Our Father: A Prayer That Connects Us All

Right from the first word in the Lord's Prayer, there's something Jesus does that I don't do enough. Maybe you don't either. It's this: he prays to our Father.

He doesn't say my Father. He doesn't make it about a personal connection alone. He includes everyone.

More Than Just Me and God

Growing up in a Protestant tradition, prayer was often framed as something deeply personal. It's a conversation between you and God. And it is that, of course. But when Jesus prays, he invites us into something bigger. Something communal.

He says our Father. And that simple choice of word shifts everything.

Prayer isn't just about me and God. It's about us and our relationship to the divine. It's a call to imagine prayer not just as a private discipline, but as a shared act of solidarity with everyone around us.

Our Father, Not My Own Personal Jesus

This reframing—this "our" instead of "my"—challenges the idea that God is mine alone. God isn't just my savior. God isn't a personal genie tucked away in my heart.

God belongs to us. To you. To me. To all of us.

That changes the way I pray. It pushes me beyond my own needs and wants. It pulls me toward a world where I see every person I encounter as part of this shared divine relationship.

Praying With the Hypocrites

Remember when Jesus says, "Don't pray like the hypocrites"? He follows it immediately with: "Pray like this: Our Father who art in heaven."

I don't think that's a throwaway line. I think he's telling us something profound. That even those we revile—the ones we think of as hypocrites—are included when we say our.

Praying to our God means I don’t get to draw the lines around who belongs. It stops me from thinking I get to police the boundaries of grace. Instead, it reminds me that every single person is my sibling by default.

Dirt, Alive, Breath, and Acquisition

Back in Genesis, we meet the first family. Adam, whose name means dirt, and Eve, which means alive. They have sons: Abel, which means breath, and Cain, meaning to acquire.

One day, the one who seeks to acquire kills his brother breath. God hears the cry of breath and comes to Cain with a question: "Where is your brother?"

Cain replies, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

And from Genesis to Revelation, the story of scripture becomes God's resounding yes to that question. Of course you are. Of course your neighbor is your responsibility. You are fundamentally connected to everyone around you. That connection is where your breath—your life—comes from.

This Is How You Should Pray

And so Jesus comes along and says, this is how you should pray. If you want to be connected to God, you pray in a way that reminds you of your brother. Your sister. Your breath.

Sometimes it's hard to believe God is your Father. I get that. It can be even harder to believe God is our Father.

But when we say our Father, we implicate ourselves. We say, yes—I am your keeper. You are mine. And together, we belong to the divine.

That's the beginning of prayer. Not isolation. Not privatized faith. But shared breath.

Our Father...