Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name Our Father Stanley Hauerwas – Matthew So our first lesson in prayer is to learn to discipline all our descriptions of God by the appellation to the Father. Whatever it may mean for God to be omnipotent, omnipresent, all knowing, infinite – none of these descriptions are more important or significant than Jesus teaching us to address the Father. Some may worry that addressing God as Father depends on analogies derived from our experiences of our biological fathers. Yet Jesus’ teaching us to call God Father challenges the presumption that we know who God is from our familial experiences. We do not call God Father because we have had or have not had a positive experience of being a father’s child. Rather, all human fathers are measured and judged by the Father’ love of the Son. To pray to God as the Father challenges the status quo of human fatherhood, just as calling the church our family challenges the limitations and sins of our human families. Though we may pray in secret, we always pray with others. We begin to learn to pray by praying to ‘our’ Father… Through the Spirit our prayer is joined to Jesus’ prayer so that when we pray we pray with the whole communion of saints who surround the Father in heaven. John Cassian (360­435) When we confess with our own voice that the God and Father of the universe is Our Father, we are affirming that we have in fact been taken out of our servile condition and given sonship by adoption. Bede of Wearmouth and Jarrow (673­735) And here the priest joins his hands and says ‘Let us pray’, and the church prays with the priest not in voice but in heart. In silence the heart cries to God in the ears of God, ‘Our Father’. The only begotten Son has made us sons of God by the font of new birth and the spirit of adoption. So when we do what he says, ‘When you pray, say, “Our Father”, we are acting out of obedience, not out of boldness. The sons must imitate their good father as Isaac imitated Abraham and Jacob Isaac, as he said: “Be ye holy because I the LORD your God am holy” ‘ (Leviticus 20:26). Teresa of Avila (1515­1597) You have a good Father given you by the good Jesus; let no other father be known or referred to here. Strive, my daughters, to be such that you deserve to find comfort in 1
Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name him and to throw yourselves into his arms. You know that, if you are good children, he will never send you away. Reinhold Schneider – Das Vaterunser The Our Father begins with a great consolation: we are allowed to say ‘Father’. This one word contains the whole history of redemption. We are allowed to say ‘Father,’ because the Son was our brother and has revelaed the Father to us; because, thanks to what Christ has done, we have once more become children of God. Matthew 5: 44­45 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 7: 9­11 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Luke 11:13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? John 14: 18­19 Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? John 17:10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. Is God also Our Mother? Isaiah 66:13 As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Isaiah 49:15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. “rahamim” = womb / divine compassion for man / God’s mercy 2
Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name …who art in heaven, Archbishop Rowan Williams: When we’re saying this, we’re saying heaven – God’s place, God’s home – is also our home. As S. Paul says in one of his letters, our citizenship is in heaven – that is, heaven is where we belong. And the kind of relationship that exists in God’s presence in heaven is a relationship of love and trust and intimacy and praise that can be ours here and now. Such short simple words – and yet they tell us that heaven is here on earth because of Jesus, and we can enter into that. Ephesians 3: 14­15 I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named. Matthew 23:9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. John Cassian: Avoid with utter horror staying in the dwelling‐place of this present life; here we live on earth as on a journey and are kept at a far distance from our Father. Let us instead hasten with great desire to that region in which we say that our Father dwells. Teresa of Avila: We have no need to go to heaven or to speak in a lour voice; however quietly we speak he is so near that he will hear us… There are those who are able to shut themselves up in this way within this little heaven of the soul wherein dwells the Maker of heaven and earth; they will come without fail to drink of the water of the fountain of life. 3
Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name Hallowed be thy name… Exodus 3 6Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. 14And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. 15And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. John 17:6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. John Cassian: Hallowed be thy name – this is done by self‐giving service by Christ in us for the sake of all. We testify that our desire and joy is the glory of the Father, since we have become imitators of him… So we pray that the holiness that was created in us then at baptism by the invocation of God may fill us for ever so that we may not corrupt it but, just as we were once made holy, so we may remain so for all eternity. If anyone is a good Christian he does good work, so that in this way the name of Christ is hallowed in his servants… Alcuin of York (736­804) Make us such, Father, that we may deserve to understand and grasp how great your hallowing is… that you may appear as hallowed in our hallowed way of life. Stanley Hauerwas: ‘Hallowed be your name’, the name we have learned from Jesus, is at the heart of what it means to be called to holiness. To hallow God’s name is to live lives of prayer. It is to pray that we lead lives that glorify God. Archbishop Rowan Williams: When you say ‘Hallowed be thy name’, understand what you’re talking about – you’re talking about God. This is serious; this is the most wonderful and frightening reality that we could imagine. And that’s why it’s all the more extraordinary that we should be able to approach God as Father. 4