The Lord's Prayer—Part B

Are you familiar with Part B of the Lord’s Prayer? No, I wasn’t either. Like you, I’m very familiar with Part A (in Matthew 6), and realize how significant it is that Jesus explicitly teaches us what we should be praying. Like you, no doubt, this means I know it off by heart.

But it’s not the only place where Jesus gives his disciples clear guidance on what to pray. Just a few chapters later in Matthew’s Gospel we get this:

Then [Jesus] said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.” (Matt 9:37-38)

Now, at first you might think I’m drawing a bit of a long bow in suggesting that this is Part B of the Lord’s Prayer and that it is connected to Part A. And perhaps you’re right.

But think for a moment about a key focal point of Part A: “your kingdom come”. That, after all, is Jesus’ primary ministry focus—he is proclaiming and ushering in the kingdom of God (e.g. Matt 4:17, 23; 5:19, 20, 23; 6:10, etc.).

In Matthew 10, Jesus is going to send out his disciples to extend his kingdom work: they will do work just like Jesus, their master, has been doing (10:24) and with similar results, i.e. persecution (10:17).

So why—just before Jesus sends out the twelve disciples—would he take the time to urge them to pray for labourers in this kingdom harvesting work?

Answer: because 12 labourers is patently too “few”—it’s a ridiculously small number of labourers when the harvest is so “plentiful”. There are so few of them that he tells them to keep moving on: “When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes” (10:23). In fact, realistically, their job to proclaim the kingdom (10:7) even just to all of Israel won’t have been accomplished before the Son of Man comes (probably an allusion to Daniel 7 and Jesus’ coming into authority at his resurrection). It’s a big job; it needs a big workforce. So pray for it!

In other words: Part A: pray that God’s kingdom would be established; Part B: pray for God to accomplish this by sending out lots of labourers to proclaim the good news of the kingdom and reap a spiritual harvest.

Now I suspect more often than not when we occasionally consider Part B, it’s in the context of overseas mission work. We associate the prayer for God to send out more workers with the commissioning of new missionaries. And that’s appropriate, for sure.

But I think the way that Jesus urges his disciples to pray for more workers suggests that Jesus has in mind a multitude of labourers being sent out—not just those with a title like disciple or missionary.

If that’s true, then you might expect that before Jesus finishes his earthly ministry he would give some grand injunction about the need for all those who follow him to get involved in the work of the kingdom harvest.

Well, what do you know, seems like he might have done just that:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:18-19)

Just like Part A, Part B of the Lord’s Prayer is a dangerous prayer to pray. When I ask God to send out labourers, I’m pretty sure he is expecting me to join with Isaiah 6:8 and say “Here am I! Send me.”