Today marks the 1st of 5 classes that we are offering as our 2009 Lenten Series. Our class today will focus a little bit on the goals for the class as well as getting into the idea of relationship as we take a look at "Our Father who art in heaven..."
I love what Martin Luther, the great Reformer, said about the Lord's Prayer. He called it perhaps the church's greatest martyr because each and every Sunday morning (at the VERY least) "it is abused and tortured" all the world around. Now, why would Luther say that? For him there was a great danger and sadness with the Lord's Prayer becoming something too memorized to actually pray. Think about song lyrics...perhaps you know all the words to Boston's More than a Feeling backwards and forwards. As soon as you hear the 1st couple of notes you are already there and you don't even have to think before you say "I looked out this morning and the sun was gone." This was Luther's concern with the Lord's Prayer - that before too long the prayer would become just another selection of the iPod that is your brain. There is a real danger that because we know the words to the Lord's Prayer every-which-way that we never get to really pray, really contemplate what it is that we are bringing to the God that we are just about to call "Our Father."
To give you an example of what I am talking about check out this video for the Prayer Cross.
Did you ever have a professor in College or perhaps someone in your life that was always Dr. Johnson or perhaps Mrs. Newburg? Someone who when asked what their first name was would always reply "Dr." or "Mrs."? That lack of familiarity would have been understood in the Ancient World. Nobody would think to call God "Daddy" for the shear sound of it would scream irreverence and a familiarity that would be personally boastful (like saying I get to call God Daddy because we are so tight). But Jesus does call God Daddy and says that his Daddy is our Daddy too. "Our Father" at its core is a double statement about relationship which makes a bold claim about the universal nature of the God of Jesus being the God of everyone and that as the God of the Universe this God is our Father.
The term "father" can carry with it a lot of baggage. For some the very word Father is a four-letter word. For some the man that was to be their father instead turned out to be anything but and the only life lesson he imparted was one of pain, distrust and struggle. For many the term "Father" is a limitation to knowing and trusting God more and no matter how much we speak of the love of the Eternal Father it is no match for the pain of an abusive Earthly Father. Given the reality of the world we live in, it stands that we might want to think of the Father that Jesus knew, the God that transcends every description and baggage we bring, as the transcendent God of Heaven.
The God that we have this intimate, familiar relationship with is the God whose ways are not our own. God and humanity do not fight for the same space. God is what we call in the church-speak world as "wholly other" meaning that God is not bound by the things that we cannot transcend. When we use the phrase "in heaven" we are lifting up God as being "other" as well as locating God in the midst of perfection. The God who in all things move, The God who is the author and giver of life, the God that is perfect in love, justice, and grace exists in the manifestation of perfection: Heaven. It is just another paradox of faith that the God that we are told to call Daddy is the God that creates perfection just by existing.
I hope that this might get the motor running. Look here next Wednesday for the 2nd session of the class where we will look into "your Kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven."
Hope to see you tonight!
Peace,
Brett
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