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The Lord's Prayer
Introduction
Lent is an opportunity for us to reflect on our life as disciples of Christ. For us to push ourselves a little further in following him. Knowing that our effort is worthwhile – our Lord – Jesus Christ – is worth following.
An aspect of our faith with which many of us struggle is prayer.
How should we pray?
Does God speak to us?
When we ask – will God answer?
I would say that many of us have thought to ourselves "I'm going to pray more and more often…" and then given up after a few days of concerted effort.
* * *
So this lent, I invite you to take up praying a little more. Jesus' teaching on prayer is quite simple, Matthew records it like this:
Matthew 6:9-13 (NT9):
9This, then, is how you should pray:
'Our Father in heaven:
May your holy name be honoured;
10 may your Kingdom come;
may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today the food we need.c
12 Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.
13 Do not bring us to hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil One.'d[1]
'Our Father in heaven:
May your holy name be honoured;
10 may your Kingdom come;
may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today the food we need.c
12 Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.
13 Do not bring us to hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil One.'d[1]
Four verses; about 70 words – each of those words absolutely packed with meaning.
* * *
In the early church's training for membership – new disciples were instructed to memorise three important things:
The Apostle's Creed
The Ten Commandments and
The Lord's Prayer
The Ten Commandments and
The Lord's Prayer
Over the next few weeks we will unpack some of the words of this important prayer, reflecting on what they mean to us… allowing our repetition of this prayer to become more meaningful; opening up the possibility of new adventures, new depths in our praying life.
* * *
Watch this little sketch that imagines what would happen if God interrupted our prayers one day:
(Video from COR)
We'll watch it again at the end of our series.
Our Father in heaven may your holy name be honoured…
This Sunday we are dealing with the first section of the Lord's Prayer, a section which establishes the identity of the one to whom we are speaking.
It sounds strange, but I know who I am because I know who the people around me are.
For instance.
To you Zack is a child.
To me – he is my child.
Because he is my son, I am his father. If he wasn't my son, I wouldn't be a Father at all.
We are who we are because of our relationships with others. And so in the first part of the Lord's prayer we speak about that relationship.
Father
One of the terms Jesus uses in his prayer is Father.
Father is a word of relationship
He doesn't say: "O great spirit," our "Hail power of the universe", or whatever other titles you could imagine for someone or something like a God… but a relationship word.
Father.
A word that says as much about who we are as it says about who we are speaking to.
I can not call God Father without implying that I am a son – you can not call God Father without implying that you are a daughter.
Father is a special term of address
Children have the attention of their parents, lots of people call me Angus, but there is only one (so far) who can call me Dad.
And when a child speaks to a parent – especially when it is important – a parent knows to listen, and listens not only with logic, but also with love and compassion.
With a desperate desire to answer parents go out of their way – sacrifice a lot – in order for their children to have what they need.
There are few parents who would not sacrifice their own lives for their children.
If God is your Father, you are his apprentice
In Jesus' culture children imitate parents – if your father was a carpenter, you became a carpenter. Children were apprenticed to their parents.
John 5:19
"…the Son can do nothing on his own; he does only what he sees his Father doing. What the father does, the Son also does…"
Part of calling God, 'Father' is saying – I want to be like you.
God is not a man
Finally, for thousands of years the study of scripture, the leadership of the church, society has been male dominated. This imbalance created the impression that God had a specific gender - Male.
Since the seventies women began to point to the passages that remind us about the fact that God as God is not of a specific gender…
Genesis 1:27
"So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them."
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them."
In John's (3:16) gospel people are invited to be reborn. Can a man give birth?
In Isaiah 66:13
"As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you…"
To restrict our image of God to specifically male is not only Biblically inaccurate, but it is idolatrous… reducing God so much bigger than our thoughts to our own human constraints.
* * *
Some prefer to call God 'Mother' when they say this prayer, sometimes in our prayers I will say God our Father and our Mother. In a country like South Africa where so many homes have been robbed of their fathers, through migrant labour and struggle, mothers have become what Jesus meant in his culture, in his day, when he called God father.
* * *
Language is never able to fully describe God – God is too big, but language helps to point us in the right direction.
* * *
Most importantly – our prayer begins with a realisation of who we are talking to, and what kind of conversation this is.
One between a loving parent, and a child (usually one in desperate need)...
Heaven
The next word that strikes us: "Heaven".
For most of us the word heaven means: the place you go when you're dead (if you're good).
But for Jews of Jesus day – for whom the possibility of life after death was still a hotly debated issue, heaven is not about life after death, but it is the place from which God rules the earth, the throne room of God.
Psalm 11:4:
"The LORD is in his holy temple;
the LORD's throne is in heaven."
the LORD's throne is in heaven."
'Father in heaven' juxtaposes two terms. Father – gentle and intimate, loving parent. And Heaven – King of Kings, Lord of Lord's, magnificent and powerful.
It reminds us how bold we are to call God 'Father', how privileged we are to be his children.
* * *
It also reminds us that the one we are talking to is powerful – ruling all creation, above all other gods. Power, matched with love – a combination that guarantees the truth that this God is worth praying to.
* * *
Father in heaven
Prayer begins in an intimate relationship, with a loving and powerful God – and in prayer we become apprentices to the one we pray to.
Holy Name
Hallowed be your name.
This line reminds us of the commandment: (In the Good News Translation)
"Do not use my name for evil purposes, for I, the LORD your God, will punish anyone who misuses my name."
(Deut 5:11)
This is a terrifying command, a frightening prayer – may your name be honoured.
Eugene Petersen in The Message translates this as: "Reveal who you are."
It is not about people going Ooh Gawd on TV – I often get letters and petitions that people want me to sign asking TV not to do that.
It is more about using God's name to authorise the evil that we do.
* * *
I worry about political parties that claim God's authority for their policies… I worry when we exclude and discriminate against people in the 'name of God'.
I worry that at one stage in this country we tried to claim God's authority for apartheid.
I worry that we as a Christian community do not bring honour and glory to who God is, but rather bring shame.
* * *
The apostle Peter tells us to,
"Yet if any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name."
May your name be holy.
Help us to remember who you are – and as the people who carry your name – let us bring honour to it.
Our
I saved the best for last.
The Lord's prayer begins with 'our'.
Not 'my'.
Whenever we pray, wherever we pray, no matter what the situation – we never pray alone.
Our
If you and I speak of the same father that makes me your brother and you my sister.
As different as we may be. As different as we may think and look – we are adopted by the same Father in heaven whose name is Holy.
Conclusion
I invite you to begin praying the Lord's prayer this week. The earliest Christians prayed it three times a day, morning, midday and bedtime.
Try it.
Pause to think, line by line, about what it means to you and for you as you pray.
Then I believe we will begin to be transformed and we will see the Kingdom of God in this place.
Amen
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