“Our Holy Creator”
Matthew 6:9
Exodus
20:7 (The Message): No using
the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won’t put up with the
irreverent use of his name.
Matthew 6:9 (Barclay): Our Father in heaven, may your name be held
in reverence.
Frederich Buechner: “We
do well not to pray [the Lord’s Prayer] lightly. It takes guts to pray it at all. We can pray it in the unthinking and
perfunctory way we usually do only by disregarding what we are saying… It is
only the words ‘Our Father’ that make the prayer bearable. If God is indeed something like a father,
then as something like children maybe we can risk approaching him…”
[prayer]
“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed
be thy name…” Thus begins that prayer our Lord Jesus taught his
disciples of every generation to pray.
We call it The Lord’s Prayer. Our
Roman Catholic brothers and sisters refer to simply as “Our Father.” Our Father – in heaven – whose name we hold
in reverence.
God
the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
Our creating, sustaining, omnipotent, omniscient God, the God whose face
Moses could not look upon and live. The
God in whose presence Isaiah trembled.
The magnificent, awesome God, King of all creation, who is beyond our
comprehension.
And
Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord. God
incarnate, the Word made flesh and dwelling among us. The Father God who modeled perfect humanity
in his only Son, Jesus. The intimate,
knowable God who sweat, and cried, and bled, and died. The redeeming God.
The
Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. The Spirit
of God, the breath of God, the wind of God, the Comforter promised by Jesus on
the night of his betrayal. The God by
whom we are enabled to understand the revelation of himself in his holy
Word. The sustaining and empowering God.
The
Father that Jesus called “Abba” – daddy.
The jealous God of Exodus who is passionate in pursuit of his children,
the God who does not give up on his lost people, but follows them to the ends
of the earth. A God who wants a
relationship with us. A God whose
steadfast love endures forever. A Father
who responds to his children. A God who
is approachable instead of remote, a God who is with us instead of isolated
from us. A Father who does not insulate
himself from his children.
He
is also a God who is our Father in ways that go far beyond traditional
fatherhood. He is portrayed in one of
the parables of Jesus found in the 15th Chapter of Luke as a
housewife who will not stop searching until she finds that precious and
valuable lost coin. The God made known
in the person of Jesus who lamented over
God
is our Father. In him true fatherhood is
perfected. God is our Father, a Father
in whom is also perfected true motherhood.
God is the daddy to whom we can go in times of trouble. God is the Father who deals with us in what
our culture considers to be motherly ways: tenderness, compassion, intimacy,
and protectiveness.
Our
Father God is, in the words of James Ayers, “…
someone who will be at our side in the midst of sorrow, to hold us up and
encourage us… someone who will be at our side in the midst of conflict, to act
on our behalf… the mama bear who comes crashing out of the woods, telling
[those who threaten us] not to mess with her cub…”
Our
Father God is the One who stands with us when we’ve sinned or otherwise messed
up our lives, again quoting James Ayers,
“… not to minimize what [we] have done wrong, but to comfort [us]… not to
advocate for what [we] have done wrong, but to advocate for [us], for the
[ones] who [have] twisted [our] own [lives] up in knots…” The One who says, “Well things have gone wrong; but [I] still love you… so things have
gone wrong; how do we make them go right.”
Our
Father God is “I AM,” a vulnerable God, the God who reveals his name to
us. In ancient cultures to know
someone’s name was to have power over that person. When Jesus cast out the demon in the first
chapter of Mark the exorcism is seen as even more miraculous than it otherwise
would have been. Why? The demon already knew Jesus’ name. The demon began his conflict with Jesus
believing that he was already one up on the Lord. He believed Jesus to be at a
disadvantage. O how wrong he was! God’s vulnerability is never to be mistaken
for weakness.
When
God made covenant with
When
Jesus first taught the Lord’s Prayer, the words “hallowed by thy name” reaffirmed the Third Commandment. They restated as a positive what had
previously been stated as a negative.
Rather than a warning about misusing God’s name – don’t do it! - the
words became a positive affirmation of how to take God’s name seriously, how to
recognize and honor the place of God in our lives. In a word, how to give God the reverence he
deserves.
The
phrase “in heaven” reinforces the holiness of not only God’s name, but God
himself. It reinforces the reverence in
which we are to hold our Father God and his holy name. As we said in this morning’s prayer of
confession, ours is a God of grace and a God of glory. For all his intimacy and vulnerability God is
still all-powerful. Although he is
approachable he is still the Lord God Almighty.
Although he has revealed himself to us in the person of Jesus he is
still divine. He is God and we are
not. He is the Lord. We are his subjects. He is our loving Father. We are to be his reverent and obedient
children.
How
do we go about doing that? Obviously we
obey the Third Commandment by not taking God’s name in vain or trying to use it
to manipulate him. What else? By living our lives in ways that reflect his
holiness, ways that show our devotion to him.
By behaving in ways that lift up his name instead of desecrate it. By respecting God for whom he is, trusting
that he is God, placing our faith in his ability to save and redeem us. By over and over and over again affirming, by
word, deed, and attitude that God is who he says he is.
By
going to him in prayer, seeking him in his Word and opening ourselves to the
leading of his Spirit. By following his
commandments and living out the Beatitudes of Jesus. By being his faithful and obedient
children. By reflecting his fatherly
treatment of us by dealing with one another in loving, compassionate, and
forgiving ways. By being the light of
Christ in a world of darkness and the salt of Christ in a corrupt and lifeless
culture. Honoring him by living
honorable lives. By proclaiming and
displaying his justice, mercy, and peace in all our relationships and human
interactions. By not abusing his good
creation or ever misusing any man, woman, or child. By being faithful stewards of all of our
Father’s good gifts. By making,
budgeting, and spending our money in ways that honor our God. By being the people he created us to be.
Our
Father who is in heaven. Yours is a name
to be held in reference. This is how the
prayer Jesus taught his disciples begins.
Let us join now in the version of the Lord’s Prayer that can be found in
today’s bulletin insert:
[The Lord’s Prayer]