Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.
These words begin one of the most well-known prayers in the English language. For centuries the rhythm and cadences of the King James Version of the Lord’s Prayer have informed the life of prayer of English-speaking believers. It is a prayer most of us have used at home, at school, at church, and perhaps even in the hospital. I think I was in grade 3 before they took it out of the public schools in Ontario. And this prayer is equally well known in all European languages. One of the test paragraphs linguists use to compare language structures is the Lord’s Prayer. It is a prayer which transcends language. After all it is the only prayer which Jesus expressly commanded His disciples to pray, when He again teaches it on another occasion in Luke 11.
Martin Luther once called the Lord’s Prayer the ‘greatest martyr’ since so many use it without thinking. As such, over the coming five Wednesdays we will dig into what the Lord’s Prayer means, referring to our catechisms–both small and large– and to grow in our own prayer life as a result. If you would like to bring your Bible or your Catechism to coming Wednesdays, please do so. The messages for our midweeks are going to be a little more teaching-oriented and a little less preaching-oriented this year.
Maybe the first question is why we bother with prayer, in general. Do we not teach and believe that God is omniscient–all knowing, omnipotent–all powerful, and omnipresent–everywhere? Surely God already knows what we need and why we need it. What value is there in prayer? Yet here it needs to be noted that we are instructed and commanded by God to call upon Him. As we learn in the Second Commandment, “We should fear and love God that we may... call upon His name in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.”
Again, the Large Catechism notes, “Praying, as the Second Commandment teaches, is to call upon God in every need. He requires this of us and has not left it to our choice. But it is our duty and obligation to pray, if we would be Christians, just as it is our duty and obligation to obey our parents and the government. For by calling upon God’s name and praying, His name is honoured and used well. This you must note above all things, so that you may silence and reject thoughts that would keep and deter us from prayer.” (LC, III, 8)
We pray because God tells us we should, firstly. That’s law. God demands His people talk to Him. It’s a pretty reasonable law, right up there with your parents demanding you eat your vegetables. It’s a law that when followed only results in good for the one who keeps it. But God hasn’t just given His law, but also His promises. As Psalm 50:15 says, “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” Jesus also reminds us, in Matthew 7:7-11, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
We can be bold to pray to God because He has promised to give good things to those who ask. He has promised to hear us. Romans 8 tells us that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, making even what seems like worthless, fumble-mouthed prayers worthy petitions to our Father in heaven.
And what better way to pray than to use God’s own Word? The rhythm of prayer is one of hearing God’s Word of Law and Promise and then responding to it in a heart of faith, calling upon God in everything. As we noted earlier, the Lord’s Prayer, not the prayer of Jabez or any other such prayer, is the one prayer in Scripture which God’s people are expressly commanded to pray. As the Large Catechism says,
In addition to this commandment and promise, God expects us and He Himself arranges the words and form of prayer for us. He places them on our lips for how and what we should pray (Psalm 51:15), so that we may see how heartily He pities us in our distress (Psalm 4:1), and we may never doubt that such prayer is pleasing to Him and shall certainly be answered. This (the Lord’s Prayer) is a great advantage indeed over all other prayers that we might compose ourselves. For in our own prayers the conscience would ever be in doubt and say, “I have prayed, but who knows if it pleases Him or whether I have hit on the right proportions and form?” Therefore, there is no nobler prayer to be found upon earth than the Lord’s Prayer. We pray it daily (Matthew 6:11), because it has this excellent testimony, that God loves to hear it. We ought not surrender this for all the riches of the world. (LC III, 22-23)
So the Lord’s Prayer is a prayer God wants us to pray, because it is His Word as well as a prayer. Having said that, it is important not to just rattle off the words unthinkingly. To pray with your mouth while your mind is wandering off somewhere else is not making the proper use of prayer, either. Prayer, to be truly prayer, requires faith in God’s promise. Anyone can speak the Lord’s Prayer, but to truly pray it requires trust that God will do what we ask of Him in this prayer–that He will make His name holy, that His kingdom will come, that His will will be done, that He will give us daily bread, that He will forgive our sins, that He will lead us not from temptation, that He will deliver us from evil. To speak without faith is to get caught up in the vain repetitions that our Lord condemns the Pharisees for, to babble like the pagans do. But to pray in faith is to move mountains, as Jesus says elsewhere in the Gospels.
As such, prayer needs also to be a daily habit. God desires us to pray “without ceasing” as the Apostle Paul reminded the Thessalonians. We should pray over anything affecting our interests. We should pray for our pastor, our churches, the government, our neighbours, our friends, our employers or employees, and most of all, for God to hold up His Word in all occasions. Again, as the Large Catechism notes, “All our shelter and protection rest in prayer alone. For we are far too weak to deal with the devil and all his power and followers who set themselves against us. They might easily crush us under their feet. Therefore, we must consider and take up those weapons with which Christians must be armed in order to stand against the devil (2 Cor 10:4, Eph 6:11).” (LC, III, 30)
With that in mind, let us consider this greatest of prayers our Lord Jesus has given us to pray, learning from Him how we are to ask God of all our needs.
Our Father who art in heaven. What does this mean? By these words God would tenderly invite us to believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so that we may ask Him confidently with all assurance, as dear children as their dear father.
Our Father. God wants to be your dad. Not just any run-of-the-mill father either, but a good one. One who knows every need that you or I may have, one who willingly provides from His bounty all that we need to support this body and life.
In confirmation classes, I will often make note that the Lord’s Prayer is really just praying what we learn in the other parts of the catechism. When we say, “Our Father who art in heaven” we are not just asking God our Father to hear us, but we are also reminding ourselves of what we have already learned of Him in the First Article of the Creed:
I believe that God has made me and all creatures, that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still preserves them. He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life. He defends me against danger and guards and protects me from all evil. All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all that it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true.
He’s that kind of dad. You know, the kind that when you need stuff, it’s always there. Maybe not everything you want–He’s not out to spoil you–but definitely everything you need. And He’s not afraid to punish you if and when you deserve it; but He only punishes you with a goal to getting you to get things right next time. God wants to be your dad, and in order for that to work out, you need to talk to Him. You need to listen to what He has to say, and you need to talk to Him. The rhythm of prayer–hearing the Word and responding in faith-full prayer.
But the neat thing is that unlike a human father, who has momentary lapses of attention–ask Kelly if I can sometimes be in outer space–God is always attentive to our calling. We can be confident that He hears us, for He has promised, and His promise is true. He made that promise to you when you became His own in Baptism, and it has no expiry date.
Hallowed be Thy Name. What does this mean? God’s name is certainly holy in itself but we pray in this petition that it may be kept holy among us also. How is God’s name kept holy? God’s name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity and we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! But anyone who teaches or lives contrary to God’s Word profanes the name of God among us. Protect us from this, heavenly Father!
God’s name. YHWH. Father. It is placed on you and me in Baptism, and remains on us as Christians. We pray that God’s holy name be kept holy among us–that is, we pray that we would live according to the name we have.
Think about it this way–each of us who is in Christ now bears His name. As such, everything we do in this world reflects Christ to others. There are two possibilities for how this works out, therefore: if we are doing things according to God’s Word and in God’s way, then it reflects positively on Christ. If we teach only what God’s Word teaches, without messing things up, then it reflects positively on Christ, even if the world should disagree. If we are doing things contrary to God’s Word, or teaching things which are against the word of God, then we profane, make dirty, the name of God given to us. Even if doing things contrary to God’s Word makes our lives or our faith more acceptable in the world’s eyes, we are called to be transformed by Christ and not conformed to the pattern of this world, as Paul says in Romans 12.
As the Large Catechism notes, “You see that in this petition we pray for exactly what God demands in the Second Commandment. We pray that His name not be taken in vain to swear, curse, lie, deceive and so on, but be used well for God’s praise and honor. For whoever uses God’s name for any sort of wrong profanes and desecrates this holy name.” (LC, III, 45)
This is why the Lutheran church has such practices as confirmation classes where we study the catechism. We want our members to know the truth of God’s Word. This is why churches have the right to practice church discipline. People who are openly living contrary to God’s Word need to be reminded that it is not their own name or reputation that they harm but rather God’s name and reputation. And this is why each of us, each day, needs to pray for God’s mercy and strength. For each of us sins against the Lord in many and various ways, in thought, word, and deed. And we need God’s grace. As the Scriptures say, God will not hold him blameless who misuses His name. By Baptism we have God’s name on us. We are called to use His gifts of forgiveness and grace in our dealings with others, to live as God’s holy people and give a positive witness to who we are in Christ.
As such, we pray this evening that God would not deal with us according to our sin but according to His grace poured out on us through baptism, for the sake of Jesus His Son who died for sins in order to give Baptism its cleaning power. We pray that He would give us strength to live this week as His holy people. And we pray that He would be what people see when they look at us–that His name would be holy among us also. In Jesus. Amen.
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