Loving God, you provide all that is needed and invite us to come to you in prayer as your children.  Teach us to pray by the power of your Spirit, and renew us in your love, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

            Has anybody else been feeling as though we need an awful lot of prayer these days?... As we hear about one crisis after another, and health experts issue warnings about both our physical and mental health, it seems that we have an ever-greater need for the kind of relationship with God that is nurtured by constant prayer.  This is, in fact, the kind of relationship exhibited by Jesus during his time on this earth.  Thus, it is not really surprising that his disciples asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk. 11:1).

         Jesus responds, not by offering a month-long course on how to pray, or even by giving them useful “prayer techniques,” but by inviting them into a simple conversation with their heavenly Father.  In fact, the word that Jesus uses to address God is even more intimate than “Father.”  He uses “Abba,” or “daddy.”  It is the word that a child would use to address their father.

         And so, according to Jesus, prayer does not require flowery language, or long sentences, or even years of training.  Rather, it requires coming to God for all that is needed, just as children would look to their parents or guardians for all that is needed.  However, lest we should think that prayer is like a one-way street where we do all the asking and God does all the giving, Jesus includes things that require us to act in love, as well.

         In today’s gospel, we hear, “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us” (Lk. 11:4).  There is definitely action required on both sides in that petition!  At the same time, we are focusing today on “hallowed be your name” (11:2), which also has implications for how we live our lives.

         When we say, “hallowed be your name,” we are asking that God’s revealed character and essence would be kept holy – by us and among us.  As some of you might remember from Luther’s Small Catechism, “God’s name is holy in itself, but we ask in this prayer that it may also become holy in and among us” (p. 20).  This is not just a matter of not using God’s name as a swear word, but it has to do with how we live.  We honour God’s name and keep it holy when we live as God would have us live – loving God with all that we are and all that we have, and loving others as ourselves.

         You may have noticed, however, that the Psalm we had today and the gospel both mention God’s name without actually saying what it is.  The Psalm says, “Bless God’s holy name” (103:1).  And Father, of course, is not God’s name, but a relational term.  The reason for avoiding God’s actual name is that for Jewish people, the name of God is considered too holy to actually speak it aloud.

         You might recall the story of Moses and the burning bush, where Moses asks what God’s name is.  God’s reply is translated as “I Am who I Am”, or “I will be what I will be”, or just simply, “I Am” (Ex. 3:14).  In Hebrew, the name that is given is some version of the verb “to be,” which is very difficult to translate.  In fact, God’s name would be more breathed than spoken, as it would be spelled YHWH using our alphabet.  Hence, wherever the name of God appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, it is replaced by “Adonai,” or “LORD.”

         Actually, this difficulty in pinning down God’s name should not be surprising to us.  There is no one name or way of addressing God that is ever going to encompass the fulness of who God is.  Whether we come to God as Father, or Mother, or Abba/Imma, or Loving Spirit, it does not change who God is, for God is so much more all-encompassing than any word or phrase can express.

         And so, we use many different forms of address in our prayers – for example, Almighty and Merciful God, or Loving God, or Gracious God, or God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  In each case God is identified as the one, true, Living God – the God who is revealed through Jesus.  And, as much as we might get hung up on masculine or feminine, God is neither and both, for we are told that both male and female are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27).  And, just to blow our minds entirely, God is both singular and plural in the Old Testament, and yet there is only one God.  In all cases, God defies our attempts to place God in a box that conforms with our limited human ways of thinking.

         Jesus, however, has invited us into a relationship with God where God is a good and loving parent and we are loving children.  At the same time, when we pray, we are aware of all those who are brothers and sisters in Christ.  The language in the Lord’s Prayer is all plural:  Our Father, our daily bread, our sins.  When Jesus teaches us to pray, it is not all about me and my needs, but about all those who are children of God.

         It is because of Jesus, and his life, death and resurrection, that such a relationship with God is open to us, for we are adopted as children of God in the waters of baptism.  Thus, just as Jesus was strengthened and empowered by his time spent in prayer, that same, live-giving relationship with God is available to us by the power of the Holy Spirit.  For, the Spirit of Jesus prays with us and in us and for us, empowering us to love God and love one another in all that we do.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Pentecost 11 (NL summer)                        Luke 11:2-4

August 16, 2020                                          Psalm 103:1-5

St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church

Pastor Lynne Hutchison

© 2020 Lynne Hutchison  All Rights Reserved