hole into which light and hope and joy might disappear – as we have seen in places of violence and hatred in our world.

Stanley Hauerwas says the prayer’s colorful words in this line – temptation, deliverance, evil – indicate that “at this point the temperature rises with the Lord’s Prayer. Things are not right in the world.” (Lord, Teach Us [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996], p. 88)

The colors reflect our own struggle to find a way through those places and moments where we are tested, when we come to a decision point in life and are tempted to take the easy win even if it leaves others behind, or where doing the right thing would mean giving up some privilege or power and we’re not sure we can do that.

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

The Church has always been troubled about the meaning of these words. Why would God “lead us into temptation?” Some early versions of this line avoid casting God in this light and render it, do not allow us to be led into temptation, as if Jesus hadn’t really meant to say what he said because it could never be God’s intention that we would face temptation.

Even modern voices have tried “to fix” the prayer here. One church member told me they pray “lead us away from temptation.” And a few years ago, Pope Francis declared that the wording in the prayer Jesus taught ought to be,  “Do not let us fall into temptation.”

The word here in the ancient Greek – eisenenkes – is not in dispute. Try as we might to alter the translation, it means to lead or bring someone into a place or situation. It’s the same word used to describe what the friends do for the man paralyzed when they lower him through the roof to Jesus. They bring him into that place.

The watercolor’s use of red for temptation makes that word leap out. Why would God appear to be threatening to steer us into temptation, into the red place, so much so that Jesus instructs us to try to convince God not to do so?

Some scholars think this line should be read in the context of the early Church’s expectation of the end of time – the eschaton – when believers would be under enormous pressure to abandon the faith. That may be, but I think this line is personal for Jesus. The one line in the prayer where we get a glimpse into Jesus’ own heart.

When he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his betrayal, only hours before his death, Jesus is terrified of what is coming. He throws himself on the ground and prays, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.”

And when his disciples fall asleep in the Garden, Jesus uses the wording of the prayer he taught: “Stay awake and pray that you may not come into temptation.” (Matthew 26:41)

Jesus is afraid of what will happen when he comes into the time of trial. After all, he has already been there. This line in the prayer echoes the experience of Jesus at the start of his ministry. Immediately following his baptism, Jesus is “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” (Matthew 4:1)

Jesus does not “fall into temptation;” he is led there by the Spirit.

These forty days of Lent are an annual reminder that the life of Jesus is framed by times of trial that he faces, each one of which God leads him into – first in the wilderness and, finally, in the Garden. Each instance tests his capacity to stay with God and not give in to fear or violence or thirst for power.

Jesus answers every temptation put before him in the desert by falling back on God’s word – this may be a guide for us. When the evil one tells a hungry Jesus to turn stones into bread he replies, “It is written: ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’’

When the evil one takes Jesus to a high peak and tells him to throw himself off, trusting that God will save him, Jesus replies, “It is written, ‘Do not put God to the test.’”

When the evil one offers Jesus all the realms of the world if he would but worship him, Jesus replies, “It is written, ‘Worship God and serve God only.’”

In the Garden, when Jesus says to God, “take this cup from me,” in the next breath Jesus says, “Yet not what I want, but what you want.” (Matthew 4:1-11) He gives himself over to the will of God.

Lead us not into that which frightens us – and be present when we get there.

[Poet] Mary Oliver addresses the paradox of this line in the prayer Jesus taught, in her poem The Uses of Sorrow.]

  • “(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.”

We live in a culture awash in debilitating fear. Fear can be like that dark hole in the watercolor that drains light and hope and joy. Fear leads us into the temptation to define others as evil, which limits possibilities for change in them and in us. We arm ourselves with weapons both real and metaphoric, convinced they will protect us from what we fear – and that can lead to violence.

John Dominic Crossan argues that the specific first century temptation referenced in this line in the prayer, is the use of violence to overthrow the occupying Roman empire. Lead us not into the temptation to be violent but deliver us from that evil. It may be that in our time we would be helped by seeing that one of the evils from which we need to be delivered is that same temptation to violence – real or imagined – born of our unrelenting fear. (The Greatest Prayer [NY: Harper, 2010], p. 175)

Jesus teaches us to pray so that we might live with courage in the midst of difficult realities and challenging times, of the sort we live in now. The prayer wants us to face our fears – and we all have them – by trusting in God and holding fast to our faith.

The psalmist understands this. In the midst of what must have been a traumatic, harrowing experience of some kind, the Hebrew poet says,

  • “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.” (Psalm 46:1-3)

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the tumult of evil.

God leads us into times of trial and places of fear in order to be there with us. Who better to stand with us when the world closes in or falls apart? God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not let fear overcome our faith, our trust that God will see us through.

In Jesus, God enters fully into our suffering, to be there when we face our deepest fears, including our own mortality, as we did at the start of this season weeks ago, with the smudge of ashes.

Next Sunday Holy Week begins. On Good Friday, when Jesus goes to the cross, it will be the ultimate act of God’s solidarity with the human community. We are not alone. We will hear that baptismal promise in a few moments. “The God of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.” (Psalm 46:7, 10a)

Jesus, in this line in the prayer, wants to spare us the fear of coming up alone against that which can be our undoing. It’s as if he were saying, Because I’ve been there and know how frightening it can be, pray like this with all your heart: lead us, O God, not into temptation, but deliver us, when we get there, from evil.

And that’s where Jesus ends the prayer he teaches – with fear and temptation, deliverance and evil, right on the edge of the darkest color, which the poet says is a gift.

We may miss those final words most of us learned to say at the end of the prayer, but the oldest Greek manuscripts end the prayer abruptly, as Matthew does. The first English translations – including the King James – were not aware of those older texts but relied instead on other early renditions that concluded with the praise of God, what the church calls a doxology, which then became the prayer most of us learned as Protestants.

The prayer Jesus taught conveys what we need to know as people who follow him:

  • that God is as close to us as a parent even as God is also sovereign;
  • that Jesus teaches us to pray using “we” and “our” to remind us that this prayer is not private, and neither is our faith;
  • that this is a Jubilee prayer hoping for the time when all are fed, debts forgiven, and evil overcome.

With all of that, it is fitting that the church has chosen to retain in the prayer Jesus taught that one last burst of color at the end: For yours is the reign, the power, and the glory forever.

Thanks be to God.

Amen

Reactions

This line of the Prayer, for me, is the most difficult one to understand and embrace as it suggests that God can and may lead me into temptation.

But, as the sermon says, each of us has faced, and will face, “struggle[s] to find a way through those places and moments where we are tested . . . and are tested to take the easy win even if it leaves others behind, or where doing the right thing would mean giving up some privilege or power and we’re not sure we can do that.”

“Even the life of Jesus is framed by times of trial that he faces, each one of which God leads him into—first in the wilderness, and, finally, in the Garden. Each instance tests his capacity to stay with God and not give in to fear or violence or thirst for power.” But “Jesus answers every temptation put before him . . . by falling back on God’s word.”

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[1] Earlier posts about this series of sermons: The Lord’s Prayer at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church (May 2, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name”  (May 4, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (May 6, 2023).The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Give us this day, our daily bread” (May 8, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors (May 9, 2023).

[2] Rev. Dr. Timothy Hart-Andersen, Sermon, The Prayer Jesus Taught: “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil), Westminster Presbyterian Church (Mar. 26, 2023); Bulletin, Westminster Presbyterian Church (Mar. 26, 2023).

 

The Prayer Jesus Taught: “And forgive us for our debts as we forgive our debtors”   

On March 19, 2023, Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, the Senior Pastor at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered the fourth of his five sermons on different passages of the Lord’s Prayer. [1] This sermon was on the following portion of the third sentence (in bold) of that Prayer:

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. “

Scripture

Leviticus 25:8-12, 35-41

“You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the Day of Atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall not sow or reap the aftergrowth or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces.”

“If any of your kin fall into difficulty and become dependent on you, you shall support them; they shall live with you as though resident aliens. Do not take interest in advance or otherwise make a profit from them, but fear your God; let them live with you. You shall not lend them your money at interest taken in advance or provide them food at a profit. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God.”

“If any who are dependent on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you, you shall not make them serve as slaves. They shall remain with you as hired or bound laborers. They shall serve with you until the year of the Jubilee. Then they and their children with them shall go out from your authority; they shall go back to their own family and return to their ancestral property.”

The Sermon[2]

 Along the way in this sermon series on the prayer Jesus taught I’ve heard from several of you eager to get to this particular petition. I have been eager, too. I’m glad we’re finally here. Of all the lines in the prayer Jesus taught, this one differs most in its wording among various Christian traditions, which can lead to a variety of interpretations. What was Jesus teaching here?

It’s complicated – and, lest we forget, the Apostle Paul reminds us that “All…have fallen short of the glory of God…. There is no one” – debtor, sinner, trespasser – “who is righteous, not even one.” (Romans 3:23, 10)

On that basis we could conclude that it’s of no consequence which wording we use; in the end, we all miss the mark, whatever the mark might be. But there’s more to the story. The different words we use come from the gospels themselves and from church tradition. The language we use matters, as we have seen in this series

One of the points in this series on the prayer Jesus taught is that language evolves. In that sense it is living. We should guard against the calcification of the vocabulary of our faith. Our spiritual practices – no matter the particular wording – always want to reflect the dynamic interaction with God that Jesus longs for us to have. And the words do matter.

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

The prayer Jesus taught appears only in two gospels, each with its own version of this line. In Luke Jesus teaches, “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” In Matthew, on the other hand, he makes no mention of sin: “ [(Luke 11:4} “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” – the version we pray at Westminster.  [Matthew 6:12)]

This is not a matter of a typo or confusion about someone’s handwriting. The Greek words here are quite distinct: “debt” is opheiléma, while “sin” is hamartia. The gospels writers chose their vocabulary with intention, leaving us to sort it out.

To add to the puzzle, the Greek word for trespass does not appear in either gospel version of the prayer Jesus taught, although it does show up later. Trespass makes its debut in the first full English translation of the Bible in 1526, done by William Tyndale, who got into trouble for doing it and eventually was deemed a heretic and executed in 1536. Tyndale’s Bible became widely popular and influenced the way English-speakers said the prayer Jesus taught. To this day, many Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, Catholics, and others use “trespasses.”

The King James version, published almost a century after Tyndale, shifted back to the original Greek and used “debt” and “debtors,” and that’s where the Presbyterians landed and have been ever since. And forgive us our “debts” as we forgive our “debtors”. This is not random use of language. Jesus prays debts and debtors for a reason. In doing so, he intentionally introduces economic language into the prayer. When Jesus teaches about hunger in the prayer – give us this day our daily bread – he’s reminding us that people need to eat. Now when he speaks of economics, he’s reminding us another basic truth: that debt – not metaphorical or spiritualized indebtedness but simply not having enough money – can crush and impoverish people.

In our culture debt is a given for most of us. Capitalism is sustained by debt. Westminster gets this. We’re working hard right now in a campaign to pay off the congregation’s debt. As one Westminster member said, “Forgive us our debt, so we can pursue our mission.” If only the lenders were listening!

When we substitute “sins” for “debts” we miss the specific kind of forgiveness Jesus is aiming at here. Debt is unequivocally an economic term. Sin is a theological word. If we use sin, the wording seems directed to our private, individual behavior, as if Jesus were referring to my moral failings for which I need forgiveness, or my need to forgive wrongs done to me. That makes forgiveness a matter of letting go of personal offenses or owning up to my own immorality– which may be good to do, but it is not what Jesus is after here.

And trespassing has to do with crossing boundaries – a transgression that violates someone else’s property, which was a problem in 16th century England when Tyndale decided to employ that word. The language used by Jesus in the prayer as taught in Matthew, is concerned neither with property nor sin. It’s carefully intended to point toward economic realities. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. By using this terminology, Jesus is taking forgiveness into the realm of systemic economic justice, which concerns the collective, rather than the individual. The prayer Jesus taught draws on a long tradition in Judaism of the hope for a Year of Jubilee. “You shall count off…seven times seven years,” Leviticus says,

  • “So that the period of seven…years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud…And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you.” (Leviticus 25:8-11)

It’s an old dream, and the prophets of Israel never give up on it as a possibility, and neither should we. Isaiah speaks of Jubilee when he says,

  • “The spirit of…God is upon me, because…God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.” (Isaiah 61:1-2)

In her book Church in the Round, Letty Russell says the prophet’s vision here announces, “that memory of God’s future is already happening as the oppressed are set at liberty and the jubilee year arrives.” (Letty Russell, Church in the Round [Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993], p. 81)

The memory of God’s future is already happening, as Jubilee arrives.

That Jubilee vision gives rise to the incarnation. Jesus quotes the same lines from Isaiah when he preaches in his home synagogue at the start of his ministry. It nearly gets him killed because Jubilee threatens the exiting economic order and promises to change the way we live by upending the existing economic order.

  • “For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you…If any of your kin fall into difficulty and become dependent on you, you shall support them…You shall not lend them your money at interest taken in advance or provide them food at a profit. I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 25:12, 35, 37-38)

The Year of Jubilee as understood by the ancient Hebrew people and carried forward by the prophets if Israel and then enfleshed in the person of Jesus Christ, is to be the season when God’s intentions for human community are realized.

  • “If any who are dependent on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you, you shall not make them serve as enslaved people. They shall remain with you as hired…laborers. They shall serve with you until the year of the Jubilee. Then they and their children with them shall…go back to their own family.” (Leviticus 25:39-41)

Jubilee repairs the world. It offers a way for justice to be done, for relationships to be restored, for the broken places in society to be healed, for economic inequities to be eased. The prayer Jesus taught is a Jubilee prayer. It is a prayer for our time, especially in America, one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, “that devotes far fewer resources” to the reduction of poverty “as a share of its gross national product than other rich democracies.” (Matthew Desmond, America Is in a Disgraced Class of its Own; N.Y. Times, March 16, 2023)

Princeton professor Matthew Desmond says,

  • “Poverty is chronic pain, on top of tooth rot, on top of debt collector harassment, on top of the nauseating fear of eviction. It is the suffocation of your talents and your dreams. It is death come early and often.”

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. The federal hourly minimum wage is $7.25, just over $15,000 a year, and that number has not changed since 2009. Minnesota’s minimum wage is $10.59 for large employers, which equates to slightly more than $22,000 a year. Today in our nation, 38 million people live below the poverty line, which is $26,500 a year. To pay rent and other bills, to purchase food, to support children, to pay for transportation – merely to survive, day after day, people go into debt, and that debt then holds them captive.

During the pandemic, in what became an unintentional experiment, the federal government expanded the Child Tax Credit and in six months child poverty was cut in half, to the lowest level in 50 years. In only six months. And with the monthly infusion of cash support for families during the pandemic, food insecurity was the lowest it has been in 20 years. Banks reported that their lowest income customers had a 50% increase in their account balances from before the pandemic. (https://www.vox.com/2022/9/14/23352022/child-poverty-covid-tax-credit)

We know how to do this.

“The hard part isn’t designing effective antipoverty programs or figuring out how to pay for them,” Professor Desmond says. “The hard part is ending our addiction to poverty.”

In the prayer Jesus taught he’s inviting us to imagine the Jubilee, where a resetting of economic priorities and a realignment of relationships takes place, and encumbered people are freed, land taken returned, crushing debts forgiven, and equity within the community begins to be re-established.

The prayer, especially with its economic implications, confirms Isaiah’s hope long ago, that someday we might be called “repairers of the breach, restorers of streets to live in.” (Isaiah 58:12b)

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

This line we pray so casually week after week is a summons to get serious, to get serious about undoing the harm inflicted by economic realities in our land on the most vulnerable among us. The prayer Jesus taught commits us, as we pray it, to the work of dismantling the very real, unjust disparities that exist in our world.

There is scant evidence that the Year of Jubilee as imagined in Leviticus was ever fully implemented, but that doesn’t mean we should stop praying for it.

In fact – and as far as I’m concerned this settles it – by using debts and debtors in the prayer Jesus taught, we are praying for the more just economic order that God envisions.

To God be the glory.

Amen.

Reactions

For a long time, I have thought that the correct version of this line was the one said by Lutherans and many other Christian churches that referenced “trespasses” and “trespassed” because those words, for me, connoted wrongs or sins. On the other hand, the words “debts” and “debtors” that we use at Westminster for me connoted legitimate economic transactions.

This sermon, therefore, surprised and shocked me. It really is a radical call for upsetting the existing order of things. As Rev. Hart-Andersen said, “ Jesus is taking forgiveness into the realm of systemic economic justice, which concerns the collective, rather than the individual. The prayer Jesus taught draws on a long tradition in Judaism of the hope for a year of Jubilee. [After 49 years of normal or regular economic transactions, on the fiftieth year, as Leviticus says] you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you.”

This passage of the Prayer made me wonder whether  in Jesus’ days most people lived in small villages or towns where people knew one another and had limited financial dealings with one another and, therefore, would find it easier to forgive debts.

When, however, Jesus preaches this message at the start of his ministry, it “nearly gets him killed because Jubilee threatens the existing economic order and promises to change the way we live by upending the existing economic order.”

Moreover, given the contemporary size and complexity of financial transactions among different governments, international banks, other corporations and individuals, it is impossible for any individual or collection of individuals to forgive such debts and indebtedness. Moreover, today the U.S. is in the midst of a challenging threat to that international economic system with whether or not the U.S. federal government will increase the limit on its indebtedness.

Therefore, this line of the prayer for today’s world calls for the adoption and implementation of antipoverty programs all over the world or, as this sermon says, this Jesus prayer “commits us, as we pray it, to the work of dismantling the very real, unjust disparities that exist in our world” and creating “the more just economic order that God envisions.”

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[1] Earlier posts about this series of sermons: The Lord’s Prayer at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church (May 2, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name”  (May 4, 2023);The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (May 6, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: ”Give us this day, our daily bread” (May 8, 2023).

[2] Rev. Dr. Timothy Hart-Andersen. Sermon: The Prayer Jesus Taught: “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” (Mar. 19, 2023); Bulletin, Westminster Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis) (Mar. 19, 2023).

The Prayer Jesus Taught: ”Give us this day, our daily bread” 

On March 12, 2023, Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, the Senior Pastor at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered the third of his five sermons on different passages of the Lord’s Prayer.[1] This sermon was on a portion of the third sentence (in bold) of that Prayer:

  • “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. “

Scripture

Luke 12: 13-24  (New Revised Standard Version)

“Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus], ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’  But [Jesus] said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”  And [Jesus] said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”  Then [Jesus] told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly.  And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’  Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’  But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’  So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

“[Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.  For life is more than food and the body more than clothing.  Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!’

Sermon[2]

Our Lenten exploration of the prayer Jesus taught has prompted a lot of response. I’m hearing from many of you, which is great. It’s like a dialogue. That happens when we peel back layers of an essential and powerful part of our faith.

One church member told me he still remembers a sermon series on the prayer Jesus taught, delivered from this pulpit by Don Meisel more than three decades ago. Some have said they intend to continue using traditional language – Father, kingdom, thy, thine. Others say they are using altered vocabulary – Father/Mother, reign, realm, you, yours. Someone handed me a worship bulletin with her preferred terms penciled in above the scratched out printed words. Still others have sent prayers that follow the basic outline of what Jesus taught yet with entirely new wording.

We may hear these different versions in worship as we say the prayer together, and that’s fine. It won’t be the first time. Haven’t we all noticed when we say this prayer at a Minnesota wedding or memorial service, a little competition breaks out in the pews over debts and trespasses? We’ll get to that next week.

The 20-second spiritual practice called the Lord’s Prayer is important to us. The prayer Jesus taught is so deeply embedded in our consciousness and in our hearts that hearing it – just hearing it start – provokes a kinetic memory in the body; we want to fold our hands, close our eyes, and bow our heads. It’s intrinsic to our faith. Will Willimon, a retired Methodist Bishop and theologian, has said, “A Christian is…someone who has learned to pray the Lord’s Prayer.” (Lord, Teach Us [Nashville: Abingdon, 1996], p. 18)

I think that bar is a little low, and that how someone lives may, in fact, be a better indicator of Christian faith, but his point is that people who follow Jesus learn the prayer he teaches. And most of us learn it early in life. One of my favorite moments in worship happens when I hear a young voice saying the prayer loud enough to be heard over the rest of us.

Now we turn to today’s line from the prayer: Give us this day our daily bread.

With this line Jesus signals a shift in the prayer away from the opening words about the holiness of God and God’s reign to more specific, human needs. Several petitions follow in rapid succession, each with an imperative: Give. Forgive. Lead. Deliver. The urgent verbs of these petitions sound almost impertinent, so demanding of God as to be disrespectful. That Jesus would teach us to use such strong wording in our prayer indicates how much we can trust the one to whom we pray. God wants our authentic selves in prayer. A parent hears this kind of language from their child all the time – the demanding imperatives that parents deal with, God has to deal with from us in this prayer.

We have been watching the pronouns in the prayer. From the start Jesus teaches that we do not offer privatized prayer to “my” God. Nowhere in the prayer does the first-person pronoun appear. That’s true even when we get to these petitions, each of which is intensely personal – I worry about my bread, my debt, my forgiveness, my temptations I’ll worry about mine; you worry about yours. Those are all challenges in life you and I know about intimately, but Jesus does not want us to think of ourselves as facing them alone, in isolation from others. It’s not give me today my daily bread. Life doesn’t work like that. In the prayer, it’s our bread, our debts, our temptations.

In the film A Man Called Otto, Tom Hanks plays Otto Anderson. Following the death of his wife and his 4 4 retirement Otto feels that his world has ended. He slips further and further into isolation. He closes in on himself and cuts himself off from others. Otto’s neighbor Marisol tries to break through to him repeatedly, but cannot. Finally, she says to him, “You think your life is so hard and…you have to do it all on your own – well guess what? You can’t. No one can.”

The film follows the story of the neighbors surrounding Otto, helping him understand he is not alone and that no one can do life by themselves. Eventually they become a small community around Otto and bring him back to the land of the living. We cannot thrive in life apart from others.

Jesus communicates that truth when he teaches that we use collective pronouns when we pray, because life is not a private, isolated, atomized reality. We are created for community.

Give us this day our daily bread.

This phrase in the prayer stands out in the biblical Greek. Unlike the other petitions in the prayer that begin with a verb – forgive, lead, deliver – this line starts with a noun: bread. It reads literally something like this: The bread of us daily, give us today. Jesus focuses here more on the bread, than the giving of it. Daily bread. Bread daily.

As Jesus taught this line in the prayer his listeners, who knew the stories of the Hebrew people, would have heard an illusion to the “bread of heaven” that came down to the hungry Israelites as they escaped from enslavement in Egypt and wandered the wilderness. God provided manna daily, daily manna, and it sustained the people. It was only one day’s nourishment, and everyone received the same amount. No manna was wasted. No manna could be hoarded from one day to the next.

Jesus draws on that image as a way to teach us the difference between what is necessary for life and what is beyond sufficient. The parable of the rich farmer and his barns echoes the old story of the Israelites and the manna. When the land produces more than he could possibly consume, rather than share it with those in need, he decides to tear down his barns and build new, bigger ones to keep it all for himself. That way he can “relax, eat, drink, and be merry.”

Something like the American dream, isn’t it.

“’You fool,’” God says to the rich man in the parable, “This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves, but are not rich toward God…Be on your 6 6 guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” (Luke 12:15-21)

 Give us this day our daily bread.

It would be hypocritical for the rich man in the parable with his hoarded surplus of grain to pray this line in the prayer Jesus taught. How could he pray only for his own needs to be met and ignore those of his neighbors? That may help explain the placement of the teaching of the prayer Jesus taught in Luke’s gospel. The prayer precedes by only a few paragraphs the moment when Jesus tells the parable of the rich man and his extra barns, as if Jesus were saying, remember the prayer I just taught? This is what I was trying to communicate: we all need bread each day, and if you have more than enough, then share it.

 The writing of early Christians on this line in the prayer shows that the Church understood exactly what Jesus was aiming at here. The Didache, a treatise on Christian faith written in the second century, and one of the earliest non-canonical sources of the prayer Jesus taught, says this:

  • “Do not be like those who are prompt to open their hand to receive and prompt to close it when it comes to giving…You shall not reject the needy but will share all things…and call nothing your own. If you share the eternal goods, shouldn’t you share even more those that are in passing?” (Quoted by Justo Gonzalez in Teach Us to Pray [Grand Rapids, Eerdmans; 2020], p. 110)

Praying this simple line about bread can be costly. In fact, that’s true of the entire prayer Jesus teaches. We should sit up and pay attention when we offer it each week in worship. Frederick Buechner warns us about the prayer.

  • “We do well not to pray it lightly. It takes guts to pray it at all. We can pray it in the unthinking and perfunctory way we usually do only by disregarding what we are saying…To speak those words is to let the tiger out of the cage, to unleash a power that makes atomic power look like a warm breeze.” (Quoted in Will Willimon, Lord, Teach Us [Nashville: Abingdon, 1996], Epigraph)

Give us this day our daily bread.

To pray like that is to reject the culture of continuous consumption and instead learn to be satisfied with only what we need. This is a prayer and a commitment, a promise to help meet the most basic needs of others.

Pope Francis, elected pope ten years ago tomorrow, has written a short book of the prayer Jesus taught. “When we pray the Our Father,” he says, using the Catholic terminology,

  • “It would be good for us to linger a bit over this petition – ‘give us bread today’ – and to think about how many people do not have this bread. At home as children, when a piece of bread fell, my family taught us to pick it up right away and kiss it. Bread was never thrown away. Bread is a symbol of the unity of humanity; a symbol of God’s love for you.” (Pope Francis, Our Father [Milano, Rizzoli Libri; 2017], p. 74- 75)

Last year in Minnesota the use of food shelves skyrocketed by 53.5%. Jesus is teaching us here to rein in our consumptive impulses and simply pray for something to eat for others and for ourselves. To feed the hungry is a universal ethical imperative for the Church, arising from this line in the prayer. I’m glad to report that just this morning Westminster’s Hunger Ministry Team released from our resources more than $51,000 to several local food shelves, to do our part to help meet the need. (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/02/08/foodshelf-visits-jumped-nearly-54-percent-last-year-inminnesota)

Give us this day our daily bread.

Bread plays an outsize role in scripture. When we say this line, we are recalling the place of bread in the long story of the people of God – from the provision of manna in the wilderness,      to the breaking of bread as a sign of the first covenant, to the bread offered at Isaiah’s mountaintop feast, to the miracle of the loaves and fishes, to the words Jesus says as he breaks bread at the Last Supper, to the bread provided by Jesus at the resurrection picnic on the beach, to the eyes that open at the breaking of bread with the risen Jesus in Emmaus.

Even little Bethlehem, the town of Jesus’ birth, gets in on it: Bethlehem means house of bread in Hebrew.

With bread at the heart of the biblical story, it should not surprise us when Jesus says, “Í am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.” (John 6:35)

Give us this day that bread, our daily bread.

This one short line in the prayer opens to us a world of meaning around the word bread. When we pray it, it takes us to the joyful feast of the people of God, where the breaking of bread is a sign of the new covenant, the promise of God.

Every time we eat our daily bread, whether at the communion table, at the banquet table, or at the kitchen table, we take it, and break it, and in that action, we remember the promise of God that all shall be fed.

To God be the glory.

Amen.

Reactions

This sermon was especially meaningful for me in its shifting to the imperatives for every one of us without “privatized” pronouns. It emphasizes that no one is alone and no one can live a life by himself or herself. “Jesus communicates that truth when he teaches that we use collective pronouns when we pray because life is not a private, isolated, atomized reality. We are created for community.”

This was recognized in a second century Christian treatise, the Didache, when it said, “Do not be like those who are prompt to open their hand to receive and prompt to close it when it comes to giving. . . You shall not reject the needy but will share all things . . . and call nothing your own. If you share the eternal goods, shouldn’t you share even more those that are in passing?”

And in our own time, Frederick Buechner, a deceased Presbyterian preacher, theologian and author, said: “We do well not to pray [the Lord’s Prayer] lightly. It takes guts to pray it at all. . . . To speak those words is to let the tiger out of the cage, to unleash a power that makes atomic power look like a warm breeze.”

This line of the prayer focuses on the basic food of bread, not on meat or cheese or a food prepared in accordance with a fancy recipe. And this line of the prayer focuses on a human’s daily need for the food.

I reiterate my suggestion that the communal  recitation of this prayer should be slowed down with a pause after every line  of the prayer to provide time for reflection.

———————————

[1] Earlier posts about this series of sermons: The Lord’s Prayer at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church (May 2, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name”  (May 4, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (May 6, 2023).

[2] Rev. Dr. Timothy Hart-Andersen, Sermon: The Prayer Jesus Taught: ”Give us this day, our daily bread” (Mar. 12, 2023); Westminster Bulletin for Service (Mar. 12, 2023).

The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”

On March 5, 2023, Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, the Senior Pastor at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered the second of his five sermons on different passages of the Lord’s Prayer.[1] This sermon was on the second sentence (in bold) of that Prayer:

Scripture

Matthew 5:43-48 (New Revised Standard Version)

  • “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Sermon [2]

 Last Sunday we began our Lenten exploration of the prayer Jesus taught. During this season we want to awaken within us the meaning and power of this prayer that can too easily become merely a rote spiritual practice done over and over and over again.

We looked at the words hallowed be thy name in the first line and remembered that prayers are addressed not to ourselves or to others listening to us, but to the One who is Holy and Other. Prayer begins with praise of God.

We looked at the male language Jesus uses to name God and asked if it might get in the way of our praying to God because of evolving imagery for the divine and shifting use of gendered terminology. We explored other options for naming God. I received a note this week from a parent telling me that after last Sunday their four-year-old is now starting their prayers each night with “Our Mother, our Father…”

Language matters because it shapes our understanding of the world – and, as people of faith, it forms our view of the One we worship and serve. That’s true for children and adults, although it may be more difficult for those of us who’ve been using the same language for decades to make changes when we sense they may be needed. The prayer Jesus taught has wording so ingrained in us that we barely notice it as we say it. Occasionally on a Sunday I mouth the words to the prayer silently – not saying a thing – so I might listen to others, as if hearing it for the first time.

The one phrase in the opening line of the prayer Jesus taught that we did not look at last week is the reference to divine geography: who art in heaven. The wording intentionally distinguishes our location from God’s. The phrase acknowledges that we are on earth, while God inhabits a cosmos not bound by temporal or spatial parameters. This difference becomes more important in the second line of the prayer: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

The wording here is not pushing us to think of heaven and earth as separate, competing realities. Jesus is not endorsing a dualistic view of humanity and divinity. On the contrary, he’s inviting us to do the opposite: to imagine that heaven and earth may be one and the same – on earth as it is in heaven – a truly far-reaching vision. It recalls the prophet’s imagination:

  • “The wolf shall live with the lamb,

The leopard shall lie down with the kid,

The calf and the lion and the fatling together,

And a little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6)

The prayer Jesus taught is an incitement to rebellion against the way things are on earth because they do not reflect the ways of heaven. Each Sunday we blithely say this prayer together, when its powerful and unsettling meaning should cause us to squirm in our pews.

Justo Gonzales says that when we pray this line, “What we are calling for is not so much a different place as a different order. It is a new order in which, as Jesus promises, those who have been last will be first.”

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

Some may chafe at the use of outdated terminology in this line. In another email I received this week someone said, “I struggle with…‘thy’ and ‘thine.’ Those (words) come across to me as over pious, kind of like the words Jesus warned his disciples against. Other than in Shakespeare, they just aren’t words I hear or use in my daily life.”

How true that is. No one talks like that anymore. The most common English version of the prayer Jesus taught does use the idiom of Shakespeare, which is not surprising, since the King James Version of the Bible, from where we draw this prayer, was written in 1611 – a few years ago!

We do not use such pronouns today, so why do they continue to appear in the prayer? Many recent versions of the prayer have shifted to the words “you” and “yours.”

The biblical Greek makes a distinction that today’s English cannot replicate when it comes to the second person pronoun. In English the word you is both singular and plural – which is a good argument for more of us starting to use y’all. The Greek term Jesus uses here is only singular to make it abundantly clear to his listeners that anyone praying this prayer is speaking to the one God who alone is worthy of our prayer.

 The traditional English wording tries to respect that by using “thy kingdom.” Its formality highlights the distinction in Greek, but it may not be worth making the grammatical point, especially if it introduces wording that comes between us and the one to whom we pray. If that’s the case, modern English would be preferable. Feel free to give it a try: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

There are other challenges with this line. It echoes the male language of the opening words of the prayer with the word “kingdom.” The word rendered kingdom in our English Bibles translates the Greek basileia, which, ironically, is a feminine noun. We could follow the Greek and simply insert “queendom” in the prayer, but that may not resolve the issue.

Some are using the word “kin-dom.” Kin-dom has the advantage of no gendered reference, and highlights the familial nature of God’s hope for humankind.

Yet, the term kin-dom softens the political implications of the words of Jesus. He could have found terminology more expressive of family relationships, but instead Jesus leans into the political and chooses language that embraces the sovereignty of God within the human community.

There are other options for wording that capture the intent of Jesus to ground the hope of his prayer in our communal life together. The word “dominion,” for instance, refers to a political realm that could reflect divine hopes for human community. But to our ears dominion sounds a little too close to domination, and we do not want to pray for any more of that in our world.

The word “reign” might be the best alternative. It carries the political connotation Jesus wants and preserves the sovereignty of God. In fact, the two terms – reign and sovereign – are cognates. Feel free to try that alternate wording: Your reign come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

This line is the heart of the prayer Jesus teaches. It’s his personal mission statement. It names the purpose of the incarnation. It sums up the gospel. When the ministry of Jesus begins, both John the Baptizer and Jesus say that “the basileia of God” – the reign of God – “has come near.”

What exactly is the basileia of God? How do we describe the reign of God? Writing in the 16th century, John Calvin argued that one could not know the reign of God apart from the will of God and argued that’s why Jesus added to the prayer the phrase ‘your will be done.’ (Quoted by Justo Gonzalez in Teach Us to Pray [Grand Rapids, Eerdmans; 2020], p. 92)

Praying that God’s reign would break forth, then, is the same as praying that God’s will might be known. To know God’s will and to pursue it has been the calling of every follower of Jesus in every age, including our own.

In North Africa in the 3rd century Bishop Cyprian of Carthage wrote persuasively about the prayer Jesus taught, particularly this line. ‘The will of God,’ he said, may be seen in what Christ did and taught. This bishop’s words from 18 centuries ago about the prayer Jesus taught seem to be addressed to us in our time. To pray that God’s will would be done – which is what Christians pray every time they use the words Jesus taught – means, according to Cyprian:

“Humility in conversation;

steadfastness in faith;

modesty in words.

Justice in deeds;

mercifulness in works;

discipline in morals;

to be unable to do a wrong and to be able to bear a wrong when done;

to keep peace with all;

to love God with all one’s heart.”

(Quoted in Teach Us to Pray, p. 92)

Your reign come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

 

To pray as Jesus taught is to long with all our being that God’s desires would be implemented on earth as they surely are in heaven. Each time the prayer crosses our lips we commit ourselves, again and again, to take an active part in the inbreaking of God’s hope for the world.

If we really want to know what the will of God in heaven is, we need only read the words of Jesus and watch and learn from his ministry. Jesus spends a good deal of the Sermon on the Mount getting into specifics, about justice, about lying, about anger, about insults, about hypocrisy, about lust, about generosity, and so much more. The Christian gospels could be sub-titled, what the reign of God looks like on earth.

The parables of Jesus are another way to creatively tell what the will of God is. The stories about the mustard seed and the lost coin and the good Samaritan and the woman at the well all offer insight on the will of God for the human community. Every time Jesus heals someone it’s as if the reign of God has splashed down on earth. When Jesus ignores norms and expectations and incudes someone that others are rejecting, God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. When the sun rises on the evil and the good and it rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, we catch a glimpse of God’s ways on earth as they are in heaven. And

When Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of God in heaven,” he makes it clear that the standards in his prayer for human relationships, whether personal or communal, are not the standards of the world.

All the words and deeds and stories of Jesus come rushing into view when we pray the prayer he taught. “Be perfect, therefore,” he says, “As your heavenly Abba is perfect.” As if that were possible.

Jesus has high hopes for us – but he knows, as do all of us, that we will fall short. A bit more modest approach might be: Help us, O God, to be as perfect as possible in our living so that we might reflect your will in heaven – however imperfectly – on this earth. 

The prayer Jesus taught is not to be taken lightly or glossed over. It is, after all, meant to turn the world upside down, and all of us with it.

Your reign come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

To God be the glory.

Amen.

Reactions

I thank Rev. Hart-Andersen for this and the other sermons about the Lord’s Prayer. He is correct that this Prayer “is so familiar we can easily glide by it without noticing.” Here are words in the Sermon that were especially meaningful to me:

  • Jesus wants us to imagine that heaven and earth may be one and the same. Jesus invites rebelion against the way things are on earth.
  • “Your reign come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven” is Jesus’ personal mission statement.
  • “Reign” carries political connotation Jesus wants while preserving the sovereignty of God.
  • Bishop Cyprian of Carthage: the will of God may be seen in what Jesus said and taught.
  • Parables tell us what the will of God is.

Although it was interesting to hear about suggested changes in wording of the Prayer to address contemporary concerns about male-female issues, I do not want to see those changes.

I reiterate my suggestion that the communal  recitation of this prayer should be slowed down with a pause after every line  of the prayer to provide time for reflection.

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[1] Earlier posts about this series of sermons: The Lord’s Prayer at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church (May 2, 2023); The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name”  (May 4, 2023).

[2]] Rev. Dr. Timothy Hart-Andersen, Sermon: The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” Westminster Presbyterian Church (Mar. 5, 2023). Here is the Bulletin for that service.  Westminster Presbyterian Church, Bulletin (Mar. 5, 2023).

 

The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name”       

On February 26, 2023, Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, the Senior Pastor at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered the first of his five sermons on different passages of the Lord’s Prayer. This sermon was on the first sentence (in bold) of that Prayer:

  • ““Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. “

Scripture for the Day

Psalm 96 (New Revised Standard)

O sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
 Sing to the Lord; bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples.
For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised;
he is to be revered above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Honor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts.
Worship the Lord in holy splendor;
tremble before him, all the earth.

Say among the nations, “The Lord is king!
The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.
He will judge the peoples with equity.”
 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar and all that fills it;
     let the field exult and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
    before the Lord, for he is coming,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness
and the peoples with his truth.

Matthew 6: 7-11 (New Revised Standard)

“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

 “Pray, then, in this way:                                                                                                           ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be revered as holy.
 May your kingdom come.
May your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.”

The Sermon[1]

“As people of faith, it’s good to stop from time to time and look at spiritual routines we do so often they may have become rote. The Lord’s Prayer is one such practice. We pray it in worship each Sunday, we say it at memorial services and weddings, at the end of church meetings. The Lord’s Prayer is so familiar we can easily glide by it without noticing.”

“Over the next five Sundays in Lent, we will delve into – and sometimes challenge – the Lord’s Prayer line-by-line, in order to re-engage with it as an essential spiritual practice, one used by Christians the world over – and sometimes misused. That’s the other reason why it’s important – even urgent – to spend time with the Lord’s Prayer in this season: it’s being used inappropriately, wielded at public events to cloak certain positions with a false veneer of righteousness.”

“The Lord’s Prayer has been shouted by protestors at anti-vax rallies. It’s been yelled at government hearings and at school board meetings. It was a rallying cry for those who assaulted the U.S. Capitol on January 6 two years ago. As the attackers entered the Capitol, the version of the prayer with “trespasses” was being shouted over a bullhorn. The irony was probably lost on those who heard it that day.”

“A similar hijacking of prayer in his time prompted Jesus to teach his followers how to pray.’“Do not be like the hypocrites,’ Jesus says of people flaunting their religion in public, ‘For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.”

“Our Lenten engagement with the Lord’s Prayer is meant to rehabilitate it for us as a deep spiritual practice. We aim to re-discover the power of the prayer as an expression of Christian faith.”

“First, [a prayer] doesn’t have to be eloquent or a theological masterpiece. In fact, just the opposite. Jesus said as much. “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as (some) do; for they think they will be heard because of their many words.”

“Prayer can be intimidating to some of us, as if we weren’t good enough or holy enough or learned enough to try it ourselves. Our Presbyterian emphasis on an educated clergy may be partly to blame here. One does not need to go to seminary to turn to God in prayer! From what Jesus teaches, we learn that God is much more interested in our authentic, honest, broken, needy, confused, thirsty selves than in some well-polished ecclesiastically approved work of art. It doesn’t have to be the blue iris. It could be weeds in a vacant lot.”

“The second insight about prayer the poet [Mary Oliver]offers is this: just pay attention. Prayer requires that we stop long enough to turn to that which is holy, to wonder at what we cannot know but ache to comprehend. Jesus does this by withdrawing from others to find such moments. He goes up the mountain to pray alone. He advises us to go into our rooms and close the door to attend to the mystery. We will never fully grasp the one whose presence we seek when we pray. It is enough merely to pay attention.”

“The third insight Mary Oliver gives us is the function of prayer. It is not meant to produce things. It is not transactional, which is how some people use it: Give me this, God, and I’ll give you that. God is not interested in that approach to prayer. ‘This isn’t a contest,’ Oliver says, ‘But the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.’”

“Good advice on praying, including the Lord’s Prayer, from the poet’s point of view: Don’t worry about getting the words precisely right. Instead, pay attention, and with gratitude move into the silence and listen.”

“The Lord’s Prayer is found in Matthew and Luke. The Matthew version, which is the core of the Sermon on the Mount, became the one used most widely in the Church.

“The prayer Jesus taught starts, as prayers do in Judaism, by addressing God. So often our prayers can be used to make points or are directed more at other people than to God. We say, ‘Sending prayers your way,’ to show support for someone, when it is God to whom those prayers should be directed. The simplest test of any prayer’s authenticity is this: does it speak in a way that lets God be God?”

“The Lord’s Prayer begins in a way that echoes the psalms of old:”

‘O sing to the LORD a new song.

Sing to the LORD; bless God’s name.

Hallowed be thy name.

Worship the LORD in holy splendor.

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due God’s name.

Hallowed be thy name.’”

“Prayer begins when we praise God’s name with adoration. Jesus chooses to name God ‘Our Father’ to start his prayer.”

“Using the word ‘Our’ places us with Jesus in praying to God. The first-person plural possessive pronoun signals that although this prayer may be said by an individual, that individual is never alone in offering it. Imagine the difference if it had begun, ‘My Father who art in heaven.’”

“Christian faith does not privatize religion and our prayers should not either. We might have a personal relationship with God through Jesus, but it is never singularly privileged. The prayer Jesus taught places us within the community of all those who address the same God every time we say it, together or alone.”

“The term Father appears in Hebrew scripture. Male references to God occur there, like that which we heard in the psalm today where God is called ‘king.’ And Father was used occasionally by Jews in their prayers and worship. But the way Jesus employed the term that day in his sermon on the hillside must have caused a murmur in the crowd.”

“He taught the prayer in Aramaic, not in the formal liturgical Hebrew a rabbi would use in ritual and worship of that time. Instead, he spoke in the common vernacular of that time. He used Abba for Father. That is everyday family language you would hear around the home. It’s the wording of intimate relationship between son and dad, and Jesus uses it repeatedly in the gospel, especially in Matthew.”

“Christianity listens in as Jesus teaches about prayer and hears Jesus using this wording for God repeatedly in the gospels. The early Church picks up where Jesus leaves off and embeds male language for God in its worship and creeds and teaching. This happens to such an extent through the years that, over time, God simply becomes male. Male language about God becomes the norm for worship in community or in individual piety and prayer. And over two millennia this language about God comes to ratify and solidify patriarchal power inside and outside the Church. A male God rules in heaven and men rule on earth.”

“But language is shifting, as it always does, in every age. In our time, gendered terminology is yielding to new ways of speaking not bound to old categories. That is true for the language of faith and for the language we use commonly among ourselves. How many times have you logged into an online meeting and next to the names of those on the call they have placed their preferred pronouns?”

“Language is not fixed; it is fluid and dynamic. That is certainly the case for today’s religious vocabulary. Our understanding of God and how we speak about God is evolving, and doing so in ways that may make us uncomfortable or cause us to feel as if we were losing our faith because the words have changed. This evolution can be especially threatening to those who cling to male domination.”

“We live in an era when traditional patriarchy is being challenged all the time – and patriarchy is defending itself. You may have heard Putin refer to a ‘spiritual catastrophe’ in the West in his speech this week.”

“’The Anglican Church is considering a gender-neutral God,; the Russian leader said, as if such a view of God would be a sign of inexcusable, anti-male weakness. /May God forgive them, for they know not what they do.’”

“The Anglican Church knows precisely what it is doing. They are trying to discern what language to use to reflect God’s inclusive vision of God’s own self and of the diversity of the human community. And Anglicans are not alone in wrestling with gender-neutral language about God. Presbyterians went through this thirty years ago.”

“We set up a national committee to write a Brief Statement of Faith. The group split over whether to use Father in referring to God. Some insisted on using the traditional term because it connected so deeply to their own personal faith. Others insisted on avoiding the term altogether because they had come to understand God in a broader way. In a compromise, they finally agreed on this line: We trust in God, whom Jesus called Abba, Father.”

“That satisfied those on both sides of the debate. That rationale can be used to make peace with continuing to pray the Lord’s Prayer by using ‘Our Fathe’ as a quote of what Jesus said, while avoiding male language to refer to God in our own words. And it makes room for more traditional wording, if preferred. That is essentially the approach Westminster uses in its worship.”

“The Roman Catholic Church addresses this issue in paragraph number 239 of its official Catechism, where it says, ‘God transcends the human distinction between the sexes.’ So far so good. And then it goes on to say: ‘He is neither man nor woman. He is God.’ We don’t mean to pick on the Catholics – and good for them for struggling with language around God – but it is evident there is more work to do. Using the logic of the Catechism, let’s try substituting female terminology and see what it does for our image of the Almighty: God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. She is neither man nor woman. She is God.”

.“Or how about, Our Mother, who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name. Imagine teaching that prayer to our children, generation after generation. Imagine 2,000 years of that wording about God crafting our understanding of the Creator. Language matters. It forms our worldview. It shapes our consciousness and defines our human relationships. And it certainly molds our faith.”

“This is more than a pronoun problem. A church members wrote me recently, ‘I want you to know,’ she said. ‘The Lord’s Prayer is problematic for many women, and I doubt that is what Jesus would have wanted. After all, he was a revolutionary who bucked tradition.’”

“I couldn’t agree more. The Church finds itself today in the awkward position of having wording in its central prayer that some find off-putting, exclusive, or even traumatizing.”

“So how can those who need to, pray the Lord’s Prayer in a way that expresses the loving tenderness of Jesus toward God – son to dad – without using Father, or only Father? The term Creator is a possibility, but it doesn’t express a family-like relationship. No one refers to their parent as the Creator. The word Parent is another, but it, too, lacks intimacy. How do we find language that expresses the tenderness and love that Jesus shows in prayer, but doesn’t get in the way of our relationship with God?”

“Some have found it helpful to add Mother to the prayer. Our Father and our Mother, hallowed by your name. Feel free to try it. The point Jesus is after here is to use language in reference to God that expresses a deeply held relationship that is loving and tender and intimate.”

“As we will see through this Lenten series, the Lord’s Prayer is so central to our faith, and so far-reaching in its implications, that the worst thing to do would be to give up on it altogether or cede it to those who would misuse it.”

“Perhaps remembering [poet] Mary Oliver’s advice would be helpful here. When we pray, we should not let our language be a barrier between us and God. We will never get the words exactly right because we will never fully understand the One to whom we pray.”

“Instead, let us be mindful that, in the poet’s words:

‘This isn’t a contest

but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.’”

“To God be the glory.”

“Amen.”

Reactions

I thank Rev. Hart-Andersen for this and the other sermons about the Lord’s Prayer. He is correct that this Prayer “is so familiar we can easily glide by it without noticing.” The Prayer and this sermon remind us that our own prayers do not have to be eloquent or theological masterpieces and should be addressed to God and that God is neither male nor female.

I suggest that the communal  recitation of this prayer should be slowed down with a pause after every line  of the prayer to provide time for reflection.

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[1]  Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, Sermon: The Prayer Jesus Taught: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name” (Feb. 26, 2023).

 

U.N. General Assembly Again Condemns U.S. Embargo (Blockade) of Cuba

On November 3, 2022, the U.N. General Assembly again condemned the U.S. embargo (blockade) of Cuba. The vote this time for the Cuban resolution was 185 to 2 (with the U.S. and Israel voting against the resolution) while two others abstained (Brazil and Ukraine).[1]

The resolution “reiterated its call on all States to refrain from promulgating and applying laws and measures of the kind referred to in the text’s preamble, in conformity with their obligations under the United Nations Charter and international law. It also urged States that have and continue to apply such laws and measures to take the steps necessary to repeal or invalidate them as soon as possible in accordance with their legal regimes.”

Cuba’s Argument for Its Resolution

Cuba alleged in support of its resolution that “only between August 2021 and February 2022 that unilateral policy caused Cuba losses in the order of 3,806.5 million dollars. The figure is 49% higher than that reported between January and July 2021 and a record in just seven months.”

“At current prices, [according to Cuba,] the accumulated damages during six decades of the blockade amount to 150,410.8 million dollars, with a great weight on sectors such as health and education, in addition to the damage to the national economy and the quality of life of Cuban families.”

“In the first 14 months of the Biden Administration alone, [said Cuba,] the losses caused by the blockade amounted to 6,364 million dollars, which is equivalent to an impact of more than 454 million dollars a month and more than 15 million dollars a day.”

Finally, Cuba claimed that  “The extraterritorial impact of the blockade harms the sovereignty of the countries of the United Nations, sanctions their businessmen and impedes access to their ports for third party ships that dock in Cuba. It also prevents the importation into Cuba of articles produced in any country when they have 10% or more of U.S. components.”

Cuba’s foreign Minister, Rodriguez Parrilla, also said, “During the pandemic, the blockade was further tightened, causing more delays in the delivery of necessary medical equipment. But despite limited resources, Cuba cooperated with other countries, sending medical brigades to provide aid. Equally unceasing, he said, is the fraudulent inclusion of Cuba in the United States Department of State’s unilateral list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism. This forces Cuba to pay twice the usual price for commodities on the international market. Cuba has rejected all forms of terrorism.”

The Foreign Minister added, “The current United States Administration does not have a Cuba policy, he said. Rather it continues to exert the “maximum pressure” policy developed under the Donald Trump Administration. Over the last few months, it has taken positive steps to alleviate certain restrictions, but the blockade continues to be the central element defining Cuba-United States policy.”

Other Countries’ Support for the Resolution

During the General Assembly debate over the Cuba resolution, “Member States condemned the economic embargo against Cuba, calling it cruel, inhumane and punitive. They urged the United States to begin a dialogue with Cuba based on the equality of States and respect for sovereignty and independence.”

“Representatives of several developing States also thanked Cuba for providing them with much-needed medical aid, nurses and vaccines at the height of the pandemic. Nicaragua’s delegate said that Cuba, thanks to its revolutionary spirit and socialist conviction, has been able to stand alongside the developed countries that sanction it by producing vaccines and helping ‘our developing peoples.’”

“Speakers for several Caribbean countries pointed out also that the United States blockade has had widespread implications and consequences and was stifling not only Cuba’s growth but that of the entire region. Several delegates questioned how the world could commit to implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development while locking out one country from fairly participating in its own socioeconomic development.”

“’No nation should be punished and exploited by another,’ Gabon’s representative said. ‘Cuba is peaceful and cooperative and deserves the continued support of the international community in calling for an end to the embargo.’”

“Member States also questioned how they could overwhelmingly call for an end to the embargo year after year for decades without any results. ‘Every year, we speak about the devastating impact of the embargo on the people of Cuba, but we see no effort to remove the restrictions,’ Zimbabwe’s delegate said.”

The U.S. Statement Against the Resolution[2]

The U.S. statement purportedly justifying its opposition to the resolution was provided during the debate by John Kelley, Political Counselor, who said the following:

  • “The United States remains committed to the Cuban people in their pursuit of freedom, prosperity, and a future with greater dignity. We are focused on the political and economic wellbeing of the Cuban people and center our efforts on democracy and human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
  • “Cubans of all walks of life are speaking out for fundamental freedoms, protesting Cuban government repression, and advocating for a better future. In July of 2021, the world witnessed tens of thousands of Cubans across the island take to the streets to peacefully demand freedom. The Cuban government responded to the demands of the Cuban people with crackdowns on peaceful protesters, journalists, and human rights defenders.”
  • “The Cuban government has used harsh prison sentences, even against minors, intimidation tactics, arrests, Internet interruptions, government-sponsored mobs, and horrendous prison conditions to try to prevent Cubans from exercising their human rights.”
  • “Cuban security officials have also forced into exile human rights activists and journalists who had been either detained or warned about their activities. We join international partners in urging the Cuban government to release political prisoners immediately and unconditionally and to protect the freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly of all individuals in Cuba.”
  • “As we hold the Cuban government accountable, our support for the Cuban people is unwavering. The embargo includes exemptions and authorizations relating to exports of food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods to Cuba.”
  • “We recognize the challenges the Cuban people face. The people of the United States and U.S. organizations donate a significant amount of humanitarian goods to the Cuban people, and the United States is one of Cuba’s principal trading partners. Since 1992, the United States has authorized billions of dollars of exports to Cuba, including food and other agricultural commodities, medicines, medical devices, telecommunications equipment, consumer goods, and other items to support the Cuban people. In 2021 alone, U.S. companies exported over $295 million worth of agricultural goods to Cuba, including food, to help address the Cuban people’s basic needs.”
  • “Last month, following the devastating impact of Hurricane Ian, the United States announced it is providing to the Cuban people critical humanitarian aid through trusted international partners working directly with Cubans whose communities were devastated by the storm. The U.S. Agency for International Development will provide $2 million in funding for emergency relief to those in need in Cuba.”
  • “Mr. President, the United States opposes this resolution, but we stand with the Cuban people and will continue to seek ways to provide meaningful support to them. We encourage this body to urge the Cuban government to listen to the Cuban people and their demands to determine their own future.”

Conclusion

Amazingly none of the major U.S. sources of international news—New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal—had any articles about this U.N. General Assembly resolution.

In contrast, this blog by a U.S. citizen living in the U.S. without any family connections with Cuba, but with involvement in Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church’s partnership with a Presbyterian-Reformed Church on the island, has contained many blog posts opposing the U.S. embargo of Cuba.[3] The most recent such post had an abbreviated history of the embargo and discussed the last U.N. General Assembly resolution against the embargo that passed on June 23, 2021, by a vote of 184 to 2 (again the U.S. and Israel in opposition) with three abstentions (Colombia, Brazil and Ukraine).[4]

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[1] U.N., General Assembly: 28th plenary meeting, 77th session (Nov. 3, 2022); Rodriguez, Overwhelming Victory for Cuba at the UN: 185 countries vote against the blockade, Granma (Nov. 3, 2022); Cuba Foreign Minister Rodriguez Parrilla, The world would be better off without the blockade, Granma (Nov. 3, 2022); How little the United States respect the world by maintaining the blockade against Cuba!, Granma (Nov. 2, 2022) (Cuba President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez’ Twitter statement); U.N. Secretary General, Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba (Jan. 20, 2022).

[2] U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Explanation of Vote After the Vote on a UN General Assembly Resolution on the Cuba Embargo (Nov. 3, 2022).

[3]  See the posts listed in the “U.S. Embargo of Cuba” section of List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: CUBA [as of 5/4/20}.

[4]  Criticism of President Biden’s “New Cuba Policy,” dwkcommentaries.com (Oct. 1, 2022).

U.S. Resettlement of Refugees and Recent Afghan Evacuees

The U.S. currently is engaged in resettling in this country refugees from around the world under previously established international refugee resettlement processes as well as recent Afghan evacuees under newly modified processes for Afghans.

Here is a summary of the legal requirements and administrative procedures for these important developments.

U.S. Resettlement of Refugees

  1. International Legal Protection of Refuges[1]

In 1951 an international conference of diplomats adopted an international treaty to protect refugees (Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees).

This treaty went into effect or force in April 1954 after its ratification by six states. However, the U.S. did not directly ratify this treaty, but did so indirectly in 1968 when under the leadership of President Lyndon Johnson the U.S. ratified a treaty amendment (Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees).

The U.S., however, did not adopt implementing legislation until 1980, when President Jimmy Carter led the adoption of the U.S. Refugee Act of 1980, which included the treaty’s following definition of “refugee” (with U.S. express addition for “past” persecution):

  • “ (A)ny person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality . . . and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of [past] persecution or a well-founded fear of [future] persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.. . . ”

As of January 20, 2020, there were 146 parties to the Convention and 147 to the Protocol.

  1. International Resettlement of Refugees[2]

After international cooperation on resettlement of specific groups of refugees, 1956-1995, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1995 organized the Annual Tripartite Consultations on Resettlement for the UNHCR, nation states and civil society. By the end of 2019, these consultations had established a global resettlement policy and procedures to attempt to provide locations for such resettlement that can provide the services that refugees need. These procedures have resulted in resettlement of over 1 million refugees: 90 percent of whom came from Myanmar, Syrian Arab Republic, Iraq, Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia and were resettled in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

At the end of 2019, the UNHCR estimated there were 26 million refugees in the world, about one half of whom are under the age of 18. This group is part of the 79.5 million forcibly displaced people in the world (the other 53.5 million are forcibly displaced within their own countries and thus not entitled to refugee status).

  1. U.S. Resettlement of Refugees[3]

The U.S. has participated in this international resettlement program under the overall direction of the Departments of State and Homeland Security.

Under U.S. law the U.S. President establishes annual quotas for such resettlements. The largest such quota was 200,000 in 1980 when President Carter led the U.S. adoption of the Refugee Act of 1980. In 1999 under President Clinton the quota was 132,631, and in 2016 under President Obama it was 84,994.

For Fiscal 2019 President Trump reduced the number of refugees for resettlement in U.S. to 15,000 and required cities and counties to file written affirmative consents for such resettlements with the State Department, but a federal court held that requirement was illegal. Nevertheless, many states, including Minnesota, granted such consents along with statements about the many contributions by refugees to their states.

President Biden initially said he would maintain the 15,000 quota set by Trump for this fiscal year, but after strong objections by influential Senators and others, the White House on May 3, 2021, stated the it was revising the quota to 62,500 for this fiscal year although it was unlikely that it would meet that number by that year’s end on 9/30/21. President Biden also said that he intends to increase the quota for the next fiscal year to 125,000.

  1. Refugee Resettlement in Minnesota [4]

From 2005 through 2019 the State of Minnesota had resettled 33,189 refugees. The largest numbers came from Somalia (13,674), Burma (8,604), Ethiopia (2,194), Laos (2,042), Iraq (1,290), Bhutan (1,188) and Liberia (1,171).

For Fiscal 2021 (ending 9/30/21), Minnesota had a resettlement goal of 500, but as of 5/12/21 had received only 30. They came from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, Ukraine and Republic of Moldova (Eastern European county and former part of USSR). Because of COVID-19, the goal of 500 probably will not be met.

For Fiscal 2022 (before the evacuation of Afghans), Minnesota expected to have a resettlement goal of 1,900 given President Biden’s stated intent to increase the national total to 125,000.

Such resettlements are coordinated by refugee resettlement agencies in the State: Minnesota Council of Churches (Refugee Services), International Institute of Minnesota, Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota, Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota and Arrive Ministries.

Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, where this blogger is a member, is launching its Refugee Co-Sponsorship Team of six to twelve individuals under the leadership of three “champions” with guidance of the Minnesota Council of Churches and anticipates receiving its first refugee family this October.

Our Team’s commitment is for four to six months starting with setting up an apartment selected by the Council with furnishings that it and our Team provides; welcoming the family on their arrival at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport and transporting them to their apartment;  helping the family’s orientation to their new neighborhood, city and services; transporting them to various meetings and shopping; assisting school registration for any children and adult ESL enrollment; providing information about various public services and obligations; and helping them find employment. In short, being friends to our new residents. The co-sponsorship ends with a closing ceremony, transitioning the relationship to mutual friendship, rather than a continued helping relationship. [5]

U.S. Resettlement of Recent Afghan Evacuees.

The recent turmoil in Afghanistan has resulted  in the U.S. evacuation from that country of approximately 130,000 people (124,000 Afghans and 6,000 U.S. citizens).

Many of the Afghan allies with U.S. special immigrant visa applications and their families who recently escaped Afghanistan were flown from Kabul to Washington, D.C. for their subsequent transfer to U.S. forts in Virginia (Fort Lee),Texas (Fort Bliss) and western Wisconsin (Fort McCoy, which is about 169 miles southeast of Minneapolis). Others were flown to U.S. military bases in other countries for processing and hoped-for transfers to the U.S.[6]

This summary is based upon the cited sources with recognition that this is a very complex and changing situation and readers’ corrections and amplifications are most welcome.

  1. Legal Status of Afghan Evacuees[7]

Most, if not all, of these Afghans have not been through the previously described procedures for resettlement of refugees and have not been determined to meet the requirements for refugee status. (Some articles erroneously refer to them as “Afghan refugees.”)

Instead, they are being vetted by U.S. agencies for meeting the following requirements for Afghan Special Immigrant Visas (“SIVs”):

  • employment in Afghanistan for at least one year between October 7, 2001, and December 31, 2023, by or on behalf of the U.S. government or by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), or a successor mission in a capacity that required the applicant to serve as an interpreter or translator for U.S. military personnel while traveling off-base with U.S. military personnel stationed at ISAF or to perform activities for U.S. military personnel stationed at ISAF; and
  • Have experienced or be experiencing an ongoing threat as a consequence of their employment.

Alternatively some Afghans might be eligible for Priority 2 (P-2) designation granting U.S. Refugee Admissions Program access for Afghans and their eligible family members by satisfying one of the following conditions:

  • “Afghans who do not meet the minimum time-in-service for a SIV but who work or worked as employees of contractors, locally-employed staff, interpreters/translators for the U.S. government, U.S. Forces Afghanistan (USFOXRX-A), International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), or Resolute Support;”
  • “Afghans who work or worked for a U.S. government-funded program or project in Afghanistan supported through a U.S. government grant or cooperative agreement;” or
  • “Afghans who are or were employed in Afghistan by a U.S.-based media organization or non-governmental organization.”

Afghans also could be eligible for “the Priority (P-1) program by virtue of their circumstances and apparent need for resettlement who are referred to the P-1 program . . .  by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a U.S. embassy, or a designated NGO.”

However, an Associated Press reporter claims that “the majority will arrive without visas as ‘humanitarian parolees,’ lacking a path to legal U.S. residency and the benefits and services offered to traditional refugees, according to U.S. officials and worried aid groups working closely with the government.” Instead, “Afghan parolees who have arrived at U.S. military bases will be eligible for an ad hoc State Department program that provides limited assistance for up to 90 days, including a one-time $1,250 stipend. But they will not have the full range of medical, counseling and resettlement services available to immigrants who arrive through the U.S. refugee program.”

  1. U.S. Administrative Agencies Involved in “Operation Allies Welcome”[8]

On August 19, 56 Senators sent a bipartisan letter to President Biden calling for “the urgent evacuation of Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants and their families, as well as the full and immediate implementation of [the above legislation] to expand the Afghan SIV program and streamline the application process.”

That message was in accord with the Biden Administration’s desires. On August 29, President Biden directed the Department of Homeland Security to be the lead agency coordinating this resettlement effort and that agency’s Secretary (Alejandro N. Mayorkas) simultaneously appointed Robert J. Fenton, Jr. with 29 years of experience in FEMA large-scale response and recovery efforts to lead the interagency Unified Coordination Group in this effort. He will be working with Jack Markell, a former Delaware Governor and now the White House’s coordinator of “Operation Allies Welcome.”

  1. Resettlement of Afghan Evacuees in U.S. [9]

Operation Allies Welcome is asking the nonprofit organizations that have contracted with the U.S. State Department for resettlement of refugees to also handle the resettlement of the Afghan evacuees. This task is made much more difficult by last year’s shrinkage of these agencies caused by President Trump’s reduction of the quota for such resettlement to 15,000 and the associated reduction of federal financial support for same and by the size and unresolved issues about the Afghan evacuees.

  1. Societal Reactions to Afghan Resettlement [10]

There are general reports about positive reactions to such resettlement from U.S. citizens and organizations.

The State of Minnesota did so in an August 19, 2021, letter to President Biden from Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan. It stated that Minnesota “in the past . . . has stepped forward to help those who are fleeing desperate situations and need a safe place to call home” while acknowledging, “New Minnesotans strengthen our communities and contribute to the social fabric of our state. They are our neighbors.” Therefore, “we [in Minnesota] stand ready to work with you and your administration to welcome [Afghan] families as this effort to provide safety and refuge continues.”

Minnesota’s U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar has voiced a similar opinion by offering her office’s assistance to American citizens and Afghan allies looking to evacuate that country and by signing a bipartisan letter to the President urging support for evacuation efforts.

In addition, Temple Israel of Minneapolis is embarking on a program to help some of these Afghans to resettle in Minnesota and has enlisted Westminster Presbyterian Church as a co-sponsor for such resettlements. The Temple’s program probably springs from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) as well as a continuous Jewish presence in the territory of Afghanistan from the 8th century CE until the 20th century.[11]

Conclusion[12]

Westminster’s involvement with immigrants is not new in our 160 years. Indeed, the church was established in 1857 by Scottish and Welsh newcomers on land that had been home to the Dakota people for many generations. In 1870 we established our first global mission partnership after our third pastor had visited China and in the 1880s began a formal ministry teaching English and providing support to Chinese immigrants that continued in the 20th century.

Our church also has partnerships with Protestant churches in Cuba, Cameroon and Palestine.

These Westminster ministries are inspired by various Biblical passages.

The book of Leviticus says, “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you. You shall love the sojourner as yourself, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19: 33-34.) (The Hebrew word for “alien” is “ger,”which means stranger in the land, one who sojourns among you.)

Jesus, of course, told stories about heroes who are disliked foreigners, like the good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37) , or when He welcomes those whom others shun as outsiders, like the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4: 1-26) and when He ignores the then current mandate no to pay attention to people living with leprosy or other illnesses (Matthew 8: 1-3).  As our Pastor, Rev. Tim Hart-Andersen said in his recent sermon, “As Christians, our core conviction insists on hospitality to those deemed other by the world around us—and anyone else known to be the most vulnerable in the community.”

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[1] UNHCR, Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees; Refugee Act of 1980; Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Wikipedia; List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: LAW (REFUGEE & Asylum).

[2]  UNHCR, The History of Resettlement (2019).

[3] U.S. State Dep’t, About Refugee Admissions; U.S. State Governments Celebrate Refugee Accomplishments, dwkcommentaries.com (Feb. 2, 2020); U.S. State Dep’t, Report to Congress on Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2021 (Oct. 22, 2020); U.S. Reduces Refugee Admissions to 15,000 for Fiscal 2021, dwkcommentaries.com (Oct.  2, 2020); U.S. State Dep’t, Report to Congress on the Proposed Emergency Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2021 (Feb. 12, 2021); Joe Biden Raises Trump refugee cap  after backlash, BBC News (May 4, 2021);UNHCR, UNHCR applauds US decision to increase refugee resettlement (May 3, 2001). Minnesota Council of Churches, Refugee Services.

[5]  Minnesota Council of Churches, Refugee Services; Minnesota Council of Churches, Help Afghan Refugees (Aug. 30, 2021); Campbell, Schulze & Krohnke, Our Refugee Family Co-Sponsorship: An Invitation to Love the Sojourner Among Us, Westminster News (Sept. 2021).

[6] U.S. Defense Dep’t, U.S. Seeks to Open More Locations to Aid Evacuation From Kabul, General Says, DOD News (Aug. 21, 2021); Assoc. Press, Afghan refugees arrive, temporarily, in northern Virginia, Wash. Post (Aug. 22, 2021); Assoc. Press, Afghan refugees begin arriving at Fort McCoy in western Wisconsin, StarTribune (Aug. 23, 2021); Musa, The United States Needs an Afghan Refugee Resettlement Act, Foreign Policy (Aug. 19, 2021), ; Baghdassarian & Carney, Special Immigrant Visas for the United States’ Afghan Allies, Lessons Learned from Promises Kept and Broken, Lawfare (Aug. 19, 2021),

[7] State Dep’t, Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans—Who Were Employed by/on behalf of the U.S. Government; State Dep’t, U.S. Refugee Admissions Program Priority Designation 2 for Afghan Nationals (Aug. 2, 2021); Press Release, BREAKING: Senate Passes Shaheen-Ernst Bill to Protect Afghan Allies through SIV Program as Part of Supplemental Spending Bill (July 29, 2021); Emergency Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2021, Public Law 117-331, enacted on July 30, 2021; Assoc. Press, For Afghan evacuees arriving to U.S., a tenuous legal status and little financial support, Wash. Post (Sept. 1, 2021).

[8] Shaheen, Ernst Lead Bipartisan Effort Urging the Administration on Immediate Evacuation & Full Implementation of their SIV Legislation Aug. 19, 2021). Homeland Security Dep’t, DHS to Serve as Lead Federal Agency Coordinating Efforts to Resettle Vulnerable Afghans, (Aug. 29, 2021); Sacchetti, Miroff & Demirjian, Biden names former Delaware governor Jack Markell to serve as point person on Afghan resettlement in the United States, Wash. Post (Sept. 3, 2021).

[9] U.S. Refugee Organizations Race to Prepare for Influx of Afghans, W.S.J. (Aug. 31, 2021). Hackman, Afghan Refugees in the U.S.: How They’re Vetted, Where They Are going and How to Help, W.S.J. (Sept. 3, 2021). Assoc. Press, US faith groups unite to help Afghan refugees after war, StarTribune (Sept. 2, 2021).

[10] Office of Governor Walz & Lt. Governor Flanagan, Governor Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan: Minnesota Stands ready to Welcome Afghan Refugee Families (Aug. 19, 2021); Assoc. Press, Walz extends Minnesota’s welcome mat to Afghan refugees (StarTribune (Aug. 20, 2021). News Release, Klobuchar Announces Office Assistance for Americans and Afghan Allies Evacuating Afghanistan (Aug. 18, 2021).

[11] HIAS Statement on Afghanistan Crisis (Aug. 16, 2021); History of the Jews in Afghanistan, Wikipedia; Oreck, Afghanistan Virtual Jewish History Tour, Jewish Virtual Library; The Jews of Afghanistan, Museum of the Jewish People.  Westminster’s Response to Crisis in Afghanistan (Aug. 8, 2021).

[12] Rev. Timothy Hart-Andersen & Rev. David Tsai Shinn, Sermon: Concerning the Sojourner (June 20, 2021). Westminster Presbyterian Church, Global Partners Ministry Team.