Holy One, our Mother and Father
Let your name be revered.
Let your kin-dom come,
Let your will be done on earth as it is in the heavens.
Give us today the bread we need for today.
And forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial,
And deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kin-dom, the power, and the glory
Now and forever.
Amen.
This version is written to be gender inclusive. I sometimes use the first line, “Baba, our Holy One.” Baba means “Father” in some African and Middle-Eastern languages and “Grandmother” in some Eastern European languages. Jesus sometimes used the semitic word Abba, to which it is etymologically related.
“Kin-dom” language is borrowed from Ada María Isasi-Díaz, who borrowed it from Georgene Wilson.
“Heavens” is a better translation of the Greek word, in my opinion, and it does not have the afterlife connotations that it has in modern English. The vision is for a just and peaceful God-ordered planet, the way God has ordered the movement of the stars in the heavens.
“Bread we need for today” is a reference to the story of manna in the Hebrew Bible, which is a lesson about greed, security, trust, and sharing.
I believe the implicit lesson on forgiveness is not that God’s mercy is contingent on our mercy, but that forgiveness is a form of reciprocal grace. It is not “forgive us inasmuch as we forgive others,” but “as/while we are forgiving, forgive us.” See Matthew 18:21-35, Matthew 5:21-26, Matthew 6:14-15.
As the Pope has said, God does not ever “lead us into temptation.” God is not a tempter.
The doxology added to the end of the prayer is a Protestant tradition, but its first appearance is the in Didache, an early church document from the second century.
Dave Barnhart 