Pray without Ceasing: The Lord’s Prayer as a Model for Christian Unity

Time and again throughout scripture we are told that we live in a broken world where we are guaranteed to experience hardship, pain, and trial. In the face of this sobering truth, there is genuine hope to be found in the promises of God. Jesus did not wear blinders to the suffering of humanity two thousand years ago. He healed the sick and uplifted the downtrodden. He met people in the midst of their darkest hours of grief and sickness. So too does God abide with us now. We have been given the promise that Jesus is with us always, to the end of the age.1 In addition to that abiding present hope, Jesus gave us the hope of an eschatological kingdom of God. Such a vision is impossible for us to comprehend fully. There is however a foretaste of that kingdom we can share with all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We have the prayer Jesus gave us which has the power to both unify all Christians and grant us a glimpse of the eschaton. That prayer is the Lord’s Prayer.2 Prayer – broadly speaking – is one of the single greatest unifying activities of Christians, and consequentially, one of the most compelling motivators for ecumenical discussion. Even when we cannot agree on the finer points of theological interpretation, when the structures of our various church bodies seem foreign and nonsensical, and when Sunday morning worshi