Last week, the Reverend Dr. Sam Wells used the BBC “Daily Service” program for a fourteen-minute meditation on the Lord’s Prayer. It is wonderful, and for the next three weeks you can listen to it here.  Dr. Wells contemplates why the Lord’s prayer is, and remains, central to our worship. You really should listen to it. He breaks the Prayer up into six mini-prayers, plus opening and ending doxologies. If you can’t listen now, here’s a summary:

• The opening “Our father, who art in heaven” acknowledges that there is a being in another, more real realm than the physical world around us, but who relates to all of us as a loving parent, wanting only what is best for us. Note the emphasis on us implied in our father. God relates to all of us, not just me.
• “Hallowed be thy name:” Some things are holy, different from, indeed more permanent than anything in our own lives, and therefore of infinitely more value. Therefore, everything in our lives is valued as how it relates to God, which should change everything for us.
• “Thy kingdom come:” We express longing for a world of justice, mercy, kindness and healing, but we also acknowledge that we can’t bring it about on our own. It won’t happen if we are in charge. Our kingdom must dissolve if God’s kingdom is to come. We pray to make the world in God’s image.
• Thy will be done…” This, Dr. Wells says, is the hardest of the six prayers sincerely to pray. The only thing worse than not knowing God’s will for your life is knowing it, because then we have no excuse not to follow. “He must increase, but I must decrease,” says John the Baptist. We pray here for humility to live in God’s story, not our own.
• “Give us this day our daily bread.” Here we turn from what God wants from us, to what we want from God. This is a prayer for the present, a prayer that God provide for us and that God be enough for us. Note, it is a prayer that God provide for us, not me.
• “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us:” This is a prayer for our past, a prayer for healing, not just that I be relieved of the damage done to me by others, but that others be healed of the damage done to them by me. It is also a prayer for freedom: freedom from bitterness and freedom from guilt, both preventing us from living freely in the present.
• “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” This is a prayer for the future, that we be delivered from fear: fear that temptation, that we think we can control but can’t, will beset us, and fear that evil, which we know we can’t overcome on our own, will overcome us.
• “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory:” The ending doxology returns to where the Lord’s Prayer started: The story is about God, not us. Our attempts to find real power is futile. There is difference between limited and forever. God’s kingdom is forever. Our prayer is that we be allowed to surrender our own dreams of power and glory and accept residence in God’s kingdom.

Nothing in what Dr. Wells says suggests a remotely political message. Yet, listening to it as we enter convention season, with a sprint to Election Day following hard behind, it seems to me that we could do far worse that take what he says and judge our presidential candidates by them. Which candidate is more likely to express a sense of humility, and acknowledge a power greater than him? Which one is more likely to cast a vision of society based on justice and mercy and healing? Which one envisions a better country for all of us, regardless of color or creed? For that matter, which one talks about us more and me less? Which candidate is more willing to admit past mistakes? Or wants to relieve us from fear, rather than use fear as a weapon? The President says that “Christianity will have power,” a statement that, among many other things, is very confused theologically about the source of power. I suggest that making a voting decision along the lines suggested by Dr. Wells is a much better way to show the power of the Gospel.