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The Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”
Genesis 9:8-13
Luke 11:1-13
Lynnewood United Methodist Church
Rev. Heather Leslie Hammer
February 22, 2015
Today as we begin Lent, we begin an examination of prayer: how Jesus taught us to pray,
and then, as we approach Holy Week, how Jesus himself prayed in the Garden of
Gethsemane. We will be looking at each line of The Lord’s Prayer, trying to understand it in
a deeper way. Many of us have said this prayer at least once a week all our lives. I can’t
remember ever trying to learn it; I simply grew up with it. And although we have
modernized bibles we read from, and new hymns to replace old hymns, we still say the
Lord’s Prayer in its King James English….Tradition!
It’s a shame, really, that children have to say these old fashioned words. I would rather
teach our children the version of The Lord’s Prayer that they will read in their bibles, but
that would be a big break with tradition, and I’m not sure the church is ready for that. (You
tell me!) Today we heard the version of The Lord’s Prayer as we find it in the Gospel of
Luke in the New Revised Standard Version. And I will invite you to say it in that form
during our prayer time. Sometimes, by changing the words a bit, we think more about the
meaning of what we are saying. That is the point during Lent this year.
My family lived in Vienna, Austria when I was in the 6th grade. The first half of the year we
attended an English-speaking international church. The pastor was Canadian. The second
half of the year we attended an Austrian Methodist Church, with the services conducted in
German. There were still words and expressions I couldn’t understand in German, but The
Lord’s Prayer was repeated every week, so it was easy to learn, and, of course, easy to
understand. “Unser Vater, der du bist im Himmel. Dein Name werde geheiligt…” Our
Father, you are in heaven. Your name is to be made holy…I thought about the exact
meaning of the words.
There is no Lord’s Prayer in the Gospel of Mark, the earliest Gospel. The prayer, sometimes
called “the Jesus Prayer,” or “the Our Father,” is only in Luke and in Matthew. It is shorter
in Luke, which makes me think that the Luke version preceded the Matthew version. So
we are beginning today with Luke.
The text says in Luke, that Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he finished, one of
his disciples asked him to teach the people around him to pray. Jesus spoke about prayer
with the assumption that people do pray. He said, “’When you pray, say: Father, hallowed
be your name’”—he didn’t say if you pray. Apparently John the Baptist had taught his
disciples to pray also because the disciples asked Jesus to teach them like John taught his
disciples. Prayer was certainly an important part of every Jewish person’s practice.
Orthodox Jews pray at least three times a day.
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The Lord’s Prayer begins with “Our Father,” in the traditional form we generally recite.
Jesus called God “Father” to demonstrate his intimate relationship with God. God is called
“Father” in the Old Testament occasionally, but that is only one name for God. Jesus called
God “Father,” really as a metaphor or as an analogy: God is to us, as a father is to a child.
In our text today, Luke has Jesus say, “Who among you ‘if your child asks for a fish, will give
a snake instead of a fish?’” It’s like saying, what father would not provide for his own child?
To use the name “Father” for God is to emphasize a relationship of unconditional love and
promise of care. Both mother and father are used in the Hebrew Bible as metaphors for
God; Jesus uses “Father,” but he could have used “Mother.” In a patriarchal society, it is not
surprising that Jesus used Father. But the point was less about gender and more about a
caring, parental relationship. To say, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” is to say God is like a
father, but not an earthly one.
So, “Our Father” shows intimacy. It also shows community. It shows God’s covenant
established way back after the flood, to be in relation with God’s people. Jesus didn’t say,
“My Father,” when he was teaching his disciples to pray. In Luke he just says, “Father,” but
in Matthew, he says, “Our Father.” God is God of all, and this prayer reminds us that when
we say this prayer we are connected to believers around the world. Christians being
persecuted in Nigeria and Libya today pray, “Our Father.” Christians living in poverty in
Alameda County say, “Our Father.” We pray to the same God. The words “Our Father”
remind us who God is, but they also remind us who we are: God’s children who should care
about all of God’s children as our brothers and sisters. The words, “Our Father,” unite us.
This is our one worldwide Christian prayer.
In South Korea today Christianity is on the rise. A church in Seoul has had early morning
prayer services for more than ten years. At first 40 people gathered, now 12,000 people
gather at 4:00, 5:00, and 6:00 am. They have to shut the doors at 4:00, and many people
wait until 5:00 to get in. It’s cold, and they bring tea and wait outside an hour for the next
prayer service to start (Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, 198). You might
wonder why the people don’t just stay home and pray by themselves? In Korean culture a
large prayer service has tremendous appeal. There is something about praying to “our
Father” together with many voices.
The words, “Our Father,” also remind us who Jesus is. Jesus did not pray to the “King (or
Master) of the Universe,” common names for God in the Old Testament and in Jewish
prayers, but not common in the Gospels. Jesus was not interested in royalty or hierarchy.
Jesus met with sinners and lepers. He wanted to hang out with the poor. “Our Father” put
him in relationship with “the least of these,” with all humanity. Don’t be proud, Jesus
teaches in Matthew, “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to
stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by
others” (Matthew 6:5). This is Jesus in all humility. When we say, “Our Father,” we
remember that we are part of the human family and that we mustn’t stand above anyone.
The second phrase of the Lord’s Prayer is “hallowed be thy name,” or in some translations,
“May your holy name be honored” (Good News Translation) or “uphold the holiness of your
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name” (Common English Bible). No one ever says “hallowed,” in everyday language. I wonder
if we even think about what we mean by “hallowed be thy name.” You might be on a hike,
and you stop to watch the wind blowing in the grass on a hillside, and you breathe in the
smell of blossoms, and feel the sun on your face—it’s a holy moment! (You’re probably not
going to say, “This is a hallowed hike.”) But it is a moment when you stop to experience
God in nature. When we pray, “hallowed be thy name” this is a line of praise: “You are
holy!” It is like our hymn of praise today: “Holy, holy, holy”—we want to sing it 3 times!
When we sing this hymn, we remember why we are here in church: to give God praise.
So, the beginning of The Lord’s Prayer is really a reminder of who God is and how we are to
be in God’s presence: in humble praise. Walter Brueggemann answers the question, “Why
pray?” by saying: “We pray because our life comes from God and we yield it back in prayer.
Prayer is a great antidote to the illusion that we are self-made”
(http://www.walterbrueggemann.com/2013/05/06/qa-with-brueggemann-1-why-pray/). Prayer takes
us beyond ourselves and connects us with the divine and with all humanity.
Once I was visiting a friend in the hospital who had colon cancer. The doctor had opened
her up and simply had to close; the cancer was too large. My friend was weak and sad. I
suggested we pray. I made up some prayer—I said just something—and then I started the
Lord’s Prayer. She joined in with a strong voice. And at the end she continued and recited
the whole Apostle’s Creed from memory. This was, for me, such a powerful moment. My
friend was able to pull forth what she had memorized many years ago and make this
moment sacred, and she affirmed her faith. It said to me that this was a woman whose
belief in God was unshakable.
Rob Bell has an interesting way of talking about who God is. He says that 5 words help us
know God. They are funny little words: open, both, with, for, and ahead (What We Talk about
When We Talk about God, 117-173). God is open and, so, accessible in a world that is always
changing. God is in relationship, and always both partners matter. We can both speak to
God and stand in awe and silence before God. God is with us, not against us, but on our side,
and so much on our side that we really can’t get away from God. God is for us, working for
a better life, for a better world. (It’s pretty amazing really, that God is for us, even when we
make messes of our lives.) And God is ahead of us, always moving forward. God sees a far
greater picture than we can see, a far greater purpose. This is why we want to pray. It
makes us know we are not alone; it makes us know change is possible.
Our book group just read The Passion of Reverend Nash by Rachel Basch. It’s the story of a
female minister who has had tremendous losses in her life; she’s a great pastor, but she
gets too involved in her counseling relationships with parishioners, and she “loses it.” Her
sister’s family is very close, but Rev. Jordanna rejects their help. One fall night, in the
middle of the night, Rev. Jordanna takes off on her bicycle. It’s like she has to get away—
from herself. She skids on a smashed pumpkin on the road by her church. She flies off her
bike and lands with a bad head injury and broken arm. Her nephew Brendan happens to be
out riding too. He recognizes her on the street and stops, calls 911, and then stays with her
while they wait for the ambulance. Jordanna comes to, and the next day she remembers,
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her nephew was saying something there as they waited, the two of them in the night. Was
it a poem he was saying? Something familiar, like the words to a song? Then she
remembered his words, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who…” (286). It was The
Lord’s Prayer. Her teenage nephew was reciting The Lord’s Prayer in the middle of the
night by her side as she was coming back to consciousness.
What else would a person know to say? What else would a young person have memorized
and have handy to say? The Lord’s Prayer is, in fact, one of the very few things most of us
could pull up at such a moment. Most of us haven’t memorized much of anything else,
except maybe the Pledge of Allegiance, maybe the Gettysburg Address if we had a good
history teacher in high school. Or a bit of Shakespeare from an English class. Possibly the
23rd Psalm…
When Brendan said The Lord’s Prayer he brought God into the picture. The moment
changed from a frightening time, a helpless time, to God’s time. Brendan was giving the
situation over to God—now that he had called for help, covered his aunt to keep her warm,
and checked her for bleeding. He had done all he could do; no—he could do more: he could
call on God with words. Saying a prayer at a time like that was actually doing a lot. The
words brought comfort to both people. They brought something familiar to a scene that
was otherwise foreign and frightening. The words admitted that although this was an
emergency, it was also a holy time—a life or death time—a time God should be part of the
conversation. And so, the words of The Lord’s Prayer became that conversation. “Our
Father”—we need you here—“who art in heaven”—you are greater than we are—
“hallowed be thy name”—you can do what we cannot do, that’s why we call upon your
name…
“’Prayer changes things,’ people say. It also changes us,” says Richard Foster in his book on
prayer. When we pray, we stretch out to God, beyond the immediate of the situation
(Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, 57-59). Often in our most vulnerable times, we are able to
find connection with God. Saying The Lord’s Prayer aloud can be a bridge to God and a
bridge to changing one’s own perspective. We can let go and be.
That bridge to God is two-way. We say the words—even by rote memory—and we focus
up from earth to heaven. And we also put trust in God to come down from heaven to earth.
We believe in God’s power to make a difference.
Saying The Lord’s Prayer is part of our tradition. It’s one that serves us well.
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