Jeremy Duncan: But in those moments where I know God, truly as father, when I see God as mother, when I experience God as pure familial love beyond limitation, it's in those moments that I realize everything I often hide behind doesn't really matter all that much anyway. We are in the midst of a new series as well. A conversation about prayer that will take us all the way to Holy Week this year. And, prayer seems like a good thing for us to talk about at any time of year, but maybe particularly during the season of Lent. By the way, that's what this purple stole is for.
It reminds us that we are preparing our hearts for Easter. And the Lord's prayer felt like a good place to ground that practice this year. And yet last week, we didn't actually get to the prayer. I mean, maybe there was a little teaser there at the end just in the last few seconds of the sermon, but really we spent our time looking at Jesus' preamble. The preparation for the prayer that he offers or maybe in some ways the counterpoint for the prayer that he offers.
That's it. I think from the angle of being taught how to pray, that preamble is almost as important as the example that Jesus gives us. Because in a lot of ways he is setting the stage for what follows. And so last week to open a series called how to pray, we talked about really kind of how not to pray. But just to look back quickly, we outlined three ways that prayer can go off the rails.
We talked about hypocrites who use prayer as a means to an end, Publicists who use prayer as an exercise in image management. And pagans who use prayer as a way to manipulate the divine. And quickly here, that first one, the hypocrites, that's not actually about hypocrites the way we tend to use the word in English. It's actually about stage actors. At least that's what the Greek term referred to.
So, it's about those who perform their prayers in order to get what they want. And as someone who writes a lot of prayers, crafts prayers, spends a lot of his week shaping prayers with as much nuance and intention as possible, I think this is a warning that can hit home if I'm willing to pay attention. Because I am someone who absolutely thinks that prayer should be considered. At least in a public setting, it shouldn't be slapped together haphazardly. But, I also recognize that that means it's very easy for me, maybe for all of us, to imagine that the point of prayer or the effectiveness of prayer even is directly related to the quality of prayer.
I have on occasion, even when praying by myself with no one listening, no audience, found myself performing a bit. Maybe for God, let's be honest here, probably just to impress myself. And, that's the first thing that we need to set aside in prayer. This idea that our performance can influence the outcome of what we pray. Second, we had prayers and exercise in image management, and we talked about some of the complications in that critique in this world.
The fact that public prayers are probably a net negative for your public image these days. And yet, even if we're not performing for God, I think we can still find ourselves driven by an obligation. This idea that because we pray, God might love us more. And just know this, God is not impressed by the quality of your prayers. God is not impressed by the quantity of your prayers either.
God is just simply interested in you. As Paul says, you are God's handiwork. That's enough. Everything else is bonus. But, there was one final category, and this is the one where we needed to get a little bit technical in our reading.
Our English translations often talk about the pagans who babble. In digging a bit deeper though, I think what we realize here is the language is really directed at technique. The idea that either we can manipulate God with gossip in prayers, praying for, but really praying about someone else. Or, I'm thinking that we can pray certain words in a particular way with the right emphasis or emotion to somehow bend God to our will. It's not really about babbling as much as it's about using specific techniques in order to manipulate God.
And I think what's really interesting about all of these different critiques that Jesus offers, these examples of unhealthy prayer is that they remind us that prayer was never for God to begin with. We can't impress God with our performance, and we can't improve our standing before God with our obligations. We can't manipulate God using the right techniques. And that means we're left with the simple conclusion that even as we enter into prayer that Jesus offers us this week, prayer is really for us. To change us, to shape us, to point us in better directions.
Today, we dive into those directions together. But first, let's pray. And today, let's pray using the Lord's prayer. As we start, you're welcome to join me or just to listen silently. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Alright. Today, we dive into the Lord's prayer. And we'll spend the next four weeks continuing to mind this prayer for everything it can teach us about how to pray. Last week though, I offered you a prayer from Tina Fey, a humorous and lengthy prayer at that. This week as we begin, I offer a prayer from one of my favorite Christian mystics, Meister Eckhart, perhaps a counterpoint to last week.
He wrote in the thirteen hundreds and his prayer was simply this, thank you. In fact, about this prayer he wrote, if the only prayer you ever pray in your entire life is thank you, then that will have been enough. And perhaps, we can hold on to that in the back of our minds as we make our way through this Lenten season. For all of our talk about prayer, and for all that we glean from Jesus' words, from all the work and the study of Greek words and historical context we might dig into, at the end of the day, thank you will have been enough. That's a good reminder.
That said, today we'll talk about prayerful adjectives, parental figures, our shared realities, and our newborn desires. Because, this is how Jesus prays. Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Now, I don't know about you, but I have noticed that Jesus starts his prayer, let's say differently than I do. And it's not just because I don't use the word hallowed very often.
It's actually the our father part that is different from me. Now, at some level prayer is a conversation, and so I am generally in the habit of addressing my audience when I pray. Perhaps I might start with something like God or heavenly father, maybe Jesus. All of these are ways I might start a prayer. For example, last week when I prayed in the sermon, I said almighty God, gracious God, loving God.
These are all attributes that I want to center myself in as I approach the divine. And, I think I think that's pretty normal. I think that's actually healthy. In fact, I think it's good that we choose to remind ourselves of who we speak to when we pray. And so, I often start a prayer by addressing God using an adjective that I want to remind myself of about something in God's character.
I was kind of interested, so I actually went back and I looked at my notes from the last few sermons how I started my prayers. Two weeks ago, it was good and gracious God. Three weeks ago, the God of the distressed and the indebted, the discouraged and the hopeful. Before that, it was God of the unexpected. Now, the one before that was gracious God again, so maybe I've been in a bit of a gracious rut here, or maybe that's just what I feel like I need to remind myself of these days.
I don't know. But, I do think that simply reminding yourself that God is good. That God is gracious or loving. That God is on your side even before you begin. I think that is good medicine for us.
Jesus has shown us what God is like. And, praying into that awareness, even those small little shifts in our language, I think they can transform our experience of the conversation that follows. And yet, I still can't help but notice that Jesus centers himself on something very different when he prays. Now, it's no less gracious or less loving, but it is interesting to me that when Jesus prays, the divine attribute that Jesus seems to want to center himself on is God as shared reality. Maybe we could say this, God's ourness.
Now, the Greek language is kind of funny. In Greek, the order of our words functions differently than English. It's just not as important to sentence structure. And in Greek, this prayer begins, pater hemon. Literally, father of us.
So technically, father is the first word here. And some people get caught up on that father bit a little bit. Sometimes, other people who want to plant some kind of flag in a masculine identity for the divine. Or sometimes those who might want to push back against that idea. Personally, I think both have the potential to miss Jesus' intent here.
The pronoun for God is God. The divine transcends simple binaries. I I think that's plainly evident as the first interaction between the divine and human has God saying, let us make humanity in our image. And then proceeding to form both male and human in the singular image of that God. Whatever the Imago Dei is, it is conspicuously not gendered.
But then what is Jesus trying to do with this language? Well, I would argue it comes back to the hour. The goal here is not to ground God in the masculine. The intent is to ground the divine in the experience of shared family. Our father.
Now, at the same time, I do understand it's very possible that your experience of father or mother for that matter, parent even, was not all that it should have been. And because of that, perhaps this metaphor, this specific language, God is father, does not convey the meaning it was intended to for you. I get that. I would still argue there's beauty to mine in this image within that shared nature of family and language. God is not your father.
God is not like your dad or your mom. In fact, God is not defined by any parent that any of us have ever had no matter how beautiful or how broken our relationship was with them. God is the invitation to find ourselves welcomed into a new chosen family. This is not God as autocratic stepfather saying, call me dad from now on. This is an invitation to create new meaning for you within the concept of family regardless of how that experience has made its way to you today.
And by the way, the word pateir here, possibly, probably points us back to an Aramaic word, Abba. That's likely what Jesus would have used. And that means something like dad. It's a very familial term. But for the record, Abba is more like dad than daddy.
I know people sometimes say that. That's fine, but Abba is a familial word for father in Aramaic. It's not an infantilizing word. And, that's important because talking about God as father, pateir, abba, or dad, even as mother or mom, parent. All of this language is not about taking our agency away as if we're just toddlers again.
It's about allowing ourselves to sink into everything that family should be when made holy. And so, when I pray, part of what all of this reminds me of, what helps to center me in is my complete safety in coming to God in prayer. Here in prayer, I have no one to impress, no one to persuade, no one that needs to know just how smart or eloquent or convincing I can be with my words. I am in that moment when I approach the divine already actually fully and completely known. In a way that even my parents who've always loved me, even my family that's always embraced me, even they might struggle to know me.
I think this is part of what Jesus is getting at when we saw him say last week, your father already knows what you need before you ask, so don't go on about it. For years, I think I always thought, if God knows, why do we ask? And if God understands, then why tell? If God is always there, why bother speaking at all? Why not just rely on the omnipotence of the divine and call that prayer?
There's probably some truth to that, but I think this dynamic of family helps open that box for me a bit. I was thinking back, I think it was earlier this year, might have been late last year, but I talked about Jesus' interaction with a paralyzed man in John five. And I made the argument that an important part of that story is understanding that Jesus doesn't just know supernaturally what this man needs, he strikes up a conversation and talks to him. And he asks him questions about himself. Jesus actively learns about his story before assuming anything about him.
Part of my argument there was that that conversation doesn't make Jesus less divine, it makes him more divine. That a God who would want to hear from us, To listen to us. A God who would ask questions and listen even when that God might already know the answers. That that demonstration of love in making room for self disclosure, that is divine. See, even as a parent of young kids, I often find myself knowing what my kids need before they do.
And yet, I also know that encouraging them to find the language, to express themselves, to uncover the words, to name what they need, that's good for them. And so, I want to learn, to teach myself, to slow down, to listen, to give them space to articulate their needs and their desires because that space to express themselves then to be heard, that is precisely part of what they need from me. But, maybe what I've come to realize about prayer is that the asking, and the telling, and the speaking of prayer, maybe all of that was part of God's gift for me. I mean, where else in my life do I get to ask without selling? Or tell my story without at least wanting to position myself in some way or light?
Where else do I speak without any fear of miscommunication or misunderstanding or misapprehension of meaning? In prayer, the irony of knowing that God already knows means none of the work that I normally do to protect or project myself holds any meaning here. And, yes, I do still try to sell God on my ideas from time to time. And I do still try to position myself in the best possible light at times. Jesus already warned me against that.
I know. But in those moments where I know God, truly as father, when I see God as mother, when I experience God as pure familial love beyond limitation. It's in those moments that I realize everything I often hide behind doesn't really matter all that much anyway. And so, when I don't have the right words, I plagiarize someone else and I read a prayer. And if I know my ask is completely insane, I go for it anyway knowing God wants to hear even if the answer is no chance.
Prayer is where, when I am wrong, I am loved. When I'm ashamed, I am welcome. When I'm confused, am comforted. When I'm lying, I am still listened to. When I'm honest, I'll be taken seriously.
When I'm funny, I get the laugh that I wanted. And when I cry, God leans in instead of telling me to man up. Prayer is one of very few spaces in my life where I'm nothing but what I am. And, yet, I'm still embraced like family anyway always. When we pray, our father who art in heaven, the intent has nothing to do with the gender of God.
Let that language go if it's not helpful for you. It's fine. Because for Jesus, the goal is to ground ourselves in this overwhelming experience of shared family. This conviction that God is father of all of us. And, that is a really big deal.
I mean, if we take that seriously and Jesus is reminding me that God is not my father, God is not my savior, God is not my own personal Jesus who lives within my heart, God belongs to us, I think that changes something very important about how we will pray. See, this opening line beyond just reminding me that I'm safe in my prayer fundamentally reframes prayer as an expression of solidarity with, I mean literally everyone I cross paths with. That reminds me of something else we talked about last week. Remember Jesus says, don't pray like the hypocrites, but instead pray like this, our father who art in heaven. I think he is very explicitly calling us to include even those hypocrites we revile in our hour.
Praying to our God stops me from thinking I'm the one who gets to police the boundaries of God. In fact, does more than that. It makes you, whoever you are, my sibling by default. Right? Back in the beginning in Genesis, there's this story about the archetypal first family.
And in the story, there's a man named Adam who is made from the Adama and his name means dirt. And, there's a woman called Eve whose name means alive. And, so dirt and alive come together and they have some children. And, they have a son named Abel which means breath. And they have another son named Cain, means to acquire.
And one day, the son named Acquire, who's very concerned about who gets the most praise kills his brother breath out in the field. And then Breath's blood cries out to God, and God goes to see a choir and asks, what happened to your breath? And the choir says, I don't know anything about my breath. Am I my brother's keeper? And in many ways, I would argue everything that follows when you read your bible, everything from Genesis four right through to Revelation 22, is God saying, yes.
Absolutely, 100% to that question. Of course, you are your brother's keeper. Of course, your neighbor is your responsibility. Absolutely, you are meant to live out of your essential connectedness to everyone else. That's where your breath comes from.
And so, God tells stories, and God makes rules, and we break those rules, and God forgives, and God laments until finally Jesus comes along and says, look, this is how you should pray. If you want to be connected to the divine, you pray in a way that reminds you of your brother and your breath. Sometimes, it is hard to believe that God is your father. I get it. I think it's actually a much bigger thing to believe that God is our father.
Because when we pray to our God, that means we are now by extension implicating ourselves every time we pray as each other's keeper. Which I think is what God has always wanted, which is just such a beautiful way to set up what comes next. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. See, think fundamentally this prayer is an optimistic view of the world. If you think back to last week, all those unhealthy prayers that Jesus critiques.
Right? The hypocrites who use prayer as a means to an end. The publicists who use prayer as image management. The pagan who uses prayer to manipulate the divine. All of those are pretty cynical.
Right? How can I use prayer? How can I position myself? How can I shape this situation to advantage my standing in a world that must be indifferent to me? By contrast, Jesus prayer, right from this first word hour takes a very different posture toward the world.
The world is not indifferent. The cosmos is infused with parental love for all of us. And, the Lord's prayer at its heart is about believing that because of that, well then we are in this together. The earth is salvageable. Our relationships are redeemable.
We have a part to play in God's inevitable story of repair of all things. In fact, I find it helpful here to translate this line as literally as possible. It's going to sound a little stiff if I do it this way, but I think it's helpful. Here's what it says perhaps at its most raw. Come kingdom of you, be born desire of you as in heaven now also on earth.
It's a bit of a subtle change, but for me it's helpful because sometimes it's easy for me to pray, your kingdom come, your will be done, and imagine this is some kind of cosmic conquest. As if God is going to give us kingdom whether we want it or not. God will pummel us into paradise. But to pray instead, come your kingdom, be born your desires as in heaven and also here in me. That changes something about how I experience prayer.
This Greek word, ginomai, it's not just that God's will is being done, it's that God's will is being born. Divine desire is being created, formed within the world, maybe eventually even within me. And, that carries very different connotation. No longer am I praying, asking God to do anything. Now, I'm really invested in this shared nature of God.
I'm really asking myself to align with what God is already doing all around me all the time. I think this is really one of the great paradoxes of prayer. I mean, who exactly are we talking to right now? I know I said last week prayer is not for God, it's for me. That's undoubtedly true.
Sometimes I actually think prayer is to me. Not that I pray to myself, even for someone with my ego, that's a bit too much. But, I do recognize that prayer is sometimes, maybe often actually about speaking to myself. God is my audience. God is the one I stand before when I pray.
But, when I do, often my words, they are intended for my own heart to listen to. God help me to know that you are ours, not mine. God, help me to experience family as it was intended, maybe as I never have before, now in you. God, help me to trust in your vision for this world and to slowly invite your desires to become not just what I work toward, but what I actually want and I long for in the world. Often, I think prayer is sacred self talk.
And I know that when I say that, some of you, it might feel like I'm diminishing prayer. Trust me here. I'm not. Reminding ourselves about what we want to believe, what we want to trust about ourselves and our world and our God, I think this is probably some of the most important words that we can ever speak in our lives. As human beings, we are constantly creating narratives in our mind, And we construct our reality as we tell a story about our world to ourselves every day.
The closer that story aligns with the reality of God's love that sits at the founding of the cosmos, the more true our perception of the world around us will become. And prayer has been for thousands of years now where we are invited to describe the best version of ourselves and our world in front of the one who fashioned our very selves and our world. If there is anyone in your life that is ever going to believe the best about you, if there is anyone in your life who is ever going to help you believe the best about you, it has got to be the one who put everything good in you to begin with. Right? Prayer is where we slowly come to believe we are the person God believes we are.
And that means that we can start to see the world as it really is as well. A world that is good and needs to be celebrated. A world that is broken and needs to be repaired. A world where we can, all of us play our part as our neighbor's keepers and close the gap between what is in heaven and what could be right here on earth within us. Let's pray.
Loving God, when we come to you in prayer, would you remind us that you are ours? And that even as we speak to the divine, are implicating ourself in our essential connectedness to all things. Your goodness and your creation, everything that springs from your founding love. May that reality then slowly help us to see ourselves as you see us. Broken, in need of repentance, and forgiveness, and yet also full of potential to move forward and help shape your kingdom here on our earth because of our choices.
God, might we then, surrounded by your spirit, enveloped in your love, begin to take concrete steps toward your grace and your peace. That all of the love that we experience in this new shared family might be opened up, expanded to someone new. And that your kingdom might continue to creep slowly through this world until all things are healed and brought back to you. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.
Hey, Jeremy here, and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at Commons, you can head to our website commons.church for more information. You can find us on all of the socials commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community. You can also join our Discord server.
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