Shattering the Memory Verse ...

When I was still a very young child, my church thought it prudent to teach me what they called a “memory verse”.  In practice it was nothing more than a verse or two from the Bible from various authors, or stories, or words of Jesus etc.  Each week I was taught a new one, until at the end of a quarter, I would attempt to recite all 13 of them to test my memory, to my mom’s great delight.  Because our church believes so strongly that the Bible is the sole word of God, helping me learn it piece by piece was thought to be an integral part of my education, and perhaps more important than anything else they could do for me in that regard.  It turns out, my mother did me one better (perhaps quite by accident).  My mother taught me to read from the Bible.  From the King James Version, which as you may have noticed remains my favorite version to this day.  Reading from scripture is not supposed to be “easy” for folks at any age, there is a lot in it that perplexes even the most advanced minds of our age.  So you would not figure the mind of a young child to grasp anything they read.  Just getting the pronunciations right is challenging enough, let alone the deeper meanings contained within those memory verses strung together in a wider context to tell a full story (instead of just a partial point here and there).  But the reading of scripture with an open mind is not limited to the number in your IQ, or any objective assessment of your intellect, or vocabulary.  It is revealed to you by the Holy Spirit as you trust in Jesus Christ.  That experience, that education, is priceless – and can never be taken away.

Yet the concept of memory verses remains in my church; and remains a big part of how we teach our kids the Word from week to week.  I won’t debate the merits of memorizing the Bible, perhaps memorization is good for us in this way.  But the repetition of words in a particular order is not as valuable as understanding the content and context of those same words.  For example, we recite the pledge of allegiance in our country, pledging ourselves to the flag, and the republic for which it stands.  I wonder if any of us ever take the time to ponder that pledge we make as adults, and were compelled to make as children.  Our flag, and our republic, and the lines we draw on a map to segregate our nation from all other nations is about our way of life, our choice of how we wish to be governed.  It is not meant to be an invisible wall between ourselves and other peoples of the world.  We are not supposed to be cutting ourselves off from humanity.  Only stating that our belief in self-government, in representative government is something we hold dear, and as compared with other methods, we would wish never to lose how we do it.  There is always room for improvement.  But it was never supposed to be a point of pride in ourselves that would enable us to look down on others, because they have been unable to equal our evolution in matters of social justice.  But then, do these thoughts even enter the mind as we recite the pledge of allegiance, or do we just think “ra ra America” now lets get this sporting event started already.

It can be the same in scripture, we learn the words in a memory verse, but have no concept of what they really mean, or why we should care about them.  We lose the context, we lose the wider story or the point the author was trying to convey – and all we have left is words we remember, with no reason for remembering them, than that they were drilled into our heads until we did.  It might better for us all if we dug back into the Word and read the chapters surrounding those memory verses we learned as children.  Maybe then we could pick up the wider points Jesus is longing to open our minds to.  A memory verse set in its native context is worth so much more than just a series of words set in a particular order that we know, but don’t know why we know them.  When we recite verses over and over in unison they tend to become tradition.  Those traditions become harder and harder to break over time.  There is perhaps no better example of this than the Lord’s Prayer.  How many churches have congregational readings or recitations of the Lord’s Prayer?  The words make us feel better.  But is that all?  Perhaps it is time to shatter the memory verse and embrace the core love that drives them in the first place.  Luke was perhaps our pioneer in that regard.

In chapter eleven of his gospel letter to his friend Theophilus, Luke relays the story of the Lord’s Prayer, albeit not exactly like all the other versions of this prayer.  Luke was obviously more focused on what those words meant, than on their exact reenactment.  He begins in verse 1 saying … “And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”  So let’s talk about prayer in general for a minute.  How often are your prayers a ditto copy of each other?  At meals you offer a blessing.  But it does not take long for that blessing over the food to degenerate into the same words spoken in the same order, even the same tone, from one prayer of blessing to the next.  Can you imagine how that reads for our God in heaven to see us say the same things, the same way, even in the same tone of voice, because we have some trigger such as mealtime?  But it’s not just meals.  It’s everything.  Someone gets sick, we say the same things for them.  Someone needs a job, we pray the same prayer.  We start developing habits for how we pray.  And our habits are nothing new.

In the times of Christ, prayer even then was often habitual.  The leaders of the temple taught the people what to say, and how to say it.  Few people could read.  So they needed help on what to say.  They thought they needed some kind of magic formula of wording in order for it work.  The disciples of John wanted something more, something new.  So they asked John how they should pray.  You can bet “repentance” would have been a big part of that.  But John was not from the Temple.  He knew the scriptures and was the son of a priest, but not a priest himself.  Instead he was moved by the Holy Spirit, and the people saw the Spirit in his words and his sermons.  He had a fire in him.  Others could see it.  It was hard to avoid.  So asking John how to pray was getting a completely different take on what to say.  In this case, it was Jesus they would ask about what to say in prayer.  The danger there is that whatever Jesus says, we begin repeating that, over and over, until it becomes an empty pledge we think no more about.  Luke did not want that to happen.

He continues in verse 2 saying … “And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.”  Our God is in heaven, and His name is sacred (even though we don’t know what that name is).  For our purposes it might have been better to ask Jesus the follow-up question “what is God’s name? which one should we hallow?”.  Our God’s kingdom is coming.  The first one in the person of Jesus Christ already here.  And the second one in the city of heaven and final redemption of all the saved of Jesus Christ.  We wish both should come.  We should wish the will of God to be done.  When the will of God is done, it is everyone who benefits.  Following that will should become our number, that is the one driving motivation of our life.  Straying from it looks a lot like the story of Jonah.  We run, and we wind up in ugly places, most we put ourselves in, because we stray in the first place. 

But Luke begins his alteration right then.  “As in heaven” … “So in earth”.  These are not the exact words of the other versions of the Lord’s prayer.  They are different, similar, but different.  Why?  Luke does not want rote memorization, but he does want to convey the thought, and the love that drives it.  If we allow our prayers to degenerate into nothing more than habits we repeat, we lose the meaning behind the words.  Luke wants us to “want” to see the will of God done here in earth, as much as the angels of heaven “want” to see the will of God done in his other kingdom.  We are too obsessed with our own “will”.  We want to do, what we want to do.  What God wants is sometimes an afterthought, or worse never even considered at all.  We seldom ask.  So we seldom know.  That is something Luke wants us to reconsider, and change.  He words this differently so we cannot just get caught up in rote memorization, but instead are forced to consider the concept of what is being said and begin to really embrace it.

Luke continues in verse 3 saying … “Give us day by day our daily bread.”  Luke does it again.  This passage is worded just slightly different than the others.  Is that accident?  I think not.  Instead of “this” day, Luke expands the request to “day by day”.  The point is the same.  But the words are different in order to teach us to think about what we say.  We rely upon God for that food we sometimes thank Him for.  And we are not supposed to worry about what we will be eating tomorrow, until tomorrow.  We need not fear for the future, only to look to God as our needs arise.  Even such a fundamental need as eating.  Your prayers of thanks might become a lot more sincere if you missed more than a few meals (especially in a row).  But that is what Luke is trying to get us to think about.  God meets our needs everyday, including today.  And today is all we need to look to God for.  Luke wants us to think about more than the words but what they say, what they mean, and why we should really care.

Luke continues in verse 4 saying … “And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.”  Luke ends the prayer early here.  He ends it focused on the ideas of forgiveness, but also of reform.  These are the core blessings of salvation.  They are the most important ideas we need to consider, and reconsider, learn, and relearn, in practice every day.  We forgive those who wrong us.  Not because God’s forgiveness is conditional.  But because our forgiveness us frees us to love, our forgiveness frees us to heal.  When we do not forgive, we cause our own lives to be bitter without need.  Forgiveness of others wrongdoing is a gift … to us.  But to forgive is never enough for the true follower of Jesus Christ.  Forgiveness is only the beginning.  What comes next, what comes after forgiveness is reform, it is re-creation of who we are.  It is the change in our behavior where we no longer do the things that wrong others and wrong our God.  That is where we want our God to lead us.  To lead us to no longer desire what is wrong in our lives.  For Luke this is the most important thing.  He words it slightly differently, and omits the power and glory of God, as Luke finds that in the forgiveness and reform our God offers.

I believe it is time to shatter the memory verse, and rote recitations, and embrace the ideas behind our verses and the love that should be driving them; and driving what we do in our lives every day.  When I talk to God, I talk about what needs I see, not in my life, but in the lives of those I see.  It helps me try to keep the focus off of me, and on those who need God more, and have greater need.  It begins to change my thinking from just need identification, to need fulfillment (i.e. what can I do for you, that could help meet your need).  When I thank God I try to thank Him for that something unique that presents itself.  I find myself thanking God so often for giving me more than just my daily bread, but for my daily pizza and meals with wonderful trimmings, so much more than just the bare necessities, but for something truly spectacular.  God makes a habit out of spoiling me with His love.  I will never be able to thank Him like He deserves.  So perhaps it is better to try to channel my thanks in the form of actions others can benefit from.  Maybe to truly thank God for my meal, I should be sharing my food with someone else.  His love is matchless.  Let’s try and emulate that, and use the memory verses we know, in the practice of showing love to each other.  Let us not depend on failing memories of what we once knew, but instead let us depend on His love reflected through us to others, and thus begin to see the broader Word in action.  It is in this giving of ourselves to others, that we just may see the “will of God” done in earth, as in heaven.