Brad Jersak and Andrew Klager recently posted a wonderful conversation on the Jesus Prayer, focusing in on the last phrase, ‘me, a sinner.’ The Jesus Prayer is very important to me. It has been central to my prayer life for a number of years now. I have chewed on it, over-analyzed it, and let it grow in my spirit at an agonizingly slow pace.

I suspect Orthodox Christians would not approve of how I’ve gone about cultivating their wonderful prayer in my own heart, but to be honest, I learned the prayer before I knew it belonged to them.

When I was a teenager, I was introduced to the Jesus Prayer in a novel where one of the characters in the story prayed the prayer. It resonated with me. It stuck with me more than the memory of the novel. It became a part of my prayers over the years, sometimes strongly, sometimes not at all. Then, years later, I discovered the incredible history of this short prayer. I learned more about how profound the words are. Since then, the Jesus Prayer has become very important to me.

I’ve thought about the Jesus Prayer extensively but I will focus on the final phrase, which caused me some consternation as I journeyed with the Prayer. When I would come to the end of the Jesus Prayer and say the words ‘me, a sinner,’ I would feel strong emotions about the words. I felt uncomfortable to be sure. My understanding of the word ‘sinner’ was pretty standard western fare: "you are a sinner; you are bad; you are in danger of not being accepted; you better try harder to get it right; why are you even praying? You can see the cascading tone of accusation. Worse, you can discern the real underlying problem: fear. The word ‘sinner’ was so charged for me that it would cause me to forget the words I’d just prayed: ‘have mercy on’.