Fremont United Methodist Church
Fourth Sunday of Lent: “The Lord’s Prayer”

“and do not bring us into temptation,
But rescue us from the evil one.”

My great grandson is afraid. I won’t go into the whole story, but after a break in where his father lives, he’s been afraid to sleep alone or, pretty much, go anywhere alone. Even though his bedroom is directly across the hall from our bedroom, night lights, and treasured stuffed animals, and he knows that I have checked and double checked all of the doors when I go to bed, and that all he has to do is whisper my name; he is genuinely fearful of being alone. If you could see him when I attempt to leave the room, you would know that his fear is genuine. And I’m pretty sure he’s in good company. When I was his age, there was something lurking in the closet at the foot of my bed. So, I slept in a kind of fetal position because I knew that that something would go for my feet. I wasn’t sure what the something would do with my feet, but I knew that it wanted them for some purpose that was going to hurt me.
Have I left those fears behind? Well, sort of. I may not be so fearful about the closet at the foot of my bed, but I confess to you that I’m often fearful; there is so much in our world to be afraid of. I’m not going to list those things because we all have our own lists, and I don’t want to depress us; but I live with fearfulness—and I know I’m not alone. But I cope and sometimes manage long periods of time not thinking about it—until I open up my Twitter account and once again am convinced that the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket and I am not going to escape.
Someone once said that all fear is always irrational; some fear is but not all; and I think the Bible suggests otherwise.
One thing the Bible does not do is sugar coat the reality of the world. We read there the greatness of humanity and its depravity—and we see the best and worst in “God’s chosen people.” We see it the life of King David, the one whom God called a man after God’s own heart. It’s a risky world and alluring; it’s a world of awesome beauty as well, but still risk, accident, and danger. Following Jesus is risky business. Jesus’ own words—“take up your cross and follow me”—are clearly to remind us that we live in a dangerous world. The reality of evil—often personified in scripture as the devil or Satan—is real and widespread. The power of temptation is real and evident.
Brian MacLaren says that Christians often think of this prayer and our faith as “an evacuation plan” into another, safer world; but the prayer is about living in the very real, challenging, and risky world we live in. Jesus said, when you pray, pray like this as a model or paradigm. Again and again this prayer brings us to God and the key question of our faith: “How, then, shall I/we live?” This is what I believe; the God I serve; these are my values; this is what I think of the world—how do I live faithfully as a follower of Jesus in such a world as this?
This part of the prayer has been in the news lately. Pope Francis has led the discussion about the first part of today’s focus: “and do not bring us into temptation,” or the more familiar phrasing “lead us not into temptation.” The BBC reported:
[Pope Francis says that lead us not into temptation is] “not a good translation because God does not lead humans to sin….
His suggestion is to use "do not let us fall into temptation" instead, which is a better translation because “…it is I who fall, it is not God who throws me into temptation and then sees how I fell.”

So, there is a connection with this petition and the world we live in and the God we follow. I’d like to share with you a different take on this; I’m not sure that it alleviates our fears, but maybe it give us a perspective that helps. What this prayer is asking is to protect us from entering into wrong thinking and that we not become people who blame God or others because our focus or understanding of God is so skewed. I just wonder, for example, how many of my own “testings” are brought on by myself by my own lack keeping my focus on God and indulging in my own wrong thinking and rationalizations.
I need to remember to whom I pray. This petition drives us back to God. We are praying to God. To our Parent, Creator, Sustainer; I think we pray to our lover. We pray to the God who is other and the one immediately, emotionally, relationally present with and in us. Do I believe God? Or, perhaps, I should ask, What God do I believe in? How do I choose to live in the world with God? As if God is a god who is trustworthy and already at work in and through our lives and in and throughout the world or as a practical atheist? I believe in God; my belief just doesn’t matter very much. Can I trust this God—regardless of the apparent absence of God? Can I live without fear? Probably not; but can I live so close to God’s beating heart that my heart beats synchronously?
Most of my life I have thought wrongly about God, partly because of how I was taught and partly because I want things to go my way so that I can do things my way and get the results I want. I told you about the first time when our world turned upside down—and all of the beliefs about God not only were called into question; they were really dumped out. It was a struggle that really continues to this day, a struggle to meet God, as Marcus Borg says, again for the first time. That day when my idea of God was proven to be a self-protective sham became the headwaters of a river on which I still float, trusting that God is the God Jesus reveals to us.
I would like to take you back to the story about my grandson. What to do? I don’t know except to say what I do. I lie down with him. I sing to him. I rub his back. I read to him. I spend the night with him. And I do think that is the kind of God we serve; rather than judge us, this God lies down with us, sings to us, rubs our backs, reads to us; this is the God who spends the night with us.
So, perhaps, when I pray lead me not into temptation and deliver me from evil, I am really asking God to help me think clearly about God and to lie down with me in the dark nights of my soul, helping me to stay fixed on that true North Star, regardless of the circumstances of life, trusting that it will bring me home.