A Prayer For Liberation
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A Prayer For Liberation
Herb Montgomery | July 25, 2025
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
“Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.”
Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.
“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:1-13)
Our passage this week is Luke’s version of what many Christians call the Lord’s Prayer. It begins by referring to God as “Father.”
I believe that this version of the Lord’s prayer isn’t defining God’s gender as much as it defines the role Luke’s community believed God played in the affairs of the world. They understood God through the paradigm of their own world view at that time. Many of us today have come to understand that it is problematic to only allow the male gender to be represented in the Divine. In keeping with the parental nature of “father” today, prayers like the one Jesus prayed could just as accurately in our culture be addressed to “Mother/Father” God. In that time, a householder or a parental provider made sure everyone in the family had what they needed to thrive. Today, in our world that role could be a mother, a father, both, or more, depending on the nature of the family one belongs to.
The first request in Jesus’ prayer is for the coming of the reign of God or God’s “Kingdom.” For the people for whom this prayer was written, the reign of God simply meant a world where God’s desire for justice, compassion, and safety for all would be made manifest. In this world, here and now, all violence, injustice, and oppression would be put right. It would be a world rich with diversity, yet marked by ethics we today name as equity and inclusion. Then, the immediate context was Roman oppression of the people praying this prayer. Today, injustice takes many forms, and this prayer addresses them all.
This is evident in the next request, for our daily bread. This isn’t a prayer for the assurance of an afterlife or a ticket into a heavenly realm. Nor is it for private piety or holiness. This is a prayer for the basic needs of our material, concrete, well-being—our daily bread. Simply put, it is a prayer for enough to eat each day. It is a prayer for all to have what they need, not simply to survive, but to thrive. This is not a request for an inward, private spiritual experience, nor for post mortem security. It’s a prayer for the needs we have right now, here, in our physical world. At the heart of all of Jesus’ teachings in the gospels is that the material needs of people are holy.
And this leads us to the next request in Luke’s version which is for the forgiveness of sins, which had a longer history in the forgiveness of literal debt. This portion of the prayer is rooted in the Hebrew idea of a jubilee. First, let’s consider how debt was originally to be handled in the Torah:
“‘If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you. Do not take interest or any profit from them, but fear your God, so that they may continue to live among you. You must not lend them money at interest or sell them food at a profit. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.” (Leviticus 25:35-38)
So, if a fellow Israelite fell on hard times, they were to be helped. No interest or profit was to be made off of their plight. This theme continued in Deuteronomy:
“You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a fellow Israelite, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess.” (Deuteronomy 23:20)
Yet the instruction for how to help a fellow Israelite did not end with prohibiting interest or profit. It went even further to require eventual and complete debt cancellation. If the debt could not be paid off interest-free in seven years, not only was there to be no profit to the lender, they would now take a loss:
“At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the LORD’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you.” (Deuteronomy 15:1-3)
A version of the Lord’s Prayer also exists in Matthew’s gospel. Most scholars believe this version was written earlier than Luke. It reads:
“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12)
It is fascinating to me that the early forms of the Lord’s prayer were economic. It was less about forgiving general sins and trespasses and more about restoring the original Torah ethic of debt forgiveness. John Dominic Crossan writes on this point:
“Matthew works from ‘debts’ through ‘trespasses’ to ‘sins,’ but Luke gets there right away . . . ‘Debts’ was originally intended quite literally. Jesus meant that eternal peasant dyad of enough bread for today and no debt for tomorrow. Were it originally and clearly metaphorical—‘debts’ meaning ‘sins’—everyone would have understood that intention and the progression in terminology from “debts” to “trespasses” to “sins” would not have been necessary. Another is that, from Mark through Matthew and into Luke, “debts” change to “trespasses” and then to “sins.” In its present format, therefore, it seems advisable to read Matthew’s text as including both debt and sin—not debt alone, not sin alone, and certainly not sin instead of debt, but both together. Indeed, the ultimate challenge may be to ponder their interaction. And, at least for the biblical tradition, when debt creates too much inequality, it has become sinful.” (John Dominic Crossan, The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer, p. 159-160.)
This was a prayer of liberation and economic justice for people living in poverty.
Lastly, our reading closes with a story about shameless persistence in prayer. I will be the first to admit that I don’t understand how prayer works. But it helps me in reading this passage to keep everything in its context. Luke’s audience was an oppressed people being encouraged to persevere in their prayers and actions for liberation. They were praying for the end of all injustice, oppression, and violence. They were praying for liberation from financial debt. They were praying that they would have enough food on their tables. They were praying and working for justice in this world, their world. And whether we would define ourselves as praying people or not, persisting in the work of justice even against what seem to be insurmountable odds, is an encouragement still needed today. Maybe the temptation we are to pray not to be led into is the temptation to give up hope or give in to despair. And if this is how we choose to read this prayer, this a prayer I can say “Amen” to.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What section of the Lord’s prayer speaks most to you this week? Share and discuss with your group
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
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My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
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You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking.
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Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Lectionary Readings in the context of Love, Inclusion, & Social Justice
Season 3, Episode 21: Luke 11.1-13. Lectionary C, Proper 12
Mary, Martha, and Gender Equality
Each week, we’ll discuss the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and justice. We hope that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that we’ll be inspired to do more than “just talking” during our brief conversations each week.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 2 Episode 30: A Prayer For Liberation
Luke 11:1-13
“Our reading closes with a story about shameless persistence in prayer. I will be the first to admit that I don’t understand how prayer works. But it helps me in reading this passage to keep everything in its context. Luke’s audience was an oppressed people being encouraged to persevere in their prayers and actions for liberation. They were praying for the end of all injustice, oppression, and violence. They were praying for liberation from financial debt. They were praying that they would have enough food on their tables. They were praying and working for justice in this world, their world. And whether we would define ourselves as praying people or not, persisting in the work of justice even against what seem to be insurmountable odds, is an encouragement still needed today. Maybe the temptation we are to pray not to be led into is the temptation to give up hope or give in to despair. And if this is how we choose to read this prayer, this a prayer I can say ‘Amen’ to.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/a-prayer-for-liberation
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
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Give Us Today Our Daily Bread
by Herb Montgomery | September 28, 2018
“‘When you start with an understanding that God loves everyone, justice isn’t very far behind.’ How many times have we witnessed traditional White Christianity emphasize religiousness, puritanical morality, and even the ‘love of God,’ but justice, justice for the oppressed, marginalized and exploited is neglected at best and at worst, obstructed? We have neglected the more important matters of the law! As Jesus prioritized people’s temporal needs, those temporal needs were also to be a priority for Jesus’ disciples.”
“Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:11-12)
Last week we began considering the prayer in Matthew’s gospel often referred to today as The Lord’s Prayer. This week we’re continuing with the portion, “Give us today our daily bread.”
In the previous verse, Jesus prays for the reign of God, the will of God, to be done here on earth as it is in heaven. But just what is that will? We must exercise caution and care whenever we presume to speak of the will of the Divine. Good can be done from these discussions for the marginalized and oppressed, and great harm can also be done to the most vulnerable among us. So let’s proceed this week with caution.
Let’s begin with a story found a little later in Matthew’s gospel: the feeding of the multitude.
“As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.’ Jesus replied, ‘They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’ ‘We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,’ they answered.” (Matthew 14:15-17)
What I want us to notice first about this story is that Jesus objected to the disciples sending the multitude away to meet their own concrete, physical needs. Too often, some Christians today promote the dualistic idea that a person’s temporal needs is categorically separate from their spiritual needs. Some faith communities therefore focus purely on the spiritual, believing that a person’s temporal needs are of lesser importance. 
This story strikes at the heart of this kind of dualistic thinking.
The disciples want to send the crowd away to find their temporal nourishment elsewhere. Jesus stops them and says, “They don’t need to go away. You feed them.”
This month, the book to read for RHM’s annual reading course is Gustavo Gutiérrez’ book A Theology of Liberation. It’s timely that we would also look at this passage in Matthew’s gospel this month, because Gutiérrez addresses this dualistic thinking too. While the temporal and spiritual are distinct, he writes, “there is a close relationship between temporal progress and the growth of the Kingdom” (p. 99).
The liberation we find in the gospels stories is an integral liberation. It’s not about mere post-mortem escape, or private retreat into isolated, personal piety. This liberation integrates all aspects of each person’s being, including the temporal! It embraces the whole person. This is especially relevant to the question of what Jesus’ teachings have to offer us today in the way of resistance, survival, liberation, reparation and transformation. Again, Gutiérrez states, “The struggle for a just world in which there is no oppression, servitude, or alienated work will signify the coming of the Kingdom. The Kingdom and social injustice are incompatible (cf. Isa. 29:18-19 and Matt. 11:5; Lev. 25:10ff. and Luke 4:16-21). ‘The struggle for justice,’ rightly asserts Dom Antonio Fragoso, ‘is also the struggle for the Kingdom of God.’” (Ibid, p. 97)
The struggle for a just society is very much a part of following Jesus. People’s temporal needs matter, and Jesus teaches a whole liberation that goes beyond the individual person to include transforming and replacing oppressive structures and exploitative social systems. Gutiérrez calls for an expanded view of Jesus’ liberation gospel: even politically liberating events in history can be seen as part of the growth of what Jesus referred to as “the Kingdom.” Every event that leads to humans becoming liberated to experience full humanness can be seen as a salvific event.
“Nothing escapes this process, nothing is outside the pale of the action of Christ and the gift of the Spirit. This gives human history its profound unity. Those who reduce the work of salvation are indeed those who limit it to the strictly ‘religious’ sphere and are not aware of the universality of the process. It is those who think that the work of Christ touches the social order in which we live only indirectly or tangentially, and not in its roots and basic structure. It is those who in order to protect salvation (or to protect their interests) lift salvation from the midst of history, where individuals and social classes struggle to liberate themselves from the slavery and oppression to which other individuals and social classes have subjected them. It is those who refuse to see that the salvation of Christ is a radical liberation from all misery, all despoliation, all alienation. It is those who by trying to ‘save’ the work of Christ will ‘lose’ it.” (Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, p. 104)
In Matthew, Jesus tells his listeners of a God who clothes the lilies, feeds the ravens, and “makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45). This is a picture of everyone’s temporal needs being meet, and not merely their needs for survival, but also what they need in order to thrive. Everyone has enough.
Our present structure doesn’t look like that at all. Some are growing increasingly wealthy while others are in an ever-increasing struggle just to survive.
In Matthew 19:21-2 Jesus tells a wealthy person, “If you wish to be whole, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in the kingdom of heaven; then come, follow me.”
The wholeness I believe Jesus was speaking of here is a rediscovery or a reclaiming of one’s humanity. As we discussed in Another World is Possible (Parts 1-3), the narrative of scarcity, anxiety, accumulation, competition, and violence is dehumanizing whether you are made poor by this narrative or made wealthy by it. Instead of poverty or wealth, Jesus offers a narrative of enough. This is a narrative where there is enough for every person’s need. As in the story of the loaves and fish, even when we are tempted to embrace the narrative of scarcity, if we will in the moment choose a narrative of sharing, sharing our resources in distributive justice produces enough for everyone. It ends in gratitude, in cooperation, in connectedness. We begin to face the future with a different posture when we realize that we are in this life together and if we will choose to take responsibility for caring for one another, we can face whatever may come. It’s a collective stance more than an individualistic stance. It’s a vision of a distributively just world that gives birth to peace, where no one has too little or too much and everyone has enough.
It was this aspect of Jesus’ teachings that led the early church to hold “everything in common.” As Luke reports, “They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes daily and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:41-47)
Salvation is not a post mortem life insurance policy. People were being saved from starving to death right then and there! Two chapters later in Acts we read, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had . . . And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.” (Acts 4:32-34, emphasis added.)
Can you imagine a world where there is enough bread for every person each day? Where world hunger is no more? This is why Jesus proclaimed, “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.” (Luke 6:21) This is a world that is especially in the favor of those the present world causes to go hungry. Those made last by the present structures are made first.
Last week, we read from Amos about those who valued religiosity more than social justice. This week, Jesus stands in that same Jewish prophetic tradition. Consider this from Luke’s gospel:
“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God.” (Luke 11:42)
Luke’s and Matthew’s versions of this exchange (see Matt. 23:23) put justice in the family of “the more important matters of the law.” Justice and the love of God are intimately, intrinsically connected. As Dr. Emilie Townes says in the short film Journey to Liberation: The Legacy of Womanist Theology, “When you start with an understanding that God loves everyone, justice isn’t very far behind.” How many times have we witnessed traditional White Christianity emphasize religiousness, puritanical morality, and even the ‘love of God,’ but justice, justice for the oppressed, marginalized and exploited is neglected at best and at worst, obstructed? We have neglected the more important matters of the law! As Jesus prioritized people’s temporal needs, those temporal needs were also to be a priority for Jesus’ disciples.
Antonio Fragoso drives this point home in Evangile et Revolution Sociale (The Gospel and Social Revolution):
“The struggle for justice, is also the struggle for the Kingdom of God. The Gospel should strike the conscience of Christians and stimulate an understanding among all persons of good will regarding the liberation of all, especially the poorest and most abandoned.” (p. 15)
We are not to dualistically divide a person’s spiritual needs and their temporal needs. We are whole people. Jesus’ liberation in each gospel included the whole person. This is the example set for us to follow. I long for the day when Jesus’ name is not immediately associated with the supernatural and a disconnected privatized understanding of religion, but with relief work and social transformation/justice work for the vulnerable and marginalized that would make relief work unnecessary.
Next week we’ll consider Jesus’ phrase, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). This week, what does it mean to live and work in harmony with these words of Jesus’ prayer for all?
“Give us today our daily bread.”
HeartGroup Application
Again this week, in the context of Supreme Court Confirmation hearings here in the U.S., we are hearing a lot of rhetoric that supports attitudes and a worldview that results in violence against women. This is the rhetoric of what has been defined as rape culture. Tolerance of jokes and excusing of behavior supports a normalization of a whole spectrum of behavior of which the other side results in violence, degradation and assault.
Jesus stood in defense of women within his own culture. What does it mean for Jesus followers to do the same today?
1. This week, if you are unfamiliar with what is meant by the phrase rape culture I’m providing four links that can start you on a better understanding:
http://www.southernct.edu/sexual-misconduct/facts.html
http://www.wavaw.ca/what-is-rape-culture/
http://www.dayofthegirl.org/rape_culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture
2. Take time this week, again, to affirm the women in your HeartGroup. Discuss as a group what you learned from engaging the information in links above.
3. It is from making our smaller communities safer that I believe we create a larger world that comes safer for the vulnerable as well. What can you do as a group to practice a preferential option for women and the vulnerable in your midst that makes your HeartGroup a safe place for them. Make a list. This next week, pick something from this list and implement it. Keep doing so each week till you’ve completed your list.
4. Don’t just stop with your HeartGroup. Engage the work of making our larger communities safer as well. Call your Representatives and share your concerns, too.
Thanks for checking in with us this week. Right where you are, keep living in love, justice, survival, resistance, liberation, reparation, and transformation. Keep engaging the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate home for everyone.
And one last thing, as we approach Autumn, this is the time of year when Renewed Heart Ministries especially needs your support. Not only are we are planning for events next year, but we are working to prevent a budget shortfall for the present year. If you have been blessed by our work, please consider making a one-time contribution or becoming one of our monthly supporters. Go to renewedheartministries.com and click “donate.” Any amount helps. And thank you in advance for your support.
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
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