The Lord’s Prayer, Introduction & 1st Petition:

Our Father, whose name is holy

 

The Lord’s Prayer has a central place in Christian worship. If I forget to include it or lead it in worship, you will let me know. In fact, when I overlooked it in another congregation, as I processed out of worship, a member stood up and asked if we could recite then. The Lord’s Prayer has a central place in Christian worship. It is, in our hearts and minds, essential and fundamental to our worship experience. We even incorporate a sung version as a different expression of faith in God and his promise to hear us.

The Lord’s Prayer is one example of corporate prayer within our corporate worship. This element is demonstrated by the plural “our” used throughout, so that those giving voice to the prayer acknowledge both the presence of God and their connection to a wider praying community. The first three petitions focus the worshipers’ attention on God. The remaining petitions turn to “our” needs, asking God to help all of “us.”

The prayer, as we pray it, (I will not say recite because that implies that we say it as an incantation or magic formula], is taken from Matthew 6:9–13. Here Jesus has told his disciples

Week 1 begins with the address, “Our Father in heaven.” Prayer is not so much language about God as it is speaking to God. To pray is to risk speaking to a God who is unseen and yet real. To pray is to recognize that God is different from us. God is “in heaven” above, whereas the praying person is on earth below. God is “another” and we are not God. Yet, in Matthew 6, Jesus invites us to call upon God as Father. Theologically, we do so because God, as Father, has created us and given us life. In the 1st Article of the Apostles’ Creed, we recognize God as this almighty Father and Creator and, in addition, Sustainer of life. And in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus invites us anew to recognize and live in that reality and in obedience to the First Commandment through prayer.

Through this Prayer Inviter, Jesus the Son of God the Father, whom we confess in the 2nd Article of the Apostles’ Creed,   we are redeemed as children of God. A chapter later in Matthew, chapter 7, verse 11, Jesus give us an example of how much trust we may have in God as Father when he compares what an earthly father does for his children to how we may trust God to give good things to His children. This trust issue is a reiterative expression of the 1st Commandment to fear, love andtrust God above all things and people. 

We arrive at this fear, love and trust in God through the Holy Spirit whom we confess in the 3rd Article of the Apostles’ Creed. It is through this Spirit that God evokes the faith that enables us to recognize him as Father as proclaimed by Paul in Romans 8:14-15, led by the Spirit of God [we] are children of God, [crying out], "Abba!1 Father!"  So it is here, that we join with the psalmist in our Psalm this week, when he says, “I have trust in you, O LORD; because we also have said, we have said, "You are my God." God is our God above all gods.

We come to the first petition “Hallowed be your name,” that is, that God’s name might be holy. God’s identity and action enters here as a reflection of the 2nd Commandment. Luther states that God’s name is indeed holy in and by itself. According to Ezekiel 36:23-33, God would make his name holy by gathering people together, that is by his Holy Spirt [3rd Article again], cleansing them from sin, and giving them a new spirit. By such holy actions God’s “name” or identity is made known in the world. That is, when we are led to obedience of the 2nd Commandment we reveal who God is. This is what we are asking, seeking and finding, as we pray this petition.

Lastly, the Lord’s Prayer is an example of all prayer as Jesus started in verse 8, “When you pray, pray this way…”  Our prayers have the Lord’s Prayer as a format of acceptable and riskable speaking to God. Prayer is our opportunity to speak and acknowledge God as our God and Father and learn therein to fear, love and trust him as our loving and holy God.

Amen.

 

 

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