One of the beautiful things about the Lord’s prayer, as one early church father points out, is that it can be prayed by anyone at any time in any circumstance.

It’s a prayer for the poor and the wealthy. For the sick and the healthy. For the slave and the free. For the young and the old. For the spiritually immature and the spiritually mature.

In other words: you never outgrow it. The Lord’s Prayer is shallow enough for a toddler to wade in, to play and splash around in without fear of drowning. But it is also deep enough that a deep-sea diver could never reach the bottom.

The second century church father Origen points out that Paul often writes about the gospel in reference to food. Sometimes Paul is upset with a congregation because he wants to be feeding them meat but they are still only capable of drinking milk. In Romans Paul says that the mature Christian eats meat, but the weak one is only prepared for vegetables.

Origen’s point is that the Lord’s Prayer works on all three levels of spiritual maturity: Milk for the child, vegetables for the sick, and meat for the athlete.

The true mark of spiritual maturity can be seen in Paul’s exhortation to “pray without ceasing.” This is the most spiritually mature step of all when it comes to prayer. The only way to pray without ceasing is for your whole life to become one integrated prayer.

As Origen puts it: “The person who prays ‘ceaselessly’ is the one who integrates prayer with good works and noble actions with prayer.”

We closed by taking a new (more ancient!) look at the story of Mary and Martha. Is Mary the more mature one or is Martha? Or has Martha learned to pray as she serves?

Further resources:

* I relied heavily on Wesley Hill’s wonderful little book, The Lord’s Prayer.

* To read a few of the early church father’s on prayer check out this little gem: Tertullian, Cyprian, and Origen On The Lord’s Prayer.

* For a more in depth reading of the Mary and Martha story, listen to this sermon from Chris Green.

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