The Lord's Prayer: A Revealing Prayer

Matthew 6:10

The Kingdom of God was central to Jesus’ preaching and teaching.  It should not be surprising he would mention the Kingdom in his model prayer.   A few months before I preached the series on the Lord’s Prayer I preached a sermon focused on the Kingdom; I chose not to revisit the subject during the series on the Prayer.  For the sake of continuity, I am offering these brief observations on this revealing request.

Keep in mind that during much of early American history many Christians believed God’s Kingdom would come to earth prior to the Second Coming of Christ.  Called “post-millennialists,” these Christians believed the Kingdom would come as a result of the preaching of the gospel throughout the world.  For this reason, they encouraged mission activity and other work to spread the gospel.  Fundamentally, their faith was in the supernatural power of God at work through the church’s message.

As the century progressed and more liberal theology began to find a place in the church, there was a subtle shift of emphasis.  More and more emphasis was placed on human efforts to bring in the Kingdom and Jesus’ Return was interpreted figuratively, if not neglected completely.  The older post-millennnialists believed the proper order was “save sinners and society will change;” the newer variety seemed to believe “change society and sinners will be saved.”  Though never entirely lost, the need for individual conversion was often forgotten in the effort to build their vision of God’s Kingdom.

This is a somewhat simplistic description of what was happening in many American churches but it is a starting place for understanding some of the preaching and hymns produced in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries in America.   More important, the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that the Kingdom is never the product of human effort.

“thy Kingdom come…”

--the Father to whom we pray possesses a Kingdom; as A. M. Hunter remarked, “the King of God’s Kingdom is a Father.”  Again, this is a remarkable observation.  God is no oriental potentate, unapproachable and remote.  He may be known as a Father.

--at the heart of Jesus’ message was the announcement of the arrival of God’s Kingdom.  Jews had long yearned for this Kingdom to arrive;   Jesus’ followers were to make the coming of the Kingdom part of their prayer life.  If we are sincere when we pray, we are volunteering ourselves to continue the work that Jesus began, the work of announcing and extending God’s Kingdom.  But this Kingdom was different than what the Jews had longed for;  it was a Kingdom of the Spirit,  not of raw military might.   It would be a Kingdom in which men and women lived under God’s rule, relating to God as to a Father and to one another as to their brothers and sisters.  Participating in this Kingdom was the product of repentance from our sinful rebellion and belief in Christ as God’s appointed Savior. 

“...your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven…”

--this phrase both assumes the desire for God’s Kingdom to become a reality and expands upon it.  When God’s Kingdom fully comes, his “will” shall be fully done, as well.  This makes that clear. 

--This is a strange request in some ways.  It seems to imply that God’s will is not always done, that things don’t always happen as God wishes.  Can this be true?  Does the very idea limit his sovereignty?  It might seem to do just that--unless God created a world in which he has temporarily limited his sovereignty.  The Bible takes human freedom seriously.  Humankind is free to obey or disobey God.  With one notable exception, every human has chosen to use that freedom to rebel.  When God’s will is done “on earth, as it is in heaven,” there will be no pockets of rebellion remaining.  When that occurs, earth will become like heaven.

This is a revealing prayer.  This portion of the request reveals something about the nature of the world we live in (God's will isn't always done) and it reveals something about us (we don't automatically do God's will and need God's help).  In light of these revelations, the prayer...

 ...reminds us we have a choice: we may oppose God’s Rule in the world or we may join with those who “seek first the Kingdom of God” and order their lives in a way that aligns with God’s will. 

...reminds us to look honestly at our lives and to see how often we join forces with the rebels against God.  When we are honest we will see how much the repentance that brought us into the Kingdom must be an ongoing experience in our lives.

...reminds us that “building” God’s Kingdom in  a world like ours must be a supernatural work.  We cannot do it with our own strength and wisdom.  We must depend upon God.

...reminds us to look closely at Jesus—the one human who lived out the principles of the Kingdom in his life as no other person ever has.  In fact, the fact Jesus lived in complete compliance with the Kingdom is foundational for our hope of salvation.  Jesus’ experience  further reminds us that living out the Kingdom lifestyle can make a difference in this world but it can also lead to ridicule, misunderstanding; and, possibly, suffering for the sake of the Kingdom.

The Lord's Prayer: A Reverent Prayer

^{ }The Lord’s Prayer:  A Reverent Prayer

Matthew 6:9

My mother’s youngest sister, Aunt Christine was one of those relatives most families have, the one who constantly causes raised eyebrows. 

She’ was married four times.  In fairness, I should tell you she was married to the same man twice.  Unfortunately, she also divorced him twice.  Of her three husbands, the one I knew the best was my Uncle Timothy.  She married him when I was in junior high school. 

You may have heard me mention my Uncle Timothy as “my Chinese uncle.”  You see, he was born in Hawaii to parents of Chinese descent and raised.  Uncle Timothy remembered his mother holding his hand as they ran for shelter when the Japanese bombers flew over their home on the way to attack Pearl Harbor.

Uncle Timothy introduced me to soy sauce on scrambled eggs instead of catsup.  He taught me a few words in Hawaiian, which I’ve forgotten, except for “humuhumunukunukuâpua`a.”   It’s a fish.  He had a lot of jobs in his life.  He was in the Air Force when my Aunt Christine met him.  Then he became an engineer, the kind who runs a train.  He then managed a Chinese restaurant in Houston.  For a long time now, Uncle Timothy and Aunt Christine have lived and worked in Las Vegas.  A few years ago, when the Southern Baptist Convention was meeting in Vegas, I mentioned to a fellow pastor that I had an uncle living there. “Is he a pastor,” my friend asked.  (I think he was hoping I’d put him in touch so he’d get a free tour of the city or maybe an invitation to preach.)  “No,” I said, “Uncle Timothy is a blackjack dealer.”

But, I digress.  Back to my Aunt Christine.  My aunt has a habit of trying to change people’s names.  It started with her own.  One year I remember her visiting and announcing that she was now “Tina.”  I can see “Tina” coming from “Christine.”  But, very soon after that she announced she wanted to be called “Judy.”  I’ve not seen her in a long time, so I’m not sure what she calls herself these days. 

Aunt Christine was not content simply changing her name.  She decided her husband, my uncle, should no longer be Timothy (or “Timmy,” as she called him).  He would be called “Bob.”  Now, Uncle Timothy was a patient man and he allowed himself to be transformed into Bob. 

Before long Aunt Christine decided “Bob” wasn’t distinctive enough.  She campaigned to change “Bob” to “Link,” after the character on “The Mod Squad” (the old show, not the new one).  Uncle Timothy had had enough.  He refused to change.  Maybe he could foresee more changes coming as new shows came along.  Frankly, as the years came and went, I would have hated to introduce him as Uncle Fonzy or Uncle McDreamy.

My Aunt Christine never knew what it meant to honor a person’s name.  She would have never understood the meaning of this prayer.

In the Bible, the name does more than identify a person; it speaks of that person’s character and personality, so far as it is known.  So, God’s Name stands for who God is.  God’s Name is all that God is. 

Lots of people try to change God’s Name.  That is, they try to portray God in a way that contradicts what the Bible says.  They want their renamed God to be more palatable.  Such people may talk about God—whom they have reshaped to their own liking—but they are not “hallowing God’s Name.”

The word translated as “hallowed” comes from a verb that means “to treat a person or a thing as hagios.”  Hagios is an adjective usually translated as “holy.”  A key to understanding the idea behind the word “holy” is to remember that it’s basic meaning is “separate,” or “different.”  Thus, we keep the Sabbath “holy” when we treat it differently than other days, when we see it as separate or unique from other days of the week.  Barclay has this meaning in mind when he translates this petition from the prayer:  “Let God’s name be treated differently from all other names; let God’s name be given a position which is absolutely unique.”

   Reginald Heber’s familiar hymn hints at this meaning when it says, “only thou art holy, there is none beside Thee, perfect in power, in love, and purity.”

Before I move on, let me point out that something important happens here.

So far in this series of messages on the Lord’s Prayer, we’ve seen God as Father.  I’ve stressed his caring love and provision for us.  I’ve described him as the ideal father, a father unflawed by failure, unlike any of our earthly fathers.  God is a father unlike any we have ever known among human fathers.  He is a father who would draw us close to himself and remind us that we are treasured.

Don Miller tells of a friend named Nadine who is a descendent of Scottish royalty, a member of the Stuart family.  She grew up in a home surrounded by servants.  She was raised by a nanny.  Nadine was not allowed to speak to her parents unless they first gave her permission.  She must have thought her parents saw her as an inconvenience necessary to carry on the family name.  What a different picture the Bible presents of God, who wants a relationship with us. 

When we speak of God’s name being hallowed, we seem to be presenting a very different picture of God.   In the words of Isaiah, this God is “high and lifted up.”  God possesses a majesty that seems unapproachable.

 A God who is close to people is said to be imminent, while a God who is remote, removed from his creation, is said to be transcendent.

The picture of God in this prayer joins both his imminence (“our Father”) and his transcendence (“who art in heaven”).  Theologian John Macquarrie sees this as a distinctive element of Christianity.  He argues that the religions of the world can be separated into those that so stress God’s immanence that God loses all sense of distinctiveness from the Creation and those that so stress so stress God’s transcendence that he becomes remote and aloof.  Pantheism is an example of the first position; deism, an example of the second.  Hinduism falls among those religions that stress immanence; Islam falls among those stressing transcendence.  At the center, according to Macquarrie, is Christianity.  God is the Holy Father.

Missionaries who have brought the gospel to cultures where one view of God or the other is dominant have discovered this picture of God who is both imminent and transcendent is appealing.  More than twenty-five years ago, a modern classic in spiritual autobiography appeared.  It was written by Bilquis Sheikh.  It’s the story of a young Muslim woman who found her way to Christ by reading the New Testament and discovering a new picture of God.  It’s called I Dared to Call Him Father.  We should never forget that Jesus presents us with a picture of God who is both fatherly and holy.  Such a God’s name should be hallowed.

What do we mean when we pray, hallowed be your name?  Ultimately, we are praying that God be regarded with reverence.

Being reverent doesn’t simply mean we use our “quiet” voices when we are in church.  In fact, the volume of our voices in church may be the least important indicator of our reverence.  For some, a hushed voice in church may be an attempt to keep God from noticing they’re here.  I think we demonstrate our reverence when we remain true to the following hallmarks. 

Reverence affirms God’s existence.  The Bible begins with a grand assumption:  God exists.  It nowhere offers any reasoned proofs that God exists.  When the psalmist says, “the heavens declare the glory of God,” the attitude is “but, what would you expect.”

That grand assumption is challenged on every front today.  Atheism is the theme of many best sellers, like Hitchens’ God is Not Great.  Some embrace atheism because they buy its arguments;  some embrace it because atheism gives a nod to their life-styles.

This is not the place to marshal the evidence for God’s existence or to argue that it is at least as reasonable to affirm God’s existence as it is to deny God’s existence.  Instead, let me simply say that real reverence calls on us to shape our lives in light of that grand assumption.

Reverence affirms God’s special relationship with humankind.  Many of us in the 21^st century order our lives in light of another assumption, one not so grand:  All of us are the product of random, unguided change over time, evolution, if you will.  Intellectually we may not buy all the Darwinists are saying, but it is impossible to move in our culture long without encountering the implications of this assumption. Those implications shape our medical, social, and sexual morality.  They impact our values and our sense of identity.

Real reverence will see God as our Creator and us as his creation.  Real reverence recognizes that our identity is only fulfilled when we have a worshipful, submissive relationship with that Creator.  Real reverence celebrates the worth of each individual as created in the image of God. 

Reverence affirms God’s acts on our behalf.  Those who first learned this prayer from Jesus could only look back on their nation’s history to review what God had done for them.  Of course, that list was impressive.  God had created a nation from a couple of nomads who were too old to have children, for whom the promise of a child seemed like a joke.  God had rescued that fledgling nation from slavery in Egypt, using a tongue-tied runaway prince armed only with his shepherd’s staff.  God gave that nation a moral code that outshone those of any of their neighbors.  God repeatedly protected that nation as it wandered through forty years of tutoring in the wilderness.  God brought that nation into a land of its own, where it would flourish and become the envy of the surrounding nations.

Now, we Christians may look back and see what God has done for us in Christ Jesus.  Through his death and resurrection we may have peace with God.  We may know him as Father now and have hope for a future in his presence.

Reverence seeks to honor God in life and word.  The one who prays this prayer should determine to live the prayer.  Martin Luther’s catechism asks, “How is God’s Name hallowed amongst us?”  The response is, “When our life and doctrine are truly Christian.”  Perhaps Luther never intended this but he seems to be saying that for Christians, we “hallow” God’s Name when our actions and our thoughts live up to our name, Christian.

A name is sometimes associated with a person’s reputation.  We speak of an individual’s “good name.”  A local builder promises quality in the homes he builds because his family’s name is on the product.  It isn’t going too far to suggest that when we pray “hallowed be thy name” we are praying, “Keep me from doing anything that will besmirch your reputation, bring dishonor to your good Name.”  In Romans, Paul lays a frightful indictment against some of his fellow Jews who were guilty of a haughty hypocrisy:  he said, “Those who are not Jews speak against God’s name because of you.” ^[1] What a tragedy if any Christian should live in such a way that someone thinks less of God because of them.  It’s appropriate for us to pray that that may never be said of us.

Those who pray this prayer know God as Father but maintain the attitude or mindset that the OT calls the “fear of the Lord.”  Those who fear the Lord recognize God for who He is and order their lives accordingly.  He is to be taken seriously. 

Conclusion

  Reverence involves not only seeing the Father as he is but also seeing ourselves as we are.

As we take God seriously, we are to take ourselves seriously.  Sometimes we see ourselves as having little quirks, character flaws that only help to make us interesting.  That’s not taking ourselves seriously.  When we do, we will see ourselves as sinners who have no business approaching a holy God.  Yet, this God invites us to come.  So, we come to him with humility and hope.

On another occasion, Jesus told a story about two men who went to the temple to pray. 

¹⁰“Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. ¹¹The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. ¹²I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’

¹³“Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’”

¹⁴Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God.

Which of these men showed true reverence?  Which one took God seriously?  The Pharisee seemed to be saying, “God, I’m doing you a great favor being one of your people.  I’m a real asset to you and your work.” There’s no reverence in an attitude like that.  The lowly taxman approached God with a very different attitude; he seemed to be saying, “God, there’s nothing in me that would make you want to give me a second glance, but I’m hoping what I’ve heard about you is true—be merciful to me.”

When we come to God with that kind of humility, we are hallowing his Name.

Sinner like us must come to God humbly, knowing he is a God of serious holiness.  At the same time, sinners like us can come to God hopefully, knowing he is a God of serious grace.

---

^{ }

^[1] The Holy Bible : New Century Version , Containing the Old and New Testaments. Dallas, TX : Word Bibles, 1991, S. Ro 2:24

The Lord's Prayer: A Family Prayer

Matthew 6:9

During the past week or so, you may have heard Jesus referred to as a “community organizer.”  That’s an interesting description because during most of the past two centuries many liberal theologians insisted Jesus never intended to leave behind a church, a community of followers.  I think we’ll find the first word of his most famous prayer challenges that notion.  By the way, it may be ill advised to compare any contemporary politician to Jesus.  After all, the Jerusalem establishment considered the Man from Galilee to be a maverick from a wild and wooly state to the north.  My point is, don’t let anyone tweak the Bible to make a candidate seem more appealing.

 “Our” seems to suggest this prayer will be voiced by a community with a shared vision of God as Father.   All of the pronouns in the prayer are plural.

The pronouns Jesus used regarding God as Father are interesting to examine.

He often spoke of God as “My Father,” when he stressed his singular relationship with the Father.  He was reminding his listeners that he was God’s Son in a way that no one else ever was or ever would be God’s Son.  The beloved John 3:16 describes Jesus as God’s “only begotten Son.”  The word translated as “only begotten” or “unique,” in some translations, means “one of a kind.”

When Jesus spoke to his followers about their relationship with God, he spoke of “your Father.”  That, too, is a special relationship born of God’s grace, but it is not the same relationship Jesus had with the Father.  [Classic liberal theology is sometimes described as having taught “the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.”  That shorthand phrase is a good summary as long as we keep in mind it is shorthand.  Liberal theology had its complexities as any worldview does.  While the liberal may have rightly seen Jesus’ emphasis on God as Father to be something to celebrate, that same liberal often missed the unique character of the relationship Jesus claimed to have had with the Father; in short, the liberal denied the deity of Christ.  Moreover, the liberal failed to stress that Jesus calls us to repentance and faith if we are to fully know God as Father and our fellow humans as brothers (and sisters).]

So, when we read “our Father” at the beginning of this model prayer, we need to remember it is a prayer Jesus is prescribing for his followers, not for himself.  Last week we looked at some of what it means to have God as “our Father,” this morning we’re going to look at another implication of that relationship.

 Jesus anticipated his followers being part of a community.  Those within that community are brothers and sisters.

In earlier days, some Christians kept that reality before them by the very language they used to address one another.    Now, addressing another believer as “sister” or “brother” belongs to the world of sawdust trails and storefront chapels.  Perhaps, that’s just as well because it can become just a habit, a convention without meaning.  Ultimately, how we greet one another isn’t so important as recognizing the reality of the relationship we have through Christ. 

Christians in New Guinea understand themselves to be part of God’s tribe. Listen to this:

The Christians [of New Guinea] thought of themselves a God’s clan.  This meant that the individual was bound to serve the whole clan with such gifts as he possessed, and that the clan as a whole was responsible for the life of the individual.  The whole group shares in the benefits of the life that has become manifest in the individuals.  In such communities no one is lost;   in them, every individual finds protection, both in his inward and social life.

 What do I mean by suggesting that the Lord’s Prayer was intended to be used in a community setting?  Do I mean that we should never pray this prayer as individuals?  No, it is a fitting prayer for both personal and shared devotion.  Yet, I think the community of faith, the fellowship of believers, the family of God; the church, if you will, is often the most likely venue for the petitions embodied in the prayer to be answered. How?

·                When we pray that God’s Name be kept holy, we find it is the church which most often encourages us to worship and honor God, to join it in singing, “Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore Thee….”

·                When we pray for God’s Kingdom to come, we find that the church is the one entity charged with the responsibility and endowed with the gifts to advance that Kingdom in our world.

·                When we pray for God’s will to be done, we find that, despite her faults, the church is where his will is most often discerned, defined, declared, and demonstrated in and before a confused world.

·                When we pray for our daily bread, we are ready to let God use our own hands as the tools for obtaining that bread but find the church is ready to share bread with us should the opportunity to work be denied us.

·                When we pray for forgiveness, we find the church loves to rehearse the story of God’s grace and the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice for our sins.

·                When we pray for strength to do the hard work of forgiving others, we find the church will cheer us as we let go of the right to strike back.

·                When we pray for help as we struggle with temptation’s lure, we find the church is ready to pray with us and encourage us to hold on.

·                When we pray for protection from evil’s onslaught, we find the church will be a sheltering fortress in the battle.

                  Every Sunday morning, men and women around the world offer up this prayer—or one modeled upon it—as they gather to worship.  Many of those men and women are far different than we are.  Usually, they will offer that prayer in a language other than English.  During the service, some of these Christians will sing songs unfamiliar to us, as they raise their hands and shout praises to God, as tears freely flow down their cheeks; others will recite this prayer in a liturgy that their churches may have read for centuries.  The sermons the men and women will hear will vary from carefully reasoned treatises to bombastic calls to repentance.  After the service, they will probably go home to a meal far different than the meals most of us will eat following our service.  Yet, this prayer reminds us that we are one great family of faith.

                  It is understandable if we should feel closer to those believers who are most like us.  But, it violates the very spirit of he New Testament if we ever forget we are related to all, wherever they may be or whoever they may be, who sincerely offer up this prayer to our one Father in heaven.

                  As in any family, there will be differences of opinion about some matters.  We won’t all agree on the war, on global warming, on welfare, on worship styles, and the list could go on and on.  Yet, we are one family, with one Father.  We are linked to that one Father though our relationship with Jesus Christ.  The key New Testament concept here is “adoption.”  Belief in Christ brings us into a new family.  Christ’s work enabled us to become children of God.

                  There are no physical characteristics—hair color, eye shape, skin tone—which mark us as part of God’s family.  The key is our relationship to Christ.  Allow me to paraphrase a definition of Christian offered by Richard Niebuhr.  Being in the family of God is to be among those “for whom Jesus Christ—his life, words, deeds, crucifixion, and victory over death—is of supreme importance as the key to the understanding of themselves and their world, the main source of the knowledge of God and man, and the ultimate deliverer from evil.”[i]   That common faith links us together in a spiritual family. 

                  All this means we must tread carefully when we criticize our brothers and sisters.  We might disagree with them, but we can do so without denying they are part of God’s family, simply because they disagree with us.  It’s possible for someone to be our spiritual brother or sister and have the wrong take on some problem.  I hope I don’t have to remind you there are almost certainly occasions when our spiritual brothers and sisters are right and we are wrong.

When we pray this prayer, it should be in a spirit of humility.  Our spirit should be the very opposite of those Jesus described a few verses earlier.  Jesus said, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.”  When we pray this prayer alongside our fellow believers, we remind ourselves that we are all “standin’ in the need of prayer,” as the old spiritual says.  None of us can become too inflated with our own piety.

We’re blessed to be in this community.  Our responsibility to pray for our fellow believers is matched by their responsibility to pray for us.

Jesus would later talk about the power of praying together.  He told his disciples, “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, ^it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.”   This is why churches like ours use a prayer chain to encourage members to pray for one another.    When we do, we are resting on Christ’s promise.

This model prayer inspires the scope of our praying for one another.  The Lord’s Prayer reminds us we may pray for those who may be facing any spiritual or physical challenge.  

When Jesus calls us to follow him, he didn’t call us to be alone.  He called us into a family.

---

[i] Christ and Culture, New York:  Harper and Brothers, 1951, p. 10.  Though Niebuhr finds this definition inadequate for his purposes, I still find it appealing.