Table of contents for Into the Lord's Prayer

1. Into the Lord’s Prayer - Introduction
2. Our Father in heaven
3. Hallowed be your name
4. Your kingdom come

This is part of a series called “Into the Lord’s Prayer”, looking closer at how we use the framework of the prayer and making it relevant and useful to us today.

Jesus went to great pains to explain to his followers and critics what his father’s “kingdom” was.  There was a great expectation among the Jews of the time that God would come with an army to redeem his Chosen People and give Israel back to them.  They made a mockery of Jesus’ claims to be the Messiah, not because he spoke a load of lies but because he didn’t come in force.  How could a man of peace drive out the Romans?  How could a teacher who spoke in parables inspire an army to go to war?  Jesus’ answer was to go right back to the base of their argument and challenge the very core of what they were expecting - God’s kingdom was not what they were expecting.

However, it is not as straightforward as saying that God’s kingdom is heaven, and that one day the world will end and his believers will be in heaven, and that is what we’re praying for.  To a certain extent, yes we are praying for that final deliverance, but I believe the main thrust of this line (and indeed Jesus’ teaching elsewhere) is that God’s kingdom is here on earth.  How does that tally up?  God’s kingdom is not a physical kingdom, and yet is based on earth?

God made man from dust.  At the end of our lives our bodies return to dust.  Physically speaking, that makes our lives pretty pointless.  And that’s the point Jesus is making here.  God is not so much concerned with our physical selves as our spiritual selves.  God’s kingdom is made up of people, not bodies.  God seeks our hearts and minds, that we may be part of a family so big that ‘kingdom’ is a more adequate description.

When we pray for God’s kingdom to come, one of the main things we are asking for is that more people would come to Christ, that the body of believers would grow in number, that the people around us would come to faith and join the family.  Of course, there’s a problem there, because people don’t become Christians by magic.  Rarely do people come to faith overnight.  Who is going to give the gospel to your next door neighbour?  Who is going to tell the person sitting behind you on the bus?  Who is going to invite your work colleague to church?  You.  Me.  Our prayer, “your kingdom come”, is almost a promise.  We pray for opportunities to speak to people about God, but we need to be the ones actually taking those opportunities when God provides them.  We need to be the active component of encouraging the expansion of God’s kingdom.

Table of contents for Into the Lord's Prayer

1. Into the Lord’s Prayer - Introduction
2. Our Father in heaven
3. Hallowed be your name
4. Your kingdom come

This is part of a series called “Into the Lord’s Prayer”, looking closer at how we use the framework of the prayer and making it relevant and useful to us today.

Hallowed?  What on earth does that mean?  Even the majority of Christians will probably struggle to answer that question without resorting to a dictionary.  Myself included.  So, for everyone’s benefit, here is a dictionary definition of that word, just for reference:

hallow: to honour as holy, to make holy, consecrate; as adjective (hallowed), greatly revered or respected.

Any clearer?  Maybe a little.  In essence, we are saying that God’s name is holy and that we respect him.  But what exactly does that mean?

As an instruction, it may be taken that we should not swear by taking the Lord’s name in vain.  That’s a fairly well recognised instruction, as seen in the Ten Commandments, but (and I’m aware that I’m pointing the finger here) I know many people who call themselves Christians who say “oh my god” in normal conversation.  Most, if challenged, would probably say it was a slip of the tongue, but in some ways that makes it worse.  For them, the name of the Lord has become so meaningless that when used out of context they hardly even notice whose name it is.

However, this is perhaps a side issue, because this is a prayer, not a command someone is giving to us.  We are telling God that his name is honoured and respected.  We are confirming that we appreciate God’s greatness, his awesome splendour, and the importance of his identity.  As we come before God in prayer we recognise how great he is, especially in light of our own failings.  It is an affirmation, a declaration, an admission.

But - does God need to be reminded of his greatness?  Do we really need to tell God that we respect him?  Won’t he already know?

In the first line of the Lord’s Prayer we remembered that God was our Father, having adopted us as his sons.  Yes, God knows everything about us, and knows whether or not we actually respect his name.  But a parent still loves to hear it from their child.  There is something special about putting it in words and telling God, even if we know he already knows.  It’s not that we’re telling God something new, or even us reminding ourselves of what we know.  It’s simply that by verbally expressing it in the form of a prayer it somehow becomes more real, more tangible.  It’s like a poet describing how the grass is green - he could just say “the grass was green”, but by describing the hues and textures and smells of it and comparing it to the bit of carpet in the hall the poet can make the greenness of the grass more definite, and we feel more able to reach out and touch it.  In the same way, when we pray “hallowed be your name”, we verbalise the truth, making our commitment to God more solid.

Table of contents for Into the Lord's Prayer

1. Into the Lord’s Prayer - Introduction
2. Our Father in heaven
3. Hallowed be your name
4. Your kingdom come

This is part of a series called “Into the Lord’s Prayer”, looking closer at how we use the framework of the prayer and making it relevant and useful to us today.

You could think of this line as the start of a letter, beginning with the name of the recipient and their address.  The prayer is directed to God, our heavenly Father, who dwells in heaven.  This may sound simple enough, but there are several important things to remember here.

The first thing I want to draw your attention to is the instantaneous contact we have with God.  There are no rituals to perform to get God’s attention (remember Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel?), no lengthy process to make ourselves holy enough to be worthy of talking to God, no waiting for God to be available.  The moment we begin praying, God is listening, right from the first word.  God may be in heaven, but he’s also right here with us, present at all times regardless of whether we’re in church or at home, in a worshipful mood or shouting at other road-users.  It is an honour and a privilege to have this sort of instant access to God, and we should be humble in our prayer that God should allow for this sort of thing, bearing in mind how often we screw up.

Now let’s look quickly at that first word, “Our”.  It’s encouraging to know that we’re praying not just to my God, not just to your God, but to our God.  The same God who listens to you listens to me.  God isn’t some make-believe entity we make up, or something confined to our own imagination.  Our experience of God is shared with all believers.  When God moves amongst us we feel it together, and when we pray we know that God hears all of us.  Your experience of God is just as valid and real as mine.  We are united in faith.  By praying to Our Father we acknowledge that God is universal, beyond language, beyond our individual experience, and capable of listening to all of us, all around the world, all at the same time.

Understanding how God is our father is also an important aspect of our faith, and Jesus goes into detail on this a number of times in his ministry.  On the one hand, God is not our genetic father.  On the other hand, he did create us.  However, the point Jesus stresses is that God has adopted us as children.  From birth we belonged to the world and went our own way, but by becoming Christians we accept God’s rule over us and he adopts us into his family.  More importantly, Jesus says that we will all be sons of God; that’s not a sexist remark, but a clear distinction based on the traditions of the time.  Sons inherited wealth from the father, daughters didn’t.  When Jesus talks about God being our father, he refers to all of us, male or female, being inheritors of the promise of eternal life, the biggest and greatest gift we could ever receive.  And it’s not an inheritance that is diminished in any way by being shared between lots of people, like money is - the promise of eternal life is made all the more wonderful by knowing that we will be among millions of other believers, hopefully our friends and family included!

That leaves us with the concept of God being in heaven.  Despite many revelations of heaven, the details still elude us, which is perhaps part of the attraction.  When John sees heaven (as recorded in Revelation) he describes all sorts of strange things - horns, angels, candlesticks, beasts, animals, crowns, a dragon, and much more.  The imagery is rich with hidden meaning, and theologians have pored over it for centuries trying to figure out what it all means.  I personally love reading Revelation, primarily because I don’t understand it.  The very fact that it’s not clear shows just how wonderful it is - words simply can’t describe it!  I find that very reassuring; if we got to heaven and found it was a little house on a hill, I would be just a little disappointed and start offering suggestions for improvements, which would rather spoil the whole experience.  The fact that heaven is beyond our imagination is comforting - it means I am guaranteed to be awe-struck when I get there.

And the wonderful thing is that God will be there.  The same God we pray to will be right there in heaven, right in front of us.  Through prayer we recognise that we have been allowed a taster of what that will be like - we can talk to God freely right here, right now, because he is right here with us, right in front of us.  Now, we see dimly as through a murky mirror or a sheet of privacy glass.  But when we are in heaven we shall see God in all his glory.

Table of contents for Into the Lord's Prayer

1. Into the Lord’s Prayer - Introduction
2. Our Father in heaven
3. Hallowed be your name
4. Your kingdom come

Several years ago I attended a Chaplaincy Assistants’ Conference, hosted by a university chaplaincy that shall remain anonymous, and which was attended by a handful of Chaplaincy Assistants from across the country.  My initial enthusiasm for the day was soon diminished as I realised how little God seemed to feature in the lives of the other people there (again, naming no names).  The conversations revolved around what they DID, not what God was leading them to do.  Right at the end of the day, the person leading the day said “I suppose we ought to finish with a prayer”.  Finally, I thought, God does get a look-in after all.  “Let’s do an ‘Our Father’”, they continued, “an ‘Our Father’ is always good.”  My stomach churned.

In fact, that actually sums up the ignorance of a lot of people both inside and outside the church.  Many think of the Lord’s Prayer as some magical prayer that ticks all the boxes; after all, they think, Jesus prayed it so it must be good.  It’s crammed into almost every liturgy you’ll find in the Anglican Church, and is used widely elsewhere too.  It’s a prayer children are taught to recite off by heart.  It’s recognisable, memorable, traditional.  And, for the most part, misunderstood.

The crux of my argument stems from the very beginning of verse 9 of Matthew chapter 6: “This, then, is how you should pray”.  Note that Jesus says “how”, not “what”.  The intention, I believe, is not that the prayer should be recited exactly as it is written, but that it should be used as a framework for prayer, a barebones structure for us to fill in the blanks.  Let’s face it, how much of the Lord’s Prayer in its traditional form is directly applicable to us on a personal level?  Not very much, most of the time.

This is not a new idea by any means.  I’m sure many people will agree with me on the above point (indeed, I know someone who is in the process of writing a book all about the topic).  But I feel it is a point worth stressing, nonetheless; every time I join in the Lord’s Prayer at church I feel God challenging me to think deeper and share my thoughts for the edification of the Church.

What I hope to present in forthcoming sections is a breakdown of the Lord’s Prayer, taking it often a line at a time, exploring what is meant by each bit and how it might relate to us personally.  By the end I hope you (and I) will have a better understanding of the prayer, and be able to pray it with confidence and meaning, seeing beyond the mere words and using the prayer rather than simply saying it.  You may also find it helpful to pray a complete prayer for each line, exploring the meaning for yourself.

I was pleasantly surprised, then, when the other day I stumbled across an analogy that was scriptural but relevant to our times.  When I say “scriptural”, it isn’t actually in the Bible, but it does tie in nicely with what is said in the Bible.

First, some background.  It was Back To Church Sunday last week, and as part of the service our vicar invited me up the front to answer a couple of questions.  One of them was something along the lines of “what difference does faith make to your life?”  This isn’t an easy questions for me to answer, because I’ve been a Christian so long that I can’t really compare my life now to my life without God.  However, I did think about it (I had been primed the day before to give me a chance to come up with a suitable answer), and stumbled across this little gem, which is shared in church and felt I could share here too.

The difference God makes to my life is that I don’t have to work in my own strength.  What I do as a Christian isn’t limited by how strong I am, how intelligent I am, how skilled I am, or indeed how much faith I have.  With God, all things are possible, which means that with the Holy Spirit working in me I am capable of far more than I would be on my own.  This is a great reassurance, and takes some of the pressure off!

However, it does raise a question that a lot of non-Christians will use against us - is God just a crutch for the frail?  It’s a valid question, actually.  Without God, where would I be?  Struggling, most likely.  So is God just a crutch, bringing me back to the level of everyone else?

The conclusion I came to was that God was less like a crutch, and more like scaffolding round a building.  You can try to build a house without scaffolding, but you’ll find it more difficult and less accurate, and eventually you’ll reach a point where you just can’t reach to put the next layer of bricks on the walls.  Scaffolding supports the building while it’s being built, and allows growth to happen more easily and more effectively.

God is my scaffolding.  God provides a framework around me, which I can grab hold of and use to build myself up.  God supports me and helps me until the work is finished and I am perfected in heaven.  As illustrated many times in the Bible, God is our “firm foundation”, Jesus is “the stone the builders rejected” and the “cornerstone” of our faith.  The Bible is full of references to building, and with good reason.  God wants us to grow, to be built up, and provides a framework around which he encourages us to build.

Now, at this point I expect you may be wondering what these frameworks may be.  I didn’t go into this on Sunday for time reasons, but it may be helpful here.  On the one hand you could look at this ‘framework’ as being a way of describing the Church, Christianity, the organised religion we are supposedly a part of.  Indeed, there are ways in which that perspective works, in that the framework of the Church encourages personal growth and gives us a community in which to grow.  However, I know many people resent the idea of organised religion, which tells us what we must believe and how we must live our lives.  I personally don’t agree with that idea, because from personal experience I have not been forced to believe or do anything I didn’t want to do.  The important thing here is that if the Church is framework, it must be flexible, just like a framework.

Scaffolding isn’t the building.  What is built within the scaffolding is far more detailed and complex than the framework describes, which is the whole point of the framework.  Behind the metal scaffolding are walls build of any number of different materials, windows, doors, alcoves, balconies, inset details, architectural sculptures.  The scaffolding doesn’t determine what the building looks like, it just helps it be built effectively and safely.

In the same way, God’s laws and commandments aren’t there to restrict us, but to help us.  Take, for instance, the Lord’s Prayer.  The disciples asked Jesus how they should pray, not what they should pray.  I often struggle to pray the Lord’s Prayer, for precisely that reason.  Like scaffolding, the Lord’s Prayer is a framework, a template for prayer that we are supposed to take on board and make our own.  Reciting the Lord’s Prayer without relating it to ourselves is like building a house with no windows, doors or features because the scaffolding didn’t explicitly say where they needed to be.  God encourages creativity.  Rather than just saying the words because they’re written down and everyone else is saying them, I would rather use the Lord’s Prayer as a template and use my own words to bring the meaning back into reality and make it my prayer.

We go to church on Sundays, not because God dictates that we must, but because it’s a framework that can be helpful.  What you do in church is up to you.  And of course you’re not limited to only meeting with God on Sunday mornings!

Clearly there are some things that God says are most definitely right or wrong, and they’re not really up for discussion.  But to say that everything falls into that category is like taking some scaffolding and building four plain walls inside them.  A person who only does what they’re told without relating it to themselves and using their own intellect is simply a drone, a robot following instructions.  Yes, the building will be built, but will it have an identity and a character of its own?

So, God is my scaffolding, not my crutch.  With God I can grow taller, stronger, faster.  But God also gave me my individuality, and wants me to use that within the framework he’s provided.

What are you building?

Sometimes the Christian life is amazing. Sometimes you walk around and little birds come to rest on your shoulder. They sweetly tweet Handle’s Messiah into your ear, as you walk around the garden in your white sheet and sandals, deeply engrossed in a very ‘deep’ prayer for all of the homeless sea turtles around the world.

But sometimes it’s not like this. Or at least sometimes for me it isn’t like this. Sometimes whilst the rest of the congregation is in a state of religious ecstasy I’m wondering what’s for lunch. There are occasions when everyone else in church seems to be deeply engrossed in the sermon and I’m thinking about rugby. There have been intense prayer sessions where I fell asleep (this by the way is why monks traditionally wear those big hoods - that way no-one can see their eyes when they’re supposed to be praying).

Praying isn’t always easy, reading the Bible isn’t always easy either. God can sometimes feel a million miles away, and during those times you can feel like you are the most rubbish Christian in the world.

I feel like this quite a lot, but one of the big things that has helped me to cope with this has been the knowledge that I am not alone in this struggle. One friend in particular has helped me to realize this through a series of e-mails which I found incredibly encouraging.

So for all of those frustrated saints out there here is my ‘Prayer E-mail from Laura’:

From: laura@…

To: phil@…

01/03/2006

Subject: Hello Fallen Saint

Hey Phil

Thanks so much for your e-mail the other day!  I can always count on you to make me laugh, and leave me with a slightly bemused, but affectionate smile! Hope you escape the police…..

Your letter made me think LOTS which is good. I can really empathize with the part about feeling like you and God used to be tight and now you’re acquaintances. I started to realize why that is. You see I have been placing my worth in doing ’stuff’. PGCEs have a way of making you feel like your very existence depends on how well you teach. Last term I was permanently stressed and striving to be better. This term things have started to fall into place, and I’m realizing that I am becoming a better teacher, but in the process have become a nominal Christian. I think the problem is that I feel called to become a teacher, but the calling has got in the way of what God has called me to even more which is just to be his friend!

The biggest battle of my Christian life has been that of guilt. It has haunted me so much that at times it’s almost been a physical pain. I have lived with the feeling that you have during exam season, that wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, you OUGHT to be revising (actually Phil, having seen you during exam time I’m not sure if that is an analogy you’ll be able to relate to). In my every day life I constantly feel like I should be praying or being nice to people or witnessing or something. And it causes such spectacular burn out at times - no one can live like that all the time. So I just give up! I just go “nope, can’t do it anymore, don’t want to, not going to pray, not going to witness” - but in the long run that only makes the guilt worse.

The last couple of months, during my school placement, has been one of those times - lesson planning and just managing not to be eaten by my pupils have been enough to ‘do’ and the thought of ‘doing’ all my ‘Christian’ things too has just been too much.

BUT where sin increased grace increased all the more- the incredible thing has been that on the rare occasions I have come crawling back to God I have been met only by grace and compassion- no voice saying “why haven’t you prayed or read your bible” - just concern and care and love! It’s awesome because God is using my burn out to just show that when he said “it is finished” he really meant it.

God has been impressing on me that story about Mary and Martha. Martha is fussing about in the kitchen whilst Mary is just sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to him. When Martha asks Jesus to make Mary help he said to her “you are worried about many things, but only one thing is needed”. It’s become such a Christian cliché, but really God is so wanting us to just sit at his feet. We don’t have to sing the latest Chris Tomlin song, read Everyday with Jesus or do the classic ‘quiet time’ things to make God smile - just sitting at his feet makes him grin from ear to ear.

It’s something I will probably never quite get until the day when God really does call me out in front of thousands of people and declares that I am ‘acceptable’ to him, but its been awesome today just having a much needed fresh revelation of the trust.

Anyways, I gotta go eat, teaching makes me extra hungry!

Take care

God Bless

Laura

xxx

Thank you, Lord, for grass.
Thank you for the colour of the bright blue sky,
Thank you for frogs and leeches, tadpoles and pigeons
Thank you for resilient goldfish
Thank you for friends, for teamwork, for laughter
Thank you for cake
Thank you for sunshine, and for shade
Thank you for energy and strength
Thank you for the visible signs of progress
Thank you for items found that were lost
Thank you for ground reclaimed
Thank you for surprises
Thank you for fences fixed and flower beds de-weeded
Thank you for hanging baskets
Thank you for rest and comfort
Thank you for pizza
Thank you for sofas
Thank you, Lord, for all you’ve made and all you’ve provided.

Matthew

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You are awesome God   x2

You are the light in darkness
You are out God so generous
You are a tower in times of strife
You are the saving water of life
You are

You are the sovereign, great I Am
though we don’t always understand
You flood the nations with your love
and make us holy with your blood

Chorus

Lord, your kingdom will not end
because of the Spirit that you send
You left your throne to be like us
and so it is in you we trust

Chorus

Copyright (C) Matthew Dawkins 2006

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Table of contents for The Ten Commandments

1. The Ten Commandments, Part I: Context
2. The Ten Commandments, Part II: Idolatry
3. The Ten Commandments, Part III: Blasphemy

What’s in a Name?

I know that this series is taking the commandments rather out of order, but it’s my series and I’ll do it in any order I want to! This part is on what is commonly known as the blasphemy law. There has been some discussion about blasphemy in the news recently, about whether the blasphemy laws in this country should be repealed or not. I don’t really want to focus too much on that, and instead go back to the Old Testament to try and understand some of the context of God’s name!

So, without further ado, let’s dive in to Exodus. We’ll look at the relevant passage from Exodus 20, if you want to follow along.

The blasphemy law occurs in verse 7:

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

How are we to interpret this commandment? Well, the understanding I grew up with was that we were not to use “God” or “Jesus” as a swear word. Admittedly that is a fairly simplistic understanding, but I think it’s fairly accurate: using God’s name in that way would be completely disrespectful, and - I believe - it’s right to teach people that this law forbids that.

However, as we shall see, the Israelites at the time would have understood a lot more from this commandment. The key thing is, our understanding of “name” is probably a little different to how it would have been interpreted in the ancient world.

These days, someone’s name is merely a label attached to them. Although names are fairly important, a name doesn’t say much about you. However, in the ancient world, a name was not just a label but a statement about you and your character. If you knew someone’s name, you knew them. So, when people talked about the “name of the Lord”, they weren’t just talking about the name “Jehovah” or “Yahweh”, they were talking about everything that name meant - the whole of the Lord’s character and his relationship to them.

A famous example of this is in Psalm 23:

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
– Psalm 23:1-3, ESV

Notice v3b - “for his name’s sake”. David is saying here that God will “lead [him] in paths of righteousness” because God must act according to His character. God’s “name” not only is a label for God, but it describes his character, and this character defines how he will act.

Now this is where it starts to get interesting. What was God’s character as revealed to the Israelites? God’s name definitely had a special significance for them.

Look at Exodus 6:

God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them… I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
– Exodus 6:2-3, 7, ESV

The “LORD” here refers to Yahweh, God’s covenant name to the Israelites. This is the first time he reveals himself to Moses as Yahweh^[1]. He is saying here that although he made himself known to Moses’ forefathers - which is quite important, because it shows that this is the same God speaking to Moses - this new name is the inauguration of a new covenant. If you’ve been reading these articles, you will know the significance of God bringing the Israelites out of Egypt: the Israelites were to see their relationship with God - the covenant - in terms of God bringing them out of Egypt. (And if you haven’t been following this series, you might want to have a look at Part I - it will explain things a bit more!)

All of this was reflected in the name Yahweh. Consequently, not taking the Lord’s name in vain would mean not only using it inappropriately but understanding and obeying the demands of the covenant.

Now we’ve established that the name of God involves a statement about his character and the covenant with the Israelites, what does that mean for us today? Although we don’t live under the same covenant relationship, we do still call upon the name of the Lord.

For example, in John’s gospel, Jesus says: “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:14, ESV). What does “in my name” actually mean? Is it just a matter of adding the words “in Jesus’ name” after we pray? No. It’s calling upon God to act according to his character, for His glory.

So, when we say “in Jesus’ name” when we pray, it should remind us of two things: 1) of what God has done for us through Jesus, and how God promises to answer prayer (always something I need to be reminded of!); 2) how we should respond to what God has done in Jesus. Are we being obedient in our prayers? Are we asking for the right things?

James says “You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” (James 4:2-3, NIV). In other words, asking for the wrong things in prayer could be an example of misusing the name of God.

This passage also provides another example of misusing the name of God: In context the passage is talking about keeping ourselves pure and dedicated to God. I believe another aspect of acknowledging God’s name is that we should respect it by keeping ourselves holy. If we truly reverence God’s name, we will respect his character by keeping his commandments, and free from sin. This is, of course, impossible as humans - but it is the goal towards which we attain!

I hope this article has at least given you some food for thought - please feel free to continue discussion in the forum!

^[1] Note: Sharp-eyed readers may notice there are a few times previous to this when the name “The LORD” is used. Why? It could be that the name Yahweh was not then known or widely understood - certainly under the terms of the covenant relationship as it was to be defined with Moses!