The Lord’s Prayer, Part 1

A Sermon on Luke 11:1-13

Preached July 29, 2001

By Donald M. Tuttle

First Christian Church, Corpus Christi, Texas

Now I know that may not be the most important question in the world, but for the life of me I could not remember. Normally I shower, dress, shave, eat breakfast then brush my teeth before finishing my last cup of coffee. But I couldn’t remember if I had done it or not on that particular morning.

Maybe this was my first "senior" moment. Maybe it was just a "senior pastor" moment. But I think the explanation is simpler. So habitual is my morning routine, so ingrained is the pattern of my mornings, that I don’t even think about it. And what we don’t think about can be lost to us.

Take the Lord’s Prayer as an example. Every Sunday we gather here, sing the opening hymn, listen to the invocation and pray "the prayer that Jesus taught us." It is a wonderful moment we share, lifting our voices as one. Yet the very fact that we do it every week at the same time in the same way can deaden us to what it is that we are actually saying. It can become vain repetition. We can say the words but soon forget what it is that we have said.

Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer offers us an opportunity to reflect on this prayer. As you have heard, it is simpler than the one in Matthew’s Gospel, the one we use in worship. In fact, most scholars suggest it is the more original of the two. Whatever the case, its brevity invites us to think about what we mean when we pray on Sunday mornings. I want us to accept that invitation. For the next two Sundays, I want us to not simply pray the Lord’s Prayer but to examine it in more detail. Today we will explore the first three lines; next week the final three.

So where do we begin?

At the beginning, with "Father."

Notice that Luke begins with just "Father." It is an acclamation—the type of greeting a child gives a returning parent at the airport. "Father!" "Daddy!"

Of course, that term has come under scrutiny these last many years. Feminist scholars have made us sensitive to the paternalistic contexts from which Scripture arose and the difficulty some people have in envisioning God as Father because of their experiences with their own fathers. Still, "Father" is not a term from which we can get away. It is the term Jesus used of God. It is the term Jesus taught his disciples to use of God. And it is the term that has been handed down to us to use. It is part and parcel of the witness of Scripture. So whatever struggles we may have with the term, whatever struggles we may have with our weak and fallible fathers, the image of God as Father remains—and for good reason. It bespeaks the nature of God. Through Christ, we discover that God is not primarily Creator. God is not primarily Master. God is not primarily even Friend. God is Father. Our relationship to God is one in which we turn to God and find someone who loves, nurtures, guides and protects us. We find one in whom we feel secure. We find someone who is the best of what it means to be a parent.

In his book Prayer, Richard Foster captures this sense of God as Father without ever using the term. He says that God invites us into his home, into his living room, where we can put on old slippers and share; into his kitchen where chatter and batter mix in good fun; into the dining room where we can feast to our heart’s delight; into the study, where we can learn and grow; into the bedroom of his rest, where peace abounds.

To pray "Father" means to speak to one who loves us and holds us dear, one who knows us better than we know ourselves and seeks nothing but the best for us.

Is that the God to whom we prayed this morning? Or is the God we have come here to worship distant, abstract, some "force in the universe?" Or is the God you have come to know "Father?"

Of course, "Father" is only the beginning of this prayer.

There is a story of a child who had a hard time with the second phrase in the Lord’s Prayer. He was in Sunday School when the teacher asked if God had a name. The youngster’s hand shot up.

"I know, I know," he said. "God’s name is Harold."

"Harold?" the stunned teacher asked.

"Sure," the boy said. "Our Father, Harold be thy name..."

While we might laugh at this youngster’s error, we might also have to admit to having little understanding of the petition "hallowed be thy name." Years ago, Elton Trueblood wrote that it was a shame that we can’t understand or appreciate the Hebrew’s sense of mystery about a name, particularly God’s name. For the Hebrews, a name stood for one’s character, integrity and power. It conveyed the depths of who that person was. It’s closest equivalent today may be a signature on a legal document. When one signs one’s name on such a document it conveys that the full nature of person is behind it—all he or she is and has.

To pray "hallowed be thy name" is to pray that God—the God of our ancestors, the God of the prophets, the God of Jesus—might be vindicated, recognized as holy by every human being. It is to pray that he will be extolled in all the earth. It is to pray that all God is might be known, recognized and worshipped.

We can say those words of Sunday morning, but we cannot pray them without a commitment to mission. To pray those words with integrity means that we truly want the whole world to come to know and love God. And if that is what we want, then we have no choice but to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with people in our family, with our friends, with co-workers, with the whole world. We have no choice but to minister to people, to serve them in the name of Jesus Christ, so that they can know God and bless his name, so that God might be hallowed.

The third line of the Lord’s Prayer also poses for us a challenge. We pray "thy kingdom come." The kingdom of God is one of the most important concepts in all of Scripture. And for good reason. There is something within us that longs for the day in which the perfection surrendered by Adam and Eve in the Garden will be restored. There is something within us that longs for the intimacy with God that is not hampered by the earthly vessel in which we live. There is something within us that longs for the justice, righteousness and peace that are inherent in the reign of God.

Yet how serious are we when we pray for the kingdom to come?

In an article in Sojourner’s magazine, Stanley Hauerwas noted that the kingdoms of the earth are marked by borders and boundaries, by checkpoints and crossing guards. They take great care to determine who is in and who is out, who is acceptable and who is not.

Yet the kingdom of God has no borders or boundaries.

Nationality? It doesn’t matter.

Ethnicity? It doesn’t matter.

Language? It doesn’t matter.

Skin color? It doesn’t matter.

Political affiliation? It doesn’t matter.

Economic status? It doesn’t matter.

Liberal? Conservative? It doesn’t matter.

Theological point of view? It doesn’t matter.

The kingdom of God, the kingdom for which we pray every week, breaks down every human division. Are we ready for such a kingdom?

It was not all that long ago that African-Americans had to boycott buses, march in the streets and face the wrath of many an Anglo to secure their rightful place in the United States—and in our churches.

It was not that long ago that women were treated as second-class citizens. Even today they struggle to be accepted in the leadership of our society and in our congregations.

It was just at the end of Vacation Bible School when a grandmother whose children had attended was invited to worship with us on Sunday. Her reply: "Oh, I don’t have nice enough clothes to come to this church," a testimony to the reality that not only our nation but our churches are divided between rich and poor, haves and have nots.

Are we ready for the kingdom of God? Are we ready to work even now to break down the barriers and erase the boundaries, to give the world a glimpse of the kingdom yet to come? That is what we say when we pray, "thy kingdom come."

Thomas Troeger tells the story of a couple who on their wedding anniversary they would invite in a photographer, dress in their wedding clothes and recite their vows to one another. Through the years they knew poverty and wealth, good times and bad, sickness and health. As they celebrate an anniversary late in their lives they realized it might be their last. But they also realized that the vows they spoke so easily years before were now filled with meaning.