With this posting I am beginning a series on
the Lord’s Prayer. Some Christians pray
this prayer every Sunday in their churches, some see it as a model for framing
their own prayers, some seem to pray as if they’d never heard of it. Whether it is familiar to you or new to you,
I hope to open up this prayer and help you appreciate it for the work of grace
it is. This first message in the series
takes into account the context in which Jesus introduced the prayer.
Matthew 6:5-13
Studies from the
mid-1990s suggest that one in four American women will be sexually abused
before her eighteenth birthday, usually by her father. (The sexual abuse of
boys is much less common, the incidence being about one in twenty-five.) No wonder such women often find it difficult
to offer a prayer to any “Father.” Their
resistance should not be treated lightly.
They deserve our compassion and our understanding. To simply dismiss their concerns betrays a callousness
that ought not to be part of the make-up of Christ’s followers.
At the same
time, many other women feel the prayer reflects a patriarchal worldview, which
minimizes the worth of women. A sermon
such as this doesn’t afford us the opportunity to respond adequately to that
charge. Instead, let me urge you do read
books like Amy Orr-Ewings Is the Bible
Intolerant? I’ll simply say that, while
there is no doubt that some in the Christian church have tried to use the Bible
to oppress women, they have done so in contradiction to the overall spirit of
the Bible. Properly understood, the
Bible is one of the most pro-woman books of the ancient world.
All of this
leads to a question we need to address before we move on. What
gender is God? The very question
reflects a failure to understand God’s nature.
God is personal and we cannot conceive a personal being as an “it”. While, to some degree, this may be a problem
linked to English, there is no doubt the Biblical imagery for God is primarily
male, King and Father being clear examples.
Some reasons why this is true may be that it reflects the largely
patriarchal society in which the Hebrews lived, the Jews believed there was
only one God (in contrast to their neighbors) and used the male imagery to
describe this God so there would be no confusion with the goddesses of the
surrounding nations. The references to
God as a venerable older male may reflect an effort to picture God as One who
deserves our respect and honor.
While the
references to God in the Bible are primarily male, there are occasions when God
is referred to in feminine images. In
Isaiah 66:12-13, God is pictured as a mother caring for the restored nation
following its captivity.
Like babies you will be nursed and held in my arms
and bounced on my knees.
I will comfort you
as a mother comforts her child.
You will be comforted in Jerusalem.”[1]
Brian McLaren offers an answer to the problem
that deals with it from a theological perspective:
“If some overmasculinize in their image of God
(according to dominate, war-like, or hot-tempered stereotypes), we aren’t
helping ourselves and our children to swing to the opposite extreme by
overfeminizing God (according to some list of contrasting stereotypes), and
neither are we helping by trying to ‘neuter’ God…. God, in whose image male and female were
created, must include all authentically masculine and feminine qualities and at
the same time transcend them.”[2]
The Old Testament
presents a long list of human fathers who failed in carrying out their
responsibilities. "Overshadowing
everything is the image of a heavenly Father who deals with his human children
as human fathers were created to do.”
(Dictionary of Biblical Imagery.)
Remember that this
prayer is addressed to “Our Father in heaven.” Jesus is not giving us the Father’s
address. He is saying something about
the character of the Father. Heaven is a
place of perfection; God is the
perfect Father. In this, God stands in
contrast to our earthly fathers. Later,
Jesus would say, “There isn’t a person
among you who would give his son a stone if he asked for bread, is there? Or if he asks for a fish, he wouldn’t give him
a snake, would he? So if you who are evil know how
to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven
give good things to those who keep on asking him.”
What does Jesus
mean by describing these earthly parents as “you who are evil?” I don’t believe he means their intentions are
evil, that they are the kind of parents you’d see talked about on Nancy Grace
or inspiring a CSI episode. Jesus knew such parents existed. As a first-century Jew, he certainly knew
about Herod the Great. In fact, his
mother may have told him of the family’s flight to Egypt to escape the paranoid
king. Herod murdered his wife and at
least two of his sons because he feared they were plotting against him. That prompted the emperor to quip, “It is
safer to be Herod’s pig than to be Herod’s son.” Jesus knew there were parents who didn’t deserve
the title.
Jesus is reminding
us that all earthly parents are flawed, even the best of them. Despite the best of intentions, even good
parents will fail. They will do or say
the hurtful thing, unintentionally. My
father was a good man; I can only hope
I’m as good. Yet, he wouldn’t speak up
when my mother was venting her temper.
As a result, he allowed other good people to be hurt by her paranoid
false accusations. He kept quiet in
order to keep the peace.
Some of you may
have known an absentee father. The
pursuit of a career, the enticements of sports, or sheer selfishness cause such
a father to drop-out, to treat his children as if they were somewhere below
securing a good tee-time on his list of priorities. Many young women and young men lack any sense
of worth because their own fathers had no time for them.
Ordinarily, we
consider it a mark of maturity when children recognize that their parents
aren’t perfect, a sign of greater maturity when they forgive those
imperfections. In this maturing process,
we grant special grace to those children whose parents have gone beyond simple
imperfection to iniquity. We aren’t as
quick to ask them to lay aside their hurt and act as if it was all a big
misunderstanding.
But, whether our
fathers simply embarrassed us in front of our homecoming date or made our
childhood a nightmare, there is one truth we all should strive to embrace: God is not an earthly father grown
large. God stands as a model for earthly
fathers; the earthly father is not a
model for God.
While I sympathize with those who resist
praying “Our Father” because their fathers were physically, psychologically, or
even sexually abusive, I believe it is possible for them—by that very Father’s
grace—to achieve a new appreciation for
this prayer when they understand that Jesus is portraying God as a Father
should be.
When we
understand this we’ll see that Jesus is setting forth
A Revolutionary
New Way of Praying.
Nowhere in Old
Testament and rarely in the Jewish literature written between end of the Old
Testament period and the birth of Christ, was God addressed as Father. When God was addressed as “Father” it was in
the sense of source. We refer to George
Washington as “the father of our country” but we don’t suggest we have a
familial relationship with him. When
Jesus made it a habit to address
God as Father in his own prayer life and urged his followers to do the same, he initiated a revolution in prayer. D. A. Carson says,
God as Father in his own prayer life and urged his followers to do the same, he initiated a revolution in prayer. D. A. Carson says,
The overwhelming tendency in Jewish circles was to
multiply titles ascribing sovereignty, lordship, glory, grace, and he like to
God. Against such a background, Jesus
habit of addressing God as his own Father and teaching his disciples to do the
same could only appear familiar and presumptuous to opponents, personal and
gracious to followers. Unfortunately,
many modern Christians find it very difficult to delight in the privilege of
addressing the Sovereign of the universe as ‘Father’ because they have lost the
heritage that emphasizes God’s transcendence.
The very word Jesus uses underscores the
revolutionary character of what he was teaching. He uses the term derived from Abba.
No previous teacher in Judaism ever used this word for God. The Hebrew/Aramaic word for “father” is Ab, as in names like Abraham, “the
father of nations.” Abba is the word you would hear in the family setting, a word used
by young children. It roughly translates
to “daddy” or “papa.” Without ever suggesting the believer should approach God
irreverently, Jesus invites them to approach God with a sense of
confidence.
Jesus not only
urged us to address God as “Father,” he taught that God was fatherly. This is a Father who is eager to hear from
his children. This picture of God
stands in contrast to that of gods who must be persuaded by “many words.” Those who worship such gods “imagine the more
they say the more likely they are to be heard.” Jesus’ knew there were those who turned
prayer into a sham. Sometimes they had
been taught these bad habits by their own rabbis. Of course, many Jewish teachers condemned
the same practices Jesus condemned, but it was sometimes hard to convince
people that their supposed eloquence was less effective than simple words from
a sincere heart.
--Some Jews
simply repeated the Shema again and again, like a mantra, believing that would
lead to greater spirituality.
--Some rabbis of
Jesus’ day taught that the longer the prayer, the more effective it would be.
Rabbi Levi said, “Whoever is long in prayer is heard.”
--Among the
non-Jews there were those who would work themselves into a frenzy by the
repetition of a single word or phrase.
Sometimes they would do this until they fell from exhaustion.
Jesus’ approach
to prayer is far different. God knows our
needs—before we ask—and he desires communion with us and the opportunity to
meet our needs. Why, then, do we need to
pray at all? It’s a question plenty of
people ask. To a degree, it is to remind
us of our dependence upon God. Just as
important, perhaps more important, it assures that we regularly stand in the
presence of our Father-King.
For that man or
woman who has known abuse at the hands of an earthly father, this presents a
remarkable possibility. They have the
unprecedented opportunity of standing in the presence of an all-powerful father
and feeling perfectly safe.
Just as
significant, all of us have the joy of coming to a Father who is reliable. He understands our needs. When we come to him, he will provide for our
spiritual and physical needs. He will
give us a sense of purpose that links us to something bigger than we are.
When Jesus invites
us to pray to God as Father, he reminds us we have a new identity.
Jamie Buckingham
tells this story.
Fred
Craddock was a teacher at Phillips Seminary. Craddock had been lecturing at Princeton; as
he and his wife were heading back to Oklahoma, they were looking forward to
some time alone. On the drive back to Oklahoma, they had stopped at a
restaurant in Tennessee. An old man was
wandering from table to table and eventually reached them. He told them his name was Ben and asked if
they were enjoying themselves. When the old man asked Fred what he did for a
living, Fred saw the chance to get rid of him - "I'm a preacher."
"
That's great,” Ben said, “Let me tell you a story about a preacher."
The
old man sat down at their table and started to his story. He explained that he had been born to an
unmarried young woman in a small town.
This was early in the 20th century and it was a tough time
for a youngster like Ben. He grew up to
stares, whispers, and name-calling.
School was a nightmare of teasing.
One
day a new preacher came to the local church. Ben went to church almost every week but he
came in late and left before the benediction was finished. He was too ashamed to hang around. But one Sunday the preacher finished his
prayer before Ben could get away. He was
trying to get to the door when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
He
turned around to see the preacher looking down at him asking, "What's your
name, boy? Whose son are you?"
The
very thing Ben wanted to avoid was happening. But before he could say anything
the preacher said "I know who you are. There's a distinct family resemblance. Why, you’re
a son of God!" Then the preacher
added, “You’ve got a great heritage, live up to it.”
The
old man sitting at Fred Craddock's table said "You know, mister, those
words changed my life". And with that he got up and moved on to another
table.
When
the waitress came over she whispered to Craddock and his wife, "Do you
know who that was?"
"No"
they replied.
"That
was Ben Hooper, the two-term governor of Tennessee."
When we place our
faith in Christ, we enter a new relationship with God. A privilege of that new relationship is the
opportunity of praying this prayer. When
you and I pray this prayer, we should remember that each of us—no matter how
bitter our past or difficult our present—is a child of God.
