Sermon, February 12, 2006

I have set myself the task of amplifying segments of the Eucharist when I preach at later services. This morning I want to look at the implications of the Lord’s Prayer. My general question for all of us is, “How often, I wonder, do we consider what we are saying when we pray the Lord’s Prayer together?” I have found that in my investigation of what the words of the prayer mean to me I have become aware of aspects of the prayer in relation to my life that have been both challenging and helpful.

All of us probably learned this prayer by the time we were in first grade, if not sooner. And as the years have passed we have all probably reflected in new ways, according to our age and experience, on the words of this prayer, I know that I have and imagine that most likely all of you have as well. So, let’s begin with the text from the New Testament that Jesus gave his disciples and then compare that with what we currently have and see if we can find a way through to the core of this beloved prayer. Let me say at the outset, that I will not be able to include all of what I want to say about the Lord’s Prayer in one sermon. I intend to go only to that point, where as one of my former senior wardens once told me, the limit of what the ear and the rear can take has been reached. I call it the “fidget line.” And I will do my best not to go over that line.

Matthew and Luke are the two gospels in which we find what has evolved into the Lord’s Prayer.

Here is Matthew’s version, it is found in chapter six, verses one through thirteen and follows a discourse on the way that the Pharisees pray:

“Pray then in this way: ‘ Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.’”

Now to the version in Luke. This time it is in response to a request from his disciples to teach them how to pray as John the Baptist taught his disciples. It begins at verse two of chapter eleven and concludes at verse four:

“He said to them, When you pray, say: ‘ Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.’”

We recognize a difference between the two versions; Luke’s is shorter and eliminates a reference to evil. In contrast to our more contemporary but still not the newest form of the prayer, we find no concluding Gloria passage. In the version we use it is said in this manner: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Our current usage begins much like Matthew’s; we say, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” And it is with the first word of both Matthew’s and our version of usage that I want to start, that word is “Our.” As I see it we are confronted right away with a question, “Who is included, in your mind, when you say the word “Our?” For example, let’s say you’re a teacher. Do you include all teachers everywhere and only teachers as fitting into the category of a child of God? You probably go much further. Where then do we draw the line of inclusion? Is it only Christians who are included? Or, perhaps all devoutly religious persons regardless of their religion? If that still seems too narrow who then does fit under the umbrella that Jesus holds up when in Matthew he tells his disciples to begin with the word “Our?” I do not for a minute believe that he meant only fellow Jews. If he did then his ministry really does look weird, since he did not exclude anyone from receiving a blessing of healing or love, whether Jew or Gentile. I make the claim that when Jesus said “Our” he meant every human being on the face of the earth. The pattern of his life and ministry certainly seem to point that way in my opinion. So then, do we, as we begin the Lord’s prayer picture in our minds car bombers, teachers, lawyers, children of all races, people of all ages, political opponents, the grouchy neighbor next door, the maniac serial killers, and all other categories of humans as belonging under the umbrella of being a child of God? I can’t answer for you but here is one place that I have intentionally made the choice to include all humans as belonging under that umbrella. One little word and what a word to choose to begin this prayer that is known by a multitude of Christians, many of whom would not agree with my opinion. How about you? Do you accept the premise that the word “Our” includes all humans, regardless of whoever or whatever they are? There’s a thought to keep in mind when we get to that part of the Eucharist.

Next comes the word “Father”. For Jesus it was a natural thing to say since in his culture the masculine pronoun for a parent represented parenthood. Yet there are many among us whose lives have been brutalized by the male parent of their family of origin. These people find it extremely hard to continue the Lord’s Prayer, and some do not, such is the hurt done to them by their fathers. As a father myself I grieve that such should be the case and I devoutly wish it weren’t, but it is. So when I pray this prayer, I may say the word “Father” out loud but I am thinking “Creator” and I would like to see that word substituted for the word “Father”. Traditionalists may say, and rightly so, that isn’t what Jesus said, as recorded in the gospels. Yet I wonder, if he were with us today in the flesh if he wouldn’t find a way to include individuals who cannot say the word “Father” without re-living horrible memories? I leave to you to decide for yourself how you mean to understand this word, as for me, I don’t think substituting “Creator” in place of “Father” is at all wrong. To pray meaningfully “Our Creator” instead of “Our Father” doesn’t really contradict the recognition that all things originated and continue to originate from God. The implication of divine parenthood is clearly understandable in my opinion when we use “Creator.” As to God’s dwelling place, where can we imagine God not being? Indeed, in the Collect for guidance on page 100 of our prayer book we begin it by saying, “Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being”… I do not believe that there is ever any moment when God does not hold us within the circle of Divine Love. There are times when we may feel that it is not so and that is because our lives have encountered events that have made it very difficult for us to even conceive of God’s Love as being part of our lives. Think upon those times when a word or words have been said to you or in your hearing that have cut you to the heart. And then imagine the times when comments you may have made have cut someone else to the heart. Why do we pray “Deliver us from evil?” I believe I have just illustrated one of the many reasons for that petition. But that’s getting ahead of myself and it might seem to some to be a good moment to invoke the “fidget” rule. But there is yet a little distance that I would beseech you to stay with me for the duration left. The conclusion isn’t that far off.

The next phrase is “Hallowed be thy name.” Hallowed, as it is written in Greek in Matthew pertains to the verb “hagios”(hawg'-ee-oss) meaning set apart, or holy. It is in the imperative tense which heightens the intensity of the meaning of the word Holy. Jesus wants his disciples, and us for that matter, to regard God as that One Who is Holy beyond the measure of human understanding. If we accept that as our own view then we must ask ourselves, “If God is The One in whom we live and move and have our being, and if we agree that all humans are included within the circle of being a beloved child of God, how much of our life do we need to change in order to be in line with what we pray?” That is one of the tough questions with which I am confronted when I reflect in more than a casual way on this prayer. I have to confess that some changes need to be made. So it is in reflecting on this prayer that I am led into a deeper relationship with God. When we began our new Church Year not so long ago we heard the Collect for the first Sunday in Advent declare, “Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life”…I have to say a big Amen to that for it is clear when I pray, “Hallowed be thy name” that there are parts of my spiritual life that do not approach the intimations of this passage. Having said that I feel like I’ve gotten close to my “fidget line,” because this segment of the Lord’s Prayer confronts me with some of my spiritual shortcomings.

If at this point you believe that I am trying to make anybody feel guilty or ashamed of his or her spiritual life please let go of that idea. My reflections lead me to considerations about my life, not yours. I ask you for the privilege of allowing me to make these self revelations in order that I can illustrate how reflection on the Eucharist, as well as participation in it, can be a helpful means of opening one’s life to the healing grace God gives through each Eucharist. If what I discover for myself is useful to you that is a bonus and illustrates that all of us have more in common than we might at first believe.

To conclude this portion of my commentary on the Lord’s Prayer I want to address the next passage, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” There is an assumption in this segment that no one can prove, it is that heaven exists as a state of being, whether in the life to come or both now and in the life to come. I lean toward the second of these two assumptions because I trust that heaven does exist and has existed from the beginning of all things because it is the product of the Creator and therefore shares in God’s infinite nature. Heaven is therefore has been present and is present now for all created things. As to the future, I assert that God meets each new moment as it comes and is able to apply Divine grace to its circumstances regardless of their nature.

As a result of the idea of heaven’s reality I am, in essence, alleging that we humans are amphibious, that is, we are both material and spiritual. This may be true of other creatures that share our planet but I cannot with any certainty claim this quality for them because I have no way of understanding their nature as God has designed it. If we are indeed amphibious then we are at all times dwelling in a reality that has two components, the material and the spiritual. We are reasonably familiar with the material, although we still have an enormous amount of information to discover regarding its many mysteries. It is the spiritual that we seem to have more trouble understanding, yet we are spiritual beings, created by God to have a relationship of a redemptive nature with the Divine. This requires of us no small degree of intentionality because our senses do not detect the spiritual aspect of creation in any kind of automatic way. We have to pay attention to the nuances of life for that is where the spiritual intersects the material. What we are praying for in this segment is the ability to perceive God’s purposes for the spiritual part of humanity so that we may act in a way that brings them into effect in the material aspect of reality.

You may ask, “How does this come about?” I look to Jesus who, when he taught, had a favorite expression that helps inform what I mean to say here; “Let the one who has ears to hear, hear and eyes to see, see.” In other words we cannot understand or serve the purposes of heaven, which I perceive as that state of being in which God’s grace rules without exception, nor can we bring its rule into effect the material world unless we actively seek to listen and look with a trust that we will hear and see God’s purposes for this life. In our world of today that is not easy to do, unless we work at it intentionally every day, only then can we serve God’s purposes and as God did in Christ bring heaven to earth and earth to heaven. That is a most solemn and daunting challenge for we live in a world that is filled with noise and rapid dissemination of information leading us to expect that God will communicate as we humans do. That way will lead to disappointment for God neither acts nor communicates with us the way we do with each other. Isaiah said it best when he wrote of God’s methods: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” (Isa. 55:8) We are called, when we pray the Lord’s Prayer to give ourselves over, surrender if you will, to the purposes of heaven and I maintain that they are a good deal different than the purposes of earth. We are asking God to use us to bring heaven to earth and that cannot happen until we open ourselves to let the purposes of heaven rule in our lives. Again, Jesus is the exemplar for how this is done. And again the question arises, “Do we exemplify our exemplar?

I conclude with a prayer from page 832 in our Prayer Book that, if we truly follow its implications will undoubtedly alter our lives toward the direction to which I have already alluded.

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.”