Tuesday Tome - Praying with the Church

Later this summer I will be presenting a teaching series I'm calling "Praying with Jesus." One of the books I'm reading in preparation for that series is Praying with the Church by Scot McKnight. I'm especially interested in some of the insights McKnight gives on the prayer practices common among devout Jews during the time of Jesus.

Here is a brief excerpt from pages 51-53...

What we find in the sacred rhythm and sacred prayer tradition of Israel is the wise recitation of those passages in the Bible most central to spirituality, passages we need to be reminded of daily because of their importance for how we are to conduct ourselves before God and with others. The reason psalms are repeated in the sacred rhythm of prayer is that they continue to teach us how to pray; the reason Shema is repeated so often is that it summons us to the central orientation of our heart: to love God with every molecule we can muster.

Jesus was spiritually nurtured by pious parents in a world where the sacred rhythm of prayer shaped spiritual formation. Jesus didn't adopt that rhythm without reflection or alteration. One might say that Jesus actually re-shaped the sacred rhythmical prayer practices of his world so that they would reflect his own kingdom mission.

Jesus as a pious Jew prayed both spontaneously and with others. In pausing throughout the day, he reminded himself daily of the importance of loving God by reciting the Shema, perhaps the Ten Commandments, and probably the Amidah.