Praying the Lord's Prayer in a global economic era

Praying the Lord’s Prayer in a Global Economic Era Musa W. Dube Shomanah z zyx zyxwvu Osayande Obery Hendricks writes, in his “Guerrilla Exegesis”: Professor Very Pious, if Jesus’ paradigmatic prayer (called the Lord’s Prayer) has as its paramount concern bread for subsistence in a time of hunger, relief from debt when an unjust debt structure crushed the people underfoot and the establishment of God’s sole sovereignty when the people’s misery was largely the by-product of Caesar’s authority, then why is the Lord’s Prayer not also called the Lord’s Paradigmatic Critique of Political Economy‘? The Lord’s Model of Social Analysis?’ Prayer is an expression of one’s wishes, dreams, hopes and needs. It expresses the vision one espouses for oneself, for one’s families and friends, neighbours and communities, nations and creation at large. Thus praying is something most people have done. Yet what distinguishes prayer from any other human desire is that i t reflects a human will in search of divine partnership. To pray is to seek to merge one’s vision and wishes with the divine vision for oneself and for others. From a Christian perspective, to pray is constantly to declare one’s visions, availability and commitment to seeking God’s will for oneself and the earth or God’s creation at large. There are indeed many prayers and ways of praying, yet the Lord’s Prayer is undoubtedly the most popular prayer among Christian communities. Without a doubt, it is the best-known and most memorized text of the Christian Testament. Long before Christian children can open and read the Bible for themselves, most have already been taught to memorize and recite the Lord’s Prayer at home, church and, in many cases, at school. It was many years before I discovered that the Lord’s Prayer was a text in the Christian Testament even though I had recited it for as long as I could remember. This popularity has both positive and negative consequences. Positively, it indicates the centrality of the Lord’s Prayer to the Christian faith. It indicates that the vision of the Lord’s Prayer is probably regarded as the nearest articulation of God’s will for the world and of the role of Christian men and women in their partnership with God on earth. In praying with these words Christian communities at large repeatedly pledge their commitment to and responsibility for the realization of God’s will on earth. Thus it is called the Lord’s Prayer even though it is women and men who use it, for prayer is an attempt to meet, hear, speak and work with God. Prayer is a zyxwvu zy 0 Mum W. Dube Shoinaiiah teaches in the University of Botswana. where she is a lecturer in the department of religious studies. 439 zyxwvu zyxwvu pledge made by men and women to take responsibility for their interpersonal and international relationships on earth. Because of these significant positive aspects of the Lord’s Prayer, Christians should pause and ponder on its meaning and its vision and on the implications of reciting it, especially in the global era. That is why I have chosen in this article to probe its vision and what it may offer us in the global era. This is not to claim that other visions cannot be found within the Bible, in other religious cultures or in current solutions offered by the wise and responsible citizens of the world, for, as John Parratt reminds us, “the search for a just society is not the prerogative of Christians alone”.’ To interpret the Lord’s Prayer in search of economic solutions is therefore to employ Christian language to speak to Christian communities and nations. Negatively, the popularity of this prayer means that many people have come to recite it without reflecting on its meaning and its implications. The Lord’s Prayer has become just another text that people recite because they have always recited it at home or in their Christian gatherings, but not because they are saying something they wish to bring to realization. In this paper, I invite all Christian practitioners of various persuasions and races - readers, believers, hearers, academicians, planners, economists, politicians and nations - to reconsider the responsibility of praying the Lord’s Prayer in a global economic era. My goal is to confront practising Christians with the following questions: What is the vision of the Lord’s Prayer for God’s world and people? What if we pray this prayer attentively - seriously pledging our commitment to being partners with God in building God’s kingdom on earth? What should we do in an age of globalization? I do not claim to offer the “correct”, “original” or only meaning of the Lord’s Prayer. Rather, I aim to read the Lord’s Prayer in such a way as to urge Christian communities and individuals to assume active responsibility in the global economic era. My reading, in other words, is prompted by ethical concerns for current international economic practices. I shall begin by giving a definition or picture of the global economic system. Globalization The global era is an age characterized by increasingly interconnected economic systems of different countries, nations and continents.’ This closely knit economic organ is in fact a relationship of dependence and interdependence, of exploitation and exponential profit, of economic giants and dwarfs, indeed, of masters and servants, as well as of massive monetary losses and gains. The global economic era at its basic level is described by my son’s observation that everything in North America seems to have “made in China” written on it. One wonders how many items in an average house in China bear the inscription “made in the USA”. The colours of the global economic era are evident in the streets and villages of Botswana, where North American and European products and companies are at home, whereas, except for the occasional basket, one hardly ever finds products from Botswana in overseas markets. In other words, globalization is an economic system that has turned the world into a small interconnected village - for a handful of people to run and benefit from. Hence it allows those in power to export and import goods to and from certain markets easily, while this is not automatically applicable to their trading partners. Those in power may import many foreign goods at cheap rates, but they do not allow the concerned 440 zyxwvut zyxw zyxw PRAYING THE LORDS PRAYER IN A GLOBAL ECONOMIC ERA nations to enjoy the same privileges for their populations. The global system is manifested in the so-called multi-national companies and corporations which build plants in developing countries to exploit cheap labour and maximize their profits. Seldom if ever are these developing countries invited to build their businesses in developed nations in order to maximize their profits. Globalization is also characterized by intensified economic regionalization, represented in the formation of such groups as the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) and the European Union. Describing the global economic era, Ngungi wa Thiongo writes: zyxwvu The leading financial institutions - banks, insurances, credit cards - operate in nearly all the capitals of the earth. Transnationals of all kinds link economic activities of several countries; some brands become almost national to many people, so familiar a sight they have become in their daily lives. So a worker in Nairobi, Kenya, in an automobile warehouse can have the same employer as many others in North, Central, South American and Asian cities. Messrs Coca-Cola and McDonald, between themselves, are making the world in their own image. It is of course true that these processes are controlled by a handful of Western transnationals. IMF and the World Bank dictate the social and economic policies of many countries. But it does mean that many workers, many nations, even when they may not be consciously aware of it, are linked to the same controlling central forces.‘ Ali Mazrui observes that every man has a two-dress culture -his own and Western... No one regards a Japanese in a Western suit, or an Arab in a Western tie, as a cultural incongruity. It is only when we see a Japanese in Arab regalia or an Arab in Japanese dress that we are shocked. The European suit, especially, has become universalized.’ zyxwvuts zyxwvu Mazrui reads the globalization of the world economic system in such things as the mushrooming of Kentucky Fried Chicken all over the world and the popularity of certain soft drinks. What he calls the “coca-colanization of the world”6 was dramatized in the film The Gods Must he Crazy. A bottle of Coca-Cola is thrown away by a tourist in an area of Basarwa, the so-called Bushmen. One of them picks it up and is fascinated by it. He takes it back to his community, where everyone is fascinated by it. They do not know where Coke bottles come from or how to make them, but they want to touch them and have them and they come to a point of almost worshipping the bottle. Before long they begin to fight over it, disrupting the peace of the community. Finally they decide to throw the bottle away, realizing that it is an evil thing. But, as becomes apparent, the arrival of the Coke bottle is irreversible. This film captures in a simple and dramatic way the reach and impact of multinational companies in even the most remote areas of the world. The powerful can export their products to the communities of Basarwa and in turn import the life-style of Basarwa (in the form of a film) for the consumption of the Western markets, without a reciprocal act from the former. Christopher Lind, who has analyzed the impact of globalization on Canadian farmers in Saskatchewan, finds that the extraordinary debt they confront comes from “the same place third world debt comes from. It comes not from poor management but from the integration of national capital markets.’” Although many people speak of globalization as something positive, Lind says that it is characterized by an ethic of “competitiveness, domination and indifference” as opposed to the “religious ethic of cooperation, solidarity and compassion”.’ This process, “which has led to the creation 441 THEECUMENICALREVIEW zyxwvutsr zyxw of a single, international (global) financial or capital market”, clearly cries out for attention from Christian communities.“ Christian churches and communities and the so-called Christian nations have obviously been participants in the gradual globalization of the world. Historically, one may point to the planting of particular Christian churches - Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Assemblies of God, Seventh-day Adventists - in many continents, using the same name as an imposition of uniformity. The universalization of European formal education, language and culture were largely championed by the church in the age of colonialism. Current global movements of the church are attested to by the proliferation nearly everywhere of North American television ministries and African-American gospel music. The global distribution of goods and services in itself is not negative. One can hardly overlook the benefits of watching CNN news wherever one is, listening to the BBC World Service, or using the Internet to access the vast world of information. Yet the distribution of goods and services remains a one-way traffic. No one watching CNN can overlook its presentation of a North American perspective on current events around the world. Similarly, in using Internet one is conscious that its language is mainly English, which hardly reflects the diverse cultures of the world, and that its vast corpus of information is largely from the so-called developed countries. It is therefore the making of the economic structures behind these services that warrants attention. It has often been noted that the powerful countries control the markets and set the prices of what they buy and sell.“’It has also been said many times that the poor are exploited by the rich and that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. What obliges Christian communities and institutions to reflect on these old problems which are taking on a new mask is the fact that this economic set-up of international relations has never been solved, but persists and has worsened, and the realization that this system painfully affects people and takes away lives. The global economic set-up Lind describes as unethical and exploitative is inconsistent with God’s will for the earth. Some would of course say, “Get used to it. This is not a problem but the rule of capitalism and the free-market system.” The problem is that the free-market system is not free. It is structured to benefit a few and exploit multitudes. Others might argue that this problem is fundamentally a political one and cannot be solved by Christian communities and institutions. Yet I would insist that Christian communities and institutions, as part of the world, are not exempt from the call to build healthy interpersonal and international relationships that promote God’s kingdom and responsibility to stop and think, to assess whether the current system resonates with God’s will for God’s creation. If the Lord’s Prayer encapsulates an important part of God’s vision for the world and calls on all who pray it to be responsible partners with God in building God’s kingdom on earth, can Christians be at peace with current international economic structures? Can they feel at home with corrupt and exploitative governments? Would they regard today’s international and national structures as constitutive of godly interpersonal relations? I believe it is incumbent on Christians (1) to confront squarely the reality of globalization; (2) to educate themselves on its mechanisms and ethics; (3) to place themselves within the parameters of active globalization; and (4) to ask if the Christian faith offers us an alternative vision. They should re-examine the Lord’s Prayer and 442 zyxwvut zyxwvuts PRAYrNG THE LORD’S PRAYER IN A GLOBAL ECONOMIC ERA consider whether the vision proposed there may offer us an alternative to confront the ethical challenges of living in a global economic era and among corrupt and exploitative governments. Once that is done, there is a fifth stage, that of forming strategies of resistance - the positioning of women and men who will seek to exude the heavenly justice in earthly spaces. Someone may ask, “but what if the vision of the Lord’s Prayer is found lacking?” It still remains incumbent on Christians to discern the seasonal approach of prophesy, to,fulfrl the scriptures, according to the model of Jesus: “You have heard what was said ..., but I say to you” (Matt. 5:21-48). Put differently, we are called not to the simple task of reproducing the biblical text, but to taking up the risky challenge and responsibility of seeking God’s will for God’s creation beyond the ancient texts and against the conservative religious institutions. God’s name is not hallowed in Christian institutions or texts. Rather, God’s name must be hallowed in the whole of God’s creation. Seeking the seasonal will of God for the earth is a call that involves new reflections which sometimes challenge or diverge from the written scriptures when these are found inadequate and irrelevant to new situations and inconsistent with God’s will for God’s creation. Because the approach of seeking to hear God afresh in new contexts is so difficult, it is often overlooked by Christian communities. We prefer to shield ourselves behind “You have heard”, reproducing and adhering to ancient scriptures, rather than daring to cross the boundary to “But I say...”. To go beyond ancient scriptures and to challenge the religious institutions that guard these texts demands prophetic courage the willingness to hear God speak anew in new contexts. It entails willingness to challenge governments and elites and to confront possible death. But to be content to be stewards of scripture and Christian institutions while betraying God’s creation is to refuse the call to be faithful partners with God in keeping the earth sacred. The Lord’s Prayer in today’s world To reflect on the worldview of the Lord’s Prayer, it is necessary to examine its context, its contents and its contention. zy a) THECONTEXT OF THE LORD’SPRAYER Matthew’s gospel sets the Lord’s Prayer in the context of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). Many readers have noted that the Sermon on the Mount is an intertextual construction that recalls Moses receiving the Law of God on Mt Sinai (Ex. 1920). At Sinai God has not only called the Israelites out of slavery, but has called the new nation to be culturally, economically, politically and socially responsible to God’s vision for them. Matthew’s readership, on the other hand, is one of the Jewish groups that has survived the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem in 70 CE. In both cases, critical times became moments for listening to God and intently seeking God’s vision. Crisis calls for a re-vision, hearing and seeing anew. As a black African woman of Botswana - a survivor of colonialism, neo-colonialism and globalization - I live in the deep shadow of death. To live with the intensification of poverty in African countries, to live with wars and coups, to live with conuption and exploitation, to watch helplessly as AIDS slowly eats away the life of beloved friends, neighbours and relatives is to live where death and life have become identical twins. The fact that the highest concentration of AIDS is in Africa is of 443 zyxwvu zyxwvuts zyxwvut zyxwv zyxwvutsrqpo THEEcuMENIcALREvlEw course related to the economic realities of the continent. At the same time, AIDS exacerbates the economic crisis since many of those who are not too sick to work must devote scarce resources to the dying. Similarly, the constant wars and coups are related to poverty: people adopt a strategy of the survival of the fittest in the face of insufficient resources. While the economic crises of African countries are both nationally and internationally rooted, African crises are at the end of the day an international crisis. This context of death and living challenges me to reflect on what it means to profess Christian faith and to pray the Lord’s Prayer in a global economic era. What is God’s vision for God’s creation? What are the roles of Christian men and women, individually and corporately, in bringing God’s kingdom on earth? b) THEVISION OF THE LORD’SPRAYER 1 . Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. The first line of the Lord’s Prayer presents the heavens as the realm of patriarchal power. God is called “Father”. Such language hardly proposes a liberating vision for women who have suffered various forms of gender exclusion and subordination. Fortunately, many Christian and non-Christian readers, communities and institutions agree that God is neither father nor mother. The use of the word “father” only reflects a particular culture and time as well as the limitation of human language in representing God. Massive gender research, however, has shown that the metaphorical use of male language to represent realms of power does in fact reinforce the exclusion and subordination of women in society. The opening of the Lord’s Prayer can therefore be read as “Our parent in heaven, hallowed be your name” without losing its meaning. By designating God as a parent, the Lord’s Prayer confronts us with the image of a family. And family for the most part means unity, love, relationships, care and staying together. Christians, nations, races, women and men of different colours, sizes and shapes in different countries and continents - all are “children” of the same parent. If all those who recite the Lord’s Prayer were to grasp this truth, how would they live with a globalization that strips one member of the family naked so that another might be overdressed? The text distinguishes God’s residence in the heavens from the earth, where all God’s children live. Yet God is implored to hallow or sanctify God’s own name “here and now in history”.” A good deal has been said about the heavens. In Christian songs and mythology, heaven is a realm of absolute peace, equity and self-sufficiency. In heaven, so we have heard and sung, there is no pain, no death, no hunger, no tear to strain the eye. In heaven, so we have seen in the imagination of artists, there will be no enmity. Lions and people will be friends. The economic motivation that moves a lion to grab and kill its nearest neighbour will no longer apply. Even men and women shall no longer be given into marriage (Matt. 22:23-33). If this is how Christian communities, nations and individuals imagine heaven, how can it be translated into an economic vision for the world? I shall return to this question below. The first part of the Lord’s Prayer consists of three petitions “concerning God let thy name be sanctified; let thy kingdom come; let thy will be done.”” The latter two in effect elaborate on how and where God’s name should be hallowed. zyxwv 444 zyxwvu zyxw zyx zyxwvutsrq zyxwv zyxw PRAYING THE LORD’S PRAYER IN A GLOBAL ECONOMIC ERA 2. Your kingdom come;your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. name is s d e d through the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth. all to “let the earth and its creatures be sacred unto the readers have elaborated on the meaning of “kingdom of God”, holding that it does not designate a particular geographical place, but refers to the reign of God. Recently, George Tinker has offered a Native American spatial reading of “kingdom of God” as a “creation metaphor” which acknowledges “the goodness and inherent worth of all God’s creatures”.” The Lord’s Prayer enjoins Christian communities and nations to embrace the rule of God in order for God’s will to be established on earth, God’s creation. God’s name will be hallowed if God’s rule and will are established on em-th us It is in heaven. It is difficult to define the rule of God in modem political terms such as “democracy’’, “socialism”, “liberalism” or “conservatism”; nevertheless, as we have seen, Christian communities have constructed elaborate images of heaven as a place of peace, self-sufficiency and equity. This ideal picture is a perception, a construction and image of God’s rule in heaven. And since it insists that “what passes for heaven ‘up there’ can be effected ‘down here”’, the perception of God’s rule must be effected on the geographical spaces of the earth.“ God’s abode, in other words, might be in the heavens and God’s children may dwell here on earth, but the nile of God must apply equally on both sides. The sacredness of the earth must be recognized by hallowing God’s name. In this respect, the vision of the Lord’s Prayer is definitely a challenge to Christian communities, nations and institutions that have become at home with the mechanisms and ethics of imperialism, colonialism and globalization. It has been observed that these three petitions seem to enjoin God to bring to realization the sanctification of God’s name, God’s kingdom and God’s will. God is to meet God’s own needs! This, however, does not exempt Christians from responsibility for these issues. On the contrary, they are to be active participants, who pledge their commitment to the sanctification of God’s name through the establishment of God’s rule on earth as it is in heaven. This is underlined by the separated abode of God and God’s children: while God lives in the heavens, the children live on earth. To pray the Lord’s Prayer is therefore to pledge responsibility for being active partners in building the kingdom of God on earth, for building healthy interpersonal and international relationships on earth. Praying the Lord’s Prayer in the present age of globalization means heeding the call to “turn to God and rejoice in hope” - hope because if Christians understand themselves as God’s children and partners then they can be committed to bringing God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven: they can be dedicated to maintaining God’s creation sacred. Keeping the earth sacred would be seen to be incompatible with exploitative global economic systems or living with corrupt and exploitative govemment policies. Indeed, as Tinker says, Christians would come to “experience evil or sin as a disruption in that delicate balance, which negates the intrinsic worth of any of our relatives”.” Taking account of the implications of the Lord’s Prayer most certainly necessitates a new understanding of the Christian mission - a point I shall elaborate upon in my concluding remarks. Whereas the first three petitions concern the will of God, the last three have to do with the material and non-material needs of people and thus with the interpersonal relationships of God’s children on earth. God’s zyxwvut zyxwvutsrqpo zyxwv 445 zyxwvutsr zyxwvutsrq THE ECUMENICAL REVIEW 3. Give us this day our daily bread Bread or food is an indispensable need in our lives. Every day, men and women everywhere wake up and work to ensure that there will be food in their houses. Nations around the globe formulate and reformulate economic strategies to ensure that their people stay supplied and well fed. The Lord’s Prayer certainly underlines the place of bread by making it the object of the first “human” request. To an average 20th-century worker it may sound funny that people work just to eat. With refrigerators, storerooms and supermarkets full of food, it may seem unnecessary to pray for “daily bread”. Many workers save to buy or build a house, to buy a car, electronic goods, clothes, health insurance, shares or bonds for retirement, or meet the needs of their family members. Some work because they are interested or like their jobs. Nevertheless, praying for daily bread captures the centrality of food in our lives. People need food daily, and many are still without their daily bread or any assurance of its availability. To pray for daily bread is thus a simple but clear reminder to all Christians that it is God’s will that there be food for all but that food is not readily available to all on a daily basis. Praying for daily bread confronts those with refrigerators, storerooms and supermarkets stuffed with food with a question: Why do I not feel the urgency to pray for daily bread while some homeless, some jobless and even some hard-working persons have nothing to put on their plates and that of their children? The Lord’s Prayer gives Christian communities and institutions the task of being responsible sons and daughters of God who need to remember those members of the family who do not have any daily bread, but who cannot go on without it. It challenges all who eat, store or throw away food to be producers and givers of daily bread. I am not referring here to the institution of charity, which, while useful, tends to work together with the oppressive structures of the world. I believe that being partners with God in supplying, producing or giving daily bread to the rest of God’s family, the whole of God’s creation, entails creating economic environments that enable all to work fairly for their bread. Economic contexts, whether global or local, which deny people the possibility of being partners with God in seeking to meet their needs must be challenged and remoulded. Christian communities and their institutions should be active ambassadors of God’s reign, constantly scrutinizing local, national and international policies and structures to assess whether they allow God’s rule to be realized on earth as in heaven. To pray for daily bread in the age of globalization should therefore also be a call to repentance. Uttering this line should challenge Christians who have become too comfortable with national and international economic structures which pump excess food to some areas and deprive many millions to realize that their contexts are inconsistent with God’s will for the world. It challenges Christian communities that live with poverty and death to realize that God’s rule and will are not being realized in their parts of the world. That is, Christian communities in both extremely rich and extremely poor contexts are challenged to assess economic structures that bless some and curse many as well as to promote international and national systems that will enable peace and self-sufficiency to all. zyxw zyxwvu 4 . And forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors! Forgiveness is a difficult, costly and demanding discipline. It may be mastered by some rare saints like Nelson Mandela, but we all need it. In the context of Matthew’s 446 zyxwvu zyxwvu zyxw PRAYING THE LORD’S PRAYER IN A GLOBAL ECONOMlC ERA gospel, the Roman colonial empire, the average Jewish person owed debts. There were the imperial tax and temple tax to be paid (Matt. 22:15-22 and 17:24-27). Besides, many lived on crowded, insufficient and infertile lands, leading to unemployment and outstanding debts to be met (Matt. 18:23-35).’*Those who prayed the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew’s context, like many other colonized Jews of their time, knew what it meant to fail to pay taxes and how it felt to borrow money from some rich landlord and fail to repay it. Some may have been imprisoned for their debts (Matt. 5:25-26; 18123-35). Praying for the forgiveness of debts in the Matthean context was therefore not a spiritual utterance that had nothing to do with the economic structures of the day. Rather, it was a direct comment on the economic structures of Palestine in the time of the Roman Empire. The Lord’s Prayer was suggesting that unmet taxes and unpaid loans must be let go. The suggestion is not synonymous with the deliberate evasion of taxes or paying of loans. Rather, it is a challenge to systemic structures that lock many responsible hard-working individuals and nations into a vicious circle of poverty and debts. The vision of the Lord’s Prayer indicates that imposing impossible debts on people through oppressive and exploitative international or national policies is inconsistent with the rule and will of God in heaven or on earth. It does not resonate with the role of hallowing God’s name on earth. Yet forgiveness is a two-way exercise. Not only do the worshippers ask for forgiveness, they also have to forgive those who owe them. Who were the debtors among the colonized and exploited Jews of the Matthean context‘? It is quite possible that so many people owed so much in tax that almost everyone had lent money to a struggling neighbour who could not repay it. Many had turned to day-to-day work to raise funds. Many operated as absentees (Matt. 5:23-25; 18:23-35; 20: 1-19, 2233-41). Another viable answer points to both the imperial system of Rome and the collaborating local Jewish leadership. Many knew that the imperial government - and to some extent their local collaborators - in fact owed them their land, their money and their autonomy. They knew that they were unjustly exploited.” I believe they were angry and bitter, but they took it upon themselves to forgive - to dispense with anger and bitterness and to seek peace and affirmative international trade systems. Through asking for forgiveness and through giving forgiveness, there is thus a call for repentance: the turning away from oppressive and exploitative economic and political policies to seeking God’s will for the whole creation. To pray the Lord’s Payer for the forgiveness of debts as one has forgiven debtors is thus to call for economic restructuring - a restructuring that frees the oppressed from exploitative systems and calls those in positions of power to abandon their unjust economic strategies. This demands a restructuring that is not dictated from above but articulated from below by those who seek justice. The exploiters in this case are forgiven. not so that they may continue in their practices in good conscience but precisely as a statement against their exploitative systems. To forgive your debtors in this sense is t o say, “I know what you are doing to me and how you are doing it. It is unjust, I am angry and I want this to end and for all of us to seek a better way to relate.” To forgive your debtors, those in power, is not to let them continue to dictate or formulate the terms of international relations. Praying the Lord’s Prayer is thus a demanding call on Christian communities, nations, institutions and individuals to become actively involved in the fonnulation and implementation of a just rule, a godly 447 zyxwvuts zyxwv zyxw THEECUMENICALREVIEW rule - to be responsible partners with God in building God’s kingdom on earth. To pray the Lord’s Prayer is to be dedicated to hallowing God’s name on earth. Obviously the issue of forgiving debts is not remote from us. It is a reality that many two-thirds world countries are groaning under debts. Some owe more than they produce as a whole nation, yet the loans they received have hardly improved their lives. Indeed, most of these countries are in a worse situation of colonization than they were in the pre-independence era. As Sharon Ringe points out, The loans ostensibly were to support projects of economic development leading to greater economic stability... In fact, however, the interest payments alone... continue to wreak havoc on their economies, sending inflation rates soaring, provoking ever higher unemployment, and widening the gap between the very small wealthy class and the destitute masses.’H It is said that lending money to African countries is like throwing it into a bottomless pit. The fact of the matter is that countries with such huge debts have painfully lost not only their money and land, but also their pride and autonomy. They experience themselves as owned and at the mercy of their benefactors. Their people are also angry with their local governments, who misuse funds, and with the international monetary bodies who give loans at interest rates which ensure that it will be impossible completely to repay them or to sustain a healthy economy. These countries do not deny that they have debts and that they are unable to pay them. They ask for forgiveness, for they know they have had to forgive the so-called developed countries who for more than a century have colonized them, exploited their resources and designed international markets for their own benefit. It is unproductive, however, to point fingers and hold grudges. The Lord’s Prayer offers an alternative model: forgiveness. Christian communities, nations, institutions must clear the tangles of yesterday’s and today’s exploitative structures and work to build a space of equity, justice, peace and self-sufficiency. Those who pray the Lord’s Prayer must become active partners in building God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. They must become deliberate, self-conscious partners dedicated to hallowing God’s name by hallowing God’s creation. zyxw zyxwvut zyxwvutsr zyxwvuts 5. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This is a humbling utterance. All are vulnerable to temptation and evil. Jesus teaches this prayer to his disciples, those who should be among the best of his followers. Similarly, Christian communities, nations, institutions and individuals know God’s will for the earth, yet they have fallen into temptation and evil of living with the ethics of globalization. To be sure, we have heard many voices in the wilderness, but by and large we have not taken vigilant positions against national and international government corruption, misuse of funds, unfair international economic policies and the exploitation of the powerless. Millions who pray the Lord’s Prayer have thus neglected their pledge and their responsibilities. Instead, they make themselves at home in exploitative economic structures and benefit from them while billions suffer. God’s daughters and sons have ignored the will of their Parent and have become partners with or silent supporters of exploitative ethics of international markets and corrupt local governments. This is to fall into temptation, to be led into evil; hence the need for deliverance. 448 zyxw PRAYING THE LORD’SPRAYER IN A GLOBAL ECONOMlC ERA zyxwvuts Deliverance, however, implies a willingness to take a position as partner with God, for God, for ourselves and for one another. We will be delivered when we repent from our complacency about oppressive national and international structures, when we seek to build God’s kingdom on earth by hallowing God’s creation at large. A new mission At the turn of this century Western Christian churches, societies and academics embarked on a mission to Christianize and civilize the non-Western world, perceiving it as lost in sin and barbarism and in need of salvation. To bring Christ and civilization to these nations, the Christian church worked hand in glove with the imperialist and colonialist movements of their nations and continents. It was such currents that brought most of the two-thirds world in contact with the Christian faith. This unfortunate history of the Christian church cannot be erased, but it need not be repeated. It is now the end of the century. International Christian mission is far from over, but it should not be defined by certain so-called developed nations alone. It is now the business of both worlds to speak to and with each other as to what the Christian mission should entail and what Christian salvation means. As a two-thirds world African woman of Botswana, I would insist that the contemporary Christian mission must concern itself with all issues that hinder the realization of God’s kingdom on earth. It must focus on all that desacralizes life on earth. It must rally against all structural forces and institutions that militate against peace, equity and the self-sufficiency of individuals and nations of every culture. The Christian mission must identify sin as those forces that hinder the blossoming of God’s creation as a whole. Christian salvation can no longer concern itself with the denunciation of God’s diverse cultures of the world. Rather, Christian salvation must be regarded as creating environments in which the whole of God’s creation is given a chance for its maximum fulfilment. If the Christian mission is grasped thus, the way it is carried out will indeed be different. In the past it was common for the Western Christian world to send off Christian disciples to “exotic and dangerous” places. In sending off to other nations, the contemporary Christian mission has focused on the mission and vision of the disciples of Jesus, a vision of the earliest church. In so doing, the Christian mission has hardly embraced the mission undertaken by Jesus himself with the seriousness it deserves. The mission of Jesus never saw him travel across boundaries to other nations. Instead, he travelled within the boundaries of his own nation. His mission brought him face to face with the elites and leaders of his country as he critically told them that they were oppressing God’s people (Matt. 12: 1-8; 23:23); as he proclaimed that God’s kingdom is at hand, already among us, and that God demands justice and mercy and faith. This was a difficult and dangerous mission, for prophets receive no honour in their own homes. That his was a dangerous mission is made evident by the fact that he was soon crucified. This mission, which the Christian church has neglected, needs to be recaptured for our global economic age. In the context of globalization, the Christian mission must therefore concern itself with such issues as identifying the faces behind the giant multi-national companies and monetary bodies that are colonizing God’s creation again. It must make it its business to familiarize itself with their policies and their impact as well as to seek deliberate ways of resisting, organizing itself to counteract national and international economic policies that hinder the freedom of God’s creation in the world. To put it in 449 terms of the film we mentioned earlier, the contemporary Christian mission should no longer focus on searching out the Basarwa (the so-called Bushmen) in the remote Kgalagori desert but concern itself with companies like Coca-Cola, whose bottles enter such societies and steal away their peace. The mission, now more than ever, needs to be directed not to the so-called “exotic and dangerous” places, but to the impersonal metropolitan centres where corrupt and exploitative governments reside. This reading, as I said, is not offered as the “only”, “original” or “correct” interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer, but as an invitation to Christian communities to assume active responsibility against all that hinders the daughters and sons of God around the world from coming to the full realization of abundant life. For Christian communities, nations, institutions and individuals to pray and ask for deliverance from evil in this global age entails repentance accompanied by action, a willingness to hear the Lord’s Prayer and to recapture the implications of praying it. To say “your kingdom come”, to say “your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”, is to become responsible partners, guardians of justice, active daughters and sons in the establishment of God’s rule in the world. zyx NOTES zyxwvutsrq zyxwv zyxwvuts zyxwvuts zyxwvuts Osayande Obery Hendricks. “Guerrilla Exegesis: A Post-Modem Proposal for Insurgent AfricanAmerican Biblical Interpretation”, Koinonia, vol. 7, no. 1, 1995. p.6. See John Pamatt, “Setting the Agenda for Christian Involvement in Development:A Summary of Papers”, in 1. Phiri, K.Ross and J. Cox, eds, The Role of Christianity in Development, Peace and Reconstruction. Nairobi, AACC, 1996, p.286. For other uses or definitions of globalization, see Christopher Lind, Something Is Wrong Somewhere: Globalization, Community and the Moral Economy of the Farm Crisis, Halifax, Frenwood, 1995, pp.3036. Ngungi wa Thiongo, Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms, London, James Curry, 1993, pp.12-13. Ali Mazrui, Cultural Forces in World Politics, London, James Curry, 1990, p. 119. Ibid., p. I 19. Lind, op. cif.,p.27. Ibid. Ibid, p.3 I . I” Robert J. Carbaugh, International Economics, Cincinnati, South-Westem Publ. Co., 1995. p.2. ‘ I Luz Ulrich, Matthew 1-7: A Continental Commentary, Minneapolis, Fortess, 1989, p.378. I’ David Garland, Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the First Gospel, New York, Crossroad, 1993, p.80. l 3 George Tinker, “Reading the Bible as Native Americans”, in The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, Nashville, Abingdon, 1994, p. 176. l4 Andrew 1. Overman, Church and Communiry: The Gospel According to Matthew, Valley Forge, PA, Trinity, 1996, p.93. Is Tinker, op. cit., p.176. l6 See Richard Horsely. Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in the Roman Palesfine,Minneapolis, Fortress, 1993, pp. 11-38.254-55, for a detailed explication of the colonial context that brewed debts and economic desperation in 1st-century Palestine. I’ Ibid., pp.33-58. I” Sharon Ringe, “Solidarity and Contextuality: Readings of Matthew 18:21-35”. in Fernando F. Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert. eds. Reading from This Place. Volume I : Sociul Location and Biblical lnterpretution in the United Stares, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1995, p.209. I ’ ’ ‘ ’ ‘ 450