This is how you shall pray
sermon by Manfred Schreyer
Part I : This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name
(NIV) Mat 6:9 "This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, :10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Mat 6:11 Give us today our daily bread. :12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. :13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'
Jesus Christ taught his disciples to pray, because evidently as you can read in the previous verses people used prayer to make themselves the center of a prayer
Matt 6:5-8 (NRSV) 5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 7 "When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
The first sentence of the prayer tells us the place where God is and what we should feel about our God. I think this is really important because if we look around in Christian denominations some move the emphasis from God to "the Son" in Evangelical circles, to "the Spirit in Pentecostal circles, "to Mary" in Catholics faith, and to a female God in liberal theology circles. We have great difficulty of giving God the proper place in our theology.
Depending on how we see God, we will act upon our understanding. Jesus describes God as our father. From then until today many things have changed in our understanding of the "father role." During the times of Jesus, the father was the person who was the sole provider of all needs, he was the one who had absolute authority, and he was the one who each family member would petition. In the eyes of the family members he was the preserver of the family and the provider of their wants and needs. All confidence was placed in this adult male role.
In a modern, liberal theology some Christian believers deny this gender role, because we would like to see God not in a gender role for numerous reasons. Some believe that the male role has placed a great disservice to the understanding of God for some. (I.e., some women were molested by their father and are unable to recognize the image of God being male) I feel very saddened by stories I personally heard by those who are truly unable to see God in a male role because of what happened to them and I tell them this:
God in fact is neither male nor female, because God says in Genesis that He created us in His image. If he created us in His image He can be neither male nor female. And even though I even used here the image of "He" it only addresses the attributes of a father at the time of Jesus.
God is often proclaimed as King, Lord, but He is not a King or a Lord in the our earthly understanding. These attributes are given to Him at that very specific time so that we may see God through our cultural experience.
In my seminary years I was confronted with a theology professor who was a feminist and who pounded me constantly to use inclusive language when I address God. In fact this theology professor was rather in favor of seeing God as a female image. This was for me as much impossible as for some to see God in a male role. One day as she was looking at me and took a deep breath because I used the "He" word I asked her the question if there is the possibility that the devil is female. . . . she talked very little to me for the remainder of the semester. . . . The point that I wanted to make is, that it is so irrelevant to know the nature of God . . . Nevertheless, we need to conceptualize God for us so we use attributes we understand in the term of the time we live in.
God is the great Spirit, but we all need images for ourselves to be reminded by earthly experiences what a wonderful and amazing God we have.
The term "hallow" is very unique. In today’s world, there are very few things which are unique, singled out or uncommon. We have so far advanced that very few things, circumstances or people amaze us anymore. With this "new" understanding of the world we have lessened respect for authority, we accept things as they are, we have almost forgotten to give reverence to situations and people . . . but this sentence to hallow the name, tells us to set God apart from all other things in this world.
the basic meaning of hagios translated from the Greek as "hallow" is different or separate
I want to tell you that our God is a God of immense greatness, that God is a wonderful God and that God does not want to be belittled n our churches. Jesus Christ emphasis the fact that God’s name shall be hallowed. The name shall be venerated, be proclaimed as holy, to be unique, honored and treated in reverence.
There is in fact NO other then our God.
Jesus proclaims "our" in his address. This our means our relationship with God. God is the creator of all of us. ‘Our’ is not meant to be Jews, or Gentiles, or believers and nonbelievers, it is meant to address all of us. We are God’s children, but some of God’s children have denied the relationship with God.
Do you remember the Prodigal Son? Do you remember how the son wants freedom from the father? Do you remember how he demanded his freedom, property that he felt the father owed him? The word addresses this child as son, but the son decided to leave that which was meant for him.
And a very amazing twist happened in the story: The father lets the son go, because he recognizes that he cannot buy the sons love. In fact this story of letting the son go tells us the love for him and how wrong the son is in this story. If indeed the father would have been such a bad father, the father would have walked up tot he son and would have told him: "You want to leave. . .go, but you will receive nothing from me. And don’t you come ever back to my house. You have brought dishonor to our family. Because of your actions, I deny you as my son forever."
Yet quite the opposite happens in this story. The father lets the son go and I can only imagine how at times in the evening this older man sitting by the window is looking out into the desert where his son left . . . and is waiting every day for his son to return.
Our Father in heaven . . . !
Our Father gave us the freedom (choice) to leave, but our Father in heaven is waiting for those who have not returned yet.
But in this son’s soul is the remembrance of his father and the son is reminded of him. You see while things were good, while the son had money, women, everything was OK . . . but once he recognized that all things had left him he was reminded of his home the place he belonged
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be they name. . . .
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