“Here and Hallowed”
Psalm 139:1-18; Luke 11:1-4
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
February 14, 2016
More than two decades ago, back when I was a member of the Just Peace Players, the liturgical drama group wrote and performed a play called “Hallowed be thy name.” The play was an exploration of the language we use to speak about God. Recognizing that God is beyond all our words, beyond our categories of male and female, what language, we asked, should we use?
Twenty years ago, inclusive language was a hot topic in many churches, with a wide variety of perspectives and sometimes contentious debate. In order to make the play more approachable, we wrote most of it in rhyme.
In one scene, which we nicknamed “Dueling Sitcoms,” fellow player Doug Anderson and I each donned straw hats and picked up a rake. Nervously trying to remember pointers from the voice lessons I was taking at the time, I dove into my song:
Now listen to a story ‘bout a God named Dad;
It started when Jesus was making folks mad.
He called God “Abba” which translates as Pop;
Not Father or Sir or someone up on top.
My Beverly Hillbillies rewrite has a biblical reference. In the garden of Gethsemane, in his time of distress and despair, Jesus prayed, addressing God with the Aramaic word “Abba.” The author of Mark’s gospel thought this word was so important that, even though he wrote in Greek, he kept abba in its original language. Abba means Papa or Daddy–an affectionate terms that highlights an intimate, trusting relationship. For Jesus, God was as close as a daddy.
My song continued:
Doesn’t matter so much if God’s he or she;
If God’s called Abba God’s as close as God can be.
A Mom or a Dad, a companion or a friend;
The possibilities they really have no end.
I might argue with my hillbilly alter-ego: it does matter whether we use he or she to refer to God, but that’s a sermon for another day. I stand by the rest of the song’s message. One of the distinctive gifts Jesus gives us is the invitation to an intimate relationship with God. For Jesus, that connection is expressed in the word abba. For some of us, that’s a powerful way to envision God’s love. For others, it may be more helpful to envision God as Mama, or Grandma, or Grandpa, depending on our own experience of those human relationships. What my hillbilly singer was trying to convey is that Jesus’ concern is not with ensuring we use particular words or pronouns. Instead, Jesus invites us to trust God’s love for us the way a small child might trust the love of a Papa or a Mama.
The scene was called Dueling Sitcoms for a reason. In between my verses, Doug leapt in with his version of the Green Acres Theme:
Way up high is where you’ll find the Lord;
Higher than any plane has ever soared.
Bigger than the sun that shines so bright;
Greater, stronger, taller than the highest height.
Doug’s character was concerned that all this talk of intimacy with God might lead us to believe we can know God, or even remake God in our own image. And so he sang on:
Our God cannot be controlled or tamed;
God’s too great to be contained or named.
God isn’t just for you alone;
Sitting there waiting for you to call on the phone.
Dueling sitcoms. Theme songs painting conflicting pictures of who God is, offering seemingly incompatible visions of what our relationships with God should be. Seemingly incompatible–except that both of these visions are contained in the first line of the prayer Jesus taught: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” or as Luke recorded Jesus’ words: “Father, hallowed be your name.”
The Greek word Luke uses is translated as the more formal “Father.” We don’t have any way of knowing what Aramaic word Jesus used when he taught his disciples this prayer. We do know, from Mark’s gospel, that in his own prayers he called God “abba.” Might he have used “abba”–Daddy–here as well?
In teaching his disciples to pray in this way, Jesus teaches them to speak with God as they might speak with someone who loves them as deeply and as dearly as a mama or a papa loves a child.
Jesus goes on: “Hallowed by your name.” After inviting his disciples to claim that intimacy, Jesus reminds them that God is far beyond what they can ever comprehend. God’s name is hallowed–holy, sacred, set apart to be revered and honored. God, Jesus reminds them, is greater than any words, any image, any theology. If God’s very name is to be hallowed, then the appropriate approach to God is awe.
Jesus teaches his disciples this prayer as a model. In Luke’s gospel, the disciples see Jesus praying. They recognize that prayer, for him, is a source of strength and comfort and spiritual nourishment. They long for what he has, and so they ask him—“Teach us to pray.”
In Matthew’s gospel, the context is a little different. Jesus is preaching the Sermon on the Mount. He rails first against hypocrites who offer their private prayers in public to show how holy they are. Then he blasts people who pray with a lot of fancy phrases, who think that if they pick just the right words, they can manipulate God into being on their side.
In contrast, Jesus teaches a prayer that is simple and direct, a prayer that honors God and acknowledges our human needs and longings. It isn’t a set of special words that have to be said in a particular way. It is an attitude toward prayer.
Our forebears, the Puritans, did not say the Lord’s Prayer in worship. For them, repeating the prayer in a rote fashion came close to idolatry—turning the words themselves into an object of worship. Instead, they drew upon their understanding of how Jesus originally intended the prayer—as a teaching tool, as a way to help his disciples learn how to pray in their own words.
Over the centuries, we have softened the Puritans’ hard line on ritual, and so we do say the Lord’s Prayer as part of our liturgy, recognizing the ways the words connect us with thousands of years of Christian worship. In this Lenten season, as we explore this prayer more fully, we will use it in worship in a variety of ways—with different words, set to different tunes. We will also draw upon the wisdom of the Puritans, and use the prayer as a way to reflect more deeply on our faith. Today, we start with that first line: Father, Abba, hallowed be your name.
God, Jesus is telling us, is closer than our very hearts. And God, he adds, is more distant than the farthest star. In our prayer lives and in our everyday lives, Jesus challenges us to hold these truths together. God knows each of us intimately and loves us with the tender and deeply personal love of a mama or a daddy. God is great, vast, creative, powerful beyond what we can ever begin to understand. Jesus teaches us to pray to God with both tenderness and awe.
Let’s go back for a moment to our dueling sitcom themes. Jesus, I suspect, would encourage my character to celebrate that close connection with God, while urging her to remember that God is more than her experience of a personal relationship. And I imagine Jesus might applaud Doug’s guy for his attitude of humility and awe, while inviting him to risk letting God come near.
Do you find yourself identifying with one or the other of these sit-com singers? Perhaps your life was changed when you finally came to trust that God loves you with tender passion, that God’s arms can hold and comfort and nurture you. Or maybe you feel most fully alive when you encounter the glory and wonder of the Creator on the top of a mountain. Wherever you find yourself on this imaginary sitcom-theme spectrum, I invite you to hear the words of Jesus’ prayer nudging you to broaden your experience of God.
If your instinct is to seek that deeply personal connection with God, take a few minutes this week to read about the discovery of gravitational waves in space. Scientists tell us they are the result of two black holes colliding 1.3 billion light years away. Ponder how God is at work in the vastness of space. Let your intimate connection with God expand into awe.
Or if you are inclined to seek spiritual nourishment in the wonder of the night sky, take a few moments this week to have a conversation with God. Try talking with God about your deepest longings as though God were your beloved Grandma, the one who understands you better than anyone. Or try telling God about your most secret fears as though God were a trusted Abba, Daddy. Let your wonder soften into tenderness.
There are many lessons, many discoveries, hidden in each of the lines of this beloved prayer. The lesson I draw from this first line is a paradox: God is closer than our very hearts, closer even than a mama or a daddy; God is great beyond our imagining, more wondrous than we can ever comprehend. Let us rejoice in this glorious paradox. Amen.