Faith, Hope, and Love: The Ecumenical Trio of Virtues

2. Hope and the Lord’s Prayer

25 Lecture Two Hope and the Lord’s Prayer c For the move from faith to hope we may find help in the first verse of the Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 11: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (KJV); “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (RSV). The chapter goes on to give historic examples of various kinds. The Greek words hupostasis and elegchos are quite technical terms, with a range of philosophical associations. We might say that the content of faith is what “grounds” or “underlies” hope; it is what things hoped for “stand upon.” And the act of faith gives “insight” into things “not (yet) seen.” Considering hope as a “theological virtue,” we may emphasize not only its future direction but its eschatological range; and it will find its liturgical match in the Lord’s Prayer. Raymond Brown, noted Catholic New Faith, Hope, and Love 26 Testament scholar of the mid-to-late twentieth century, wrote a thirty-five-page exegesis of the Our Father precisely under the title “The Pater Noster as an Eschatological Prayer.” Ray Brown was my closest friend and colleague during my short time of teaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York and during the earliest years of my membership in the international dialogue between the World Methodist Council and the Roman Catholic Church; and I draw with confidence upon his work.17 A solid and prominent theme of New Testament scholarship in the twentieth century was the kingdom of God—with, of course, nuances among the exegetes as to its understanding . Unquestioned was the connection between the kingdom of God and Jesus—as to his person, his preaching and teaching (think of C. H. Dodd’s classic The Parables of the Kingdom), his social activity and mighty deeds, his death and resurrection, and indeed his expected return. Scholars varied only as to the temporal stages of the kingdom’s coming in its multiform association with Jesus and as to possible shifts in its timing and interpretation as the oral and written witness of the New Testament authors evolved. Let me jump boldly into the Lord’s Prayer and—off my own bat—take “Thy kingdom come” as its key petition around which the other clauses cluster. As to the second in our trio of virtues—that of hope—we may say that in and through the Prayer taught by the Lord Jesus, believers are given a confident 27 Hope and the Lord’s Prayer hope to enjoy and exercise in the direction of God’s final kingdom —all the way along to its final achievement. In the very address—“Our Father, who art in heaven”— Jesus associates his disciples with himself in access to the prime and ultimate Ruler of all. Says Raymond Brown, In the New Testament, God’s Fatherhood is . . . put on the basis of union with Jesus, who is God’s Son in a special way. He alone can call God “my Father” in the proper sense; those who unite themselves to Him share His power to do so through God’s gift. This New Testament concept of God’s Fatherhood and Christian sonship gives an eschatological tone to the title of the Pater Noster, for if we examine the Synoptic Gospels carefully, we find that becoming sons of God is something that happens in the last days and in the heavenly kingdom [cf. Matthew 5:9; 13:38, 43; Luke 6:35; 20:36]. . . . Hence, if in the Pater Noster Christians can address God as “Father,” it is because they are anticipating their state of perfection, which will come at the close of this age. They are anticipating the coming of God’s eschatological kingdom, which is already incipient in the preaching of Jesus.”18 Other New Testament writings may phrase things differently, says Brown, but there is no contradiction: Paul and John treat sonship as a gift already conferred (in Paul’s thought, by adoption [Galatians 4:5]; Faith, Hope, and Love 28 in John’s thought, by divine begetting [John 1:12-13; 3:5; 1 John 3:9; also 1 Peter 1:23]). This is an aspect of “realized eschatology.” We believe that both views of divine sonship stem from the mind of Christ. . . . Both views are true: we are God’s sons now through...