"Prayer changes things." It's a common saying, and too often Christian discussion of prayer deals only with how we can change other things and other people through prayer. But what if prayer is much more that we imagine? What if it is also the means of correcting our relationship to the Creator and at the same time of changing our relationships with one another? Perhaps prayer can ultimately help transform our theology, what we believe about God, into character and action. In Ultimate Allegiance, Dr. Bob Cornwall takes us to the Lord's Prayer, a short and simple prayer that is well-known and often recited. But in each of its major petitions, he finds deep meaning that challenges us to think and to change. In fact, this prayer of Jesus brings us to the ultimate question of just where we should place our ultimate allegiance.
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Robert D. Cornwall. Ultimate Allegiance
Ultimate Allegiance. The Subversive Nature of the Lord’s Prayer. By Robert D. Cornwall
From the Editors
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
One. Worshiping the Holy God
PRAYING A KINGDOM PRAYER
OUR FATHER
HOLY IS YOUR NAME
Two. Living in the Kingdom
THE KINGDOM — THE HEART OF THE PRAYER
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
A LITTLE IS A LOT
Three. Trusting the Day to God
DEPENDENCY ON GOD THE PROVIDER
OUR SOLIDARITY AS NEIGHBORS
RESTING IN THE PROVIDER’S GRACE
Four. Living in Forgiveness
DEBTS, SINS, AND TRESPASSES
THE QUESTION OF RECIPROCITY
FORGIVENESS AND RESTORATION
FROM THE HEART
Five. Deliverance from Evil
TEMPTATION: BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
FACING TEMPTATION
DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL
Six. Sharing in God’s Glory
KINGDOM
POWER
GLORY
FOREVER
Afterword
For Further Reading
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My hope is that this series of reflections will prove helpful to those who seek to deepen their own understanding of this prayer. For those readers who are preachers, perhaps this series will stir in their imagination the possibility of a similar series. It is possible that the reader will, like the author of this series, be surprised at what lies behind and between the words we recite. In my case, I discovered that the prayer of Jesus is much more politically focused than I expected — and I’ve read widely in books by John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, and Richard Horsley, which lift up the political elements of the gospel stories. Nonetheless, the encounter with the prayer was insightful and challenging. It is my hope that the reader will also be challenged by what is found both here and in the prayer itself. May the reader find the prayer to be both spiritually enriching and deeply practical, whether the prayer is used as a model or one that is recited — from the heart — with great regularity, perhaps as often as recommended by the author of the Didache.
The prayer that Jesus taught is among the shortest of the daily disciplines in the world’s great religions. But to the eyes of Christian faith it shimmers like the most precious of diamonds. When we pray it, allowing ourselves to be centered in the kingdom petition, a prism effect occurs. With light from the Spirit, other parts of the prayer fan out into a rainbowlike display of what it means for us to participate in the coming reign of God (Koenig, Rediscovering New Testament Prayer, p. 48).
