The Lord's Prayer Part 3-Name, Kingdom, Will

So far we've covered 2 words in The Lord's Prayer: "Our Father." We discussed the intimate term of Abba, Papa that is used of God... a word close to our word, "Daddy." The following words, "Which art in heaven" make it clear that it is not our biological daddy we're referring to. The words, "Our daddy in Heaven" point clearly to the fact that God is both intimate and transcendent. He is our daddy, yet He is high and lifted up and rides upon the cloud. All of the power of Almighty God must not be ignored when we are close enough to lean on His chest and hear His heartbeat. He is our Daddy. And He is the All Powerful King of the Universe. The next few lines of the prayer tend to be misunderstood or not understood at all. Still, I believe these lines to be of monumental importance because they outline God’s desire and the church’s mission. Matthew 6: 19bOur Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 
 10your kingdom come, 
 your will be done 
 on earth as it is in heaven. The Lord’s Prayer is the central prayer of the Christian faith. When Jesus’ disciples asked to be taught to pray He taught them this prayer. Now some 2000 years later we say the prayer corporately, privately and many use it as an outline to expound upon during prayer time. At the risk of being redundant, Jesus was a Jew. And there was a specific prayer that was (and is) central to the Jewish faith in much the same way that the Lord’s Prayer is central to Christianity. This prayer is called Shemoneh Esreh, meaning ‘18’ as it consists of 18 requests. Sometimes it is called Tefillah, which simply means ‘prayer’. The Tefillah can be prayed in 5-10 minutes depending on one’s fluency in Hebrew. It was part of the morning, midday and evening services in the synagogue. Jesus knew this prayer well and prayed it regularly. The prayer that Jesus taught His disciples incorporates elements of the Tefillah. One place where Jesus’ prayer echoes the Tefillah is in the ‘hallowed be your name’ clause. The Tefillah reads: “We will hallow Your name in the world as it is hallowed in the Highest Heavens” One notable difference is that the Tefillah points out who will do the hallowing (the Jews) as opposed to the Lord’s Prayer which asks that His name be hallowed but is not specific who is to do the hallowing. Perhaps Jesus’ intent was to point out that though the Jewish people have a vital role in bringing the light of God to the world, they must not be the sole hallowers. But for those of us who are thrown off by the word “hallow” or “hallowed” let me explain. The English language is notorious for having multiple words for the same thing. This is one of those instances. The Greek word hagios is translated holy, holy one or saint. A saint is someone who is holy. One word in Greek, two in English. But wait there’s more. Hallowed is related as well. Remember Halloween? Its on the Eve of All Saints Day, November 1st. Its called All Saints Eve or All Hallows Eve. Because ‘Hallow’ means holy. Thus ‘hallowed’ means ‘having been made holy.’ Got it? Hagios =holy=saint=hallow. Now that we’ve got that, there’s something else going on that confuses us and throws us off. Anytime people recite something together over and over it develops a cadence, a sort of rhythm that helps us stay together and remember the words. The cadence is based much more on the rhythm of the sentences and the sound of the words than on their meaning. For example, take the American Pledge of Allegiance. Below I have indicated where our pauses occur when we recite it together: I pledge allegiance/ to the flag /of the United States of America. //And to the republic /for which it stands:/ one nation /under God, /indivisible, /with liberty and justice for all. These pauses may be helpful for staying together or for remembering the words, but they obscure the meaning. The intent of the author is much clearer if you take the pause marks out and read it straight through. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America” is one complete thought. We are ‘one nation under God,’ and this meaning is blurred because of the cadence we use, and because of the familiarity of the words. The same is true for this part of the Lord’s Prayer. When we say it together it becomes this: Our Father/ Who art in heaven/hallowed be thy name./ Your kingdom come/ your will be done/ on earth as it is in heaven. In the original manuscripts there was no punctuation marks at all, and no capital letters. And certainly no verse marks. But there is grammar and this can help us. My Greek is not too good, but good enough to have realized that the three phrases “Hallowed be your name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done” are parallel. The first is hard to express in English, but could be rendered, “May Your name be made holy.” All three go together and are related in meaning. Also they are all equally followed by “On earth as it is in Heaven.” He just added that to the end referring to all three as a group instead of after each one. So here is what we come up with: o May Your name be made holy on earth as in heaven o May Your Kingdom come on earth as in heaven o May Your will be done on earth as in heaven These three ideas are meant to go together, rather than effectively attaching the hallowed part onto the ‘who art in heaven’ part, and thinking of ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ as only pertaining to ‘Your will be done.’ All three are parallel and have similar meanings. The kingdom of God is where God’s name is made (and kept) holy and where His will is done. And the prayer is for these things to happen here. On earth. Brian McLaren points out that when many of us pray the Lord’s Prayer we do not mean it. We should instead be praying, “Our Father who art in Heaven…may we leave earth and go to heaven where Your will is done because it is being done THERE but not HERE.” He even goes so far to say that Jesus’ primary reason for coming was not to tell us how to go to heaven but rather how to bring heaven down to earth: how to see His will done here. And I would add to Mr. McLaren, that His name would be made and kept holy here on earth as well. God’s name, kingdom and will encompass so much more than simply personal salvation so that we can get to heaven. Jesus, the prophets, the entire scripture in fact seems to be obsessed with pleasing God by taking care of the poor and making sure that justice is done. (A good overview of some scriptures dealing with the poor can be found at: http://worldwidewanderer.blogspot.com/2005/04/biblical-teachings-on-poor-pt-1.html) Worship God, but do not neglect the poor. Keep your oaths, follow the big 10, pray a lot but take a stand against injustice! Jesus had the idea that God’s kingdom was to happen here on earth. And that we, by our lives lived for God before the world were to play a part in its coming. Greed is replaced by generosity. Pride melts away in the presence of humility. Justice shows injustice the door. Love gives the pink slip to hate in all its forms: racism, judgementalism, legalism, rejection, abuse… All of this. Here. On earth. Jesus prayed it. Do we think he was mixed up? No. If Jesus prayed it and taught His disciples to pray it and people have been praying it for 2000 years, the chances of this actually taking place is pretty good. Sorry if that messes up your idea of the end times. And I’m certainly not wanting to get into an eschatological argument with anyone. There are others who will engage, but not me. I’m just saying that this was important to Jesus and that He meant exactly what He said exactly how He said it. And Jesus teaching us to pray this way indicates that He also wants us to live this way. We are to be the ambassadors of His kingdom. And what this looks like may vary from person to person. But for all of us it means putting the teachings and desires of Jesus above our own thoughts of the way it should be. And for all of us it means doing something. Working at a shelter, taking a homeless guy to Denny’s, sweeping the church floor, going on a missions trip, adopting a child…and to do it for Him, giving Him the glory and thus making His name holy.

The Lord's Prayer Part 2-We (are Family)

The first installment was exceptionally long. This one exceptionally short. Actually, together they comprised the first Sunday teaching in this series. So now you know. The second word in The Lord’s Prayer is the word “our” (occurring first in the English. Duh.) Familiarity clouds so much meaning, and it has definitely clouded much from our eyes in this prayer. The fact that this prayer is first person plural is very unusual and maybe a bit awkward. Wouldn’t you think He would pray, “My Father”, or just “Father?” When I address my Dad I don’t call him, “My Dad” and certainly not “Our Dad.” My earthly siblings have to fend for themselves when it comes to Dad. But as personal as Abba is, we cannot get away with having Him all to ourselves. Modern Christianity has emphasized our personal relationship with Jesus. How many times have we heard evangelical Christians (of which I am one) talk about having a personal relationship with God? We hear it all the time. And on one level it is as it should be. Our relationship with God doesn’t have to be filtered through the priesthood or a sacrificial system. We can go straight to Him. Its personal. But as true and valid as this is, it is sadly incomplete and lopsided. When are adopted into God’s family there is more to it than just ‘God and me.’ Having a father means we also have siblings. Jesus use of the word ‘Our’ in this prayer doesn’t let us escape our family relations. Sometimes we may prefer that it were not so. Our being a part of this family means we belong “to a new kind of people who have left the land of “me.” (Claiborne) We are community. Father not only defines our relationship with God in a new way; it also changes our relationships with neighbors. It is a betrayal of the “Our Father” to pray “My Father,“ for the prayer is not only a declaration of a heavenly parent, but it is a commitment to a new vision of family rooted in the providence and authority of our heavenly parent. We cannot have God as Father if we deny the sisterhood and brotherhood we share with the rest of God’s children. -Shane Claiborne Family is the metaphor here for the church. Families don’t gather together in theaters or auditoriums, but in homes. They gather for meals and get together for parties. They celebrate and mourn together. They plan activities and do things spontaneously. They help and care for one another, pick up each other’s kids from school, help with the dishes, or bail one another out of a mess. They also set each other straight when necessary. Being a part of a family means security on so many levels. This is how the church should function. And this is why home groups are so important. We cannot function as a family should if we only meet auditorium style on Sundays and Wednesday nights. I’m the father of four beautiful girls. There is no title that I like better than ‘Daddy.’ And there is not much that frustrates me more than seeing our children leave each other out of games or activities, as if they were only children. And there are not many things that bring me more joy than seeing them be kind to one another, give and sacrifice because they care for one another. So it is with our Abba. He is OUR Father. Our Dad. Our Papa. And we are connected with one another.

The Lord's Prayer Part 1-Who's Your Daddy?

This is part one of 7 installments on the Lord’s Prayer. I’m teaching on the Lord’s Prayer in church as part of a much longer series on the Sermon on the Mount. If you can’t make it to CrossBridge or if you miss a week you can get caught up here. If you are a regular CrossBridger (BridgeCrosser?) some of this will be redundant because you know my thoughts on the importance of understanding Jesus’ life and message in its historical and cultural setting. I’m writing with the reader in mind who has not been to CrossBridge and who hasn’t heard me beat into the ground that: 1) Jesus was not a Christian, he was a Jew. Thought like a Jew, ate like a Jew. Dressed like a Jew. Liked Jewish music. And Jewish dancing. Falafel, anyone? 2) Jesus was born, lived and died during the Roman occupation of Israel. His message was understood by his original audience as pertaining largely to their own historical situation. I go so far as to say that the depth of His message cannot be understood apart from a good understanding of the Roman occupation and its implications for daily Jewish life. 3) Jesus was a Jewish rabbi. He was a travelling teacher, one whose job it was to interpret the law for others. He had disciples like other rabbi’s in his day. He, in this way, was not peculiar. 4) When properly understood, Jesus’ message and example form for us a model for living, thinking and worshiping in our day, here and now. In fact, if we will embrace His message and begin to live it out, not only will we be changed, but those around us will be changed as well. OK. There’s probably more, but that will do for now. Here’s the first installment on the Lord’s Prayer. Jewish prayers were generally recited verbatim in Hebrew, even though Aramaic was the spoken language of the people. The languages were similar, like Dutch and German are similar, or like English and red neck are similar. (Did that offend? Sorry.) Hebrew was a really big deal. It was considered on some level to be the divine language. When God spoke to the Israelites, He did so in Hebrew and so God should be addressed in Hebrew as well. (God was smart that way, making sure he did not address the ancient Israelites in Swahili or Chinese.) There was a really spiritual sound to the language of Hebrew for the first century Jew. It was beautiful. It was rich in history…the history of God saving them. The Hebrew language sounded holy. It’s like some folks today praying in King James English. Nobody talks like that anymore. But it is beautiful and it sounds reverent and holy. But there may be a downside to the KJV prayer: it puts a false distance between God and us. It puts Him way up in the clouds and us down here. It makes Him seem a bit more inaccessible. Yes, God is to be revered. His ways are higher than ours. The transcendent and intimate must both be embraced. As we’ll see below, our relationship with the transcendent God should be an intimate one. I played bass on a recording by a guy in Tulsa named Jim Edwards. He wrote the following lyric: Everyone knows that the Lord God is British That’s how King James got to know him so well Can’t get much air-time speaking Hebrew or Yiddish The sorts of words we choose make us feel a certain way. So does the language we choose (provided we have a choice). But what does this have to do with the Lord’s Prayer? You’re about to find out. Abba is an Aramaic word meaning Papa or Daddy. (Less formal than Father.) It was the first word that a baby spoke in Jesus’ culture. In fact, today it is still the first word that a baby speaks in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Jordan. Scholars generally agree that Abba would have been the first word in the Lord’s Prayer. This would have been very controversial in Jesus’ day. Note: Abba was Aramaic, not Hebrew. Jesus was praying in Aramaic. This would have been a serious departure from religious practice of His day when ALL religious practice was performed in Hebrew, the holy language. But for Jesus, thus, there was NO holy language. He was advocating a type of prayer that was more personal and less structured than what Jewish worship normally encompassed. Because Jesus did not endorse the idea that there is a sacred language, He opened the door for the New Testament to be written in Greek and translated into other languages. It follows then, that Jewish culture is not sacred either. Jewish culture was Jesus’ culture…He was fully Jewish. But He did not hold his language or customs as universally applicable. God is above language and culture. Much of the church has done the same thing…created a culture with its own language (Christianese) and standards of behavior that are treated as universal but are not. Jesus took on flesh to show us what God is like (talk about culture shock!!) He and His followers deconstructed the system where worship was about a geographically based God that must be worshiped in a certain language, while dressed in certain garments and looking, smelling and sounding like everyone around them. It has been suggested that Jesus’ calling God ‘Father’ is original. It is not. Though Jesus showed us a level of intimacy with God that was unprecedented, the idea of God as Father was found in other religions and certainly in Judaism. The first time that father-son imagery is used in the OT is when Moses was being sent back to God to confront Pharaoh. The Jewish people were being held captive in an unjust, oppressive, abusive system in which they had no voice. Exodus 4: 21 The LORD said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I told you, "Let my son go, so he may worship me." But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.' " Justice and deliverance was the context for the father-son imagery. Jesus’ use of the word Abba echoes the history of Israel being delivered from Egypt. Jesus is calling for deliverance from oppression and for justice to be executed. The Israelites were captive by Egypt, and now by Rome. Now, as then, it is the Father who will come to rescue the captive son. Even now as we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we lift our voices and cry out to our Papa for justice, peace and an end to suffering. (Note that He moves immediately into asking for God’s kingdom to come.) Abba. It’s a slap in the face of stuffy religion-as-usual. It communicates intimacy. And it’s a prayer for God to rescue us from injustice. And that’s just the first word of the prayer.

The other day I was at the bar before 9am. No one was there yet, and I wasn’t too surprised. But I knew that they’d be there soon enough. I was right. By 10am the place was buzzing. People talking, laughing, having a good time, enjoying a beverage…cold or hot. Then the band started, and that pretty much set the atmosphere for the morning. A little later somebody got up and talked…real funny guy…a visitor from Arkansas. He made everybody laugh, and he was real smart and then he got serious and so did the rest of us. Then some of us stayed for lunch at the restaurant upstairs. Me and my friends call this ‘church.’ We do it about once a week. And yes, we do it in a bar. A real bar with neon beer logos on the wall and a view of the Sun Harbor Marina on St. Andrews Bay that is just beautiful. The bar is called “Dock of the Bay” and it sits on…ummm…a dock…on a bay. Thus the name. And yes, there is a dynamite restaurant upstairs. Great food, great atmosphere. What a cool place to have church. It was not really my dream to have church in a bar. It is a value for our church to avoid a permanent location as long as possible. See, we don’t think of the church as a building, but as a people. I know lots of other folks say they believe the same thing, but they mostly meet in church buildings. We meet in a bar. We’re not better than church-building churches. We’re just trying to live out our values. Lots of people think it’s a cool idea to have church in a bar. Like us. We think it’s a great idea. There’s chairs, tables and walls. Room enough for everyone. We didn’t have to buy chairs, tables or walls. We can spend that money on other stuff. We like to spend as much money as we can on helping others. We do this ministry called “Angel Food.” It helps get people cheap groceries. We also do this thing called “The Cars of Christmas” and it helps people get...well, cars. At Christmas. It’s cool to do things to help people and not have to worry about chairs and tables and walls. ‘Cause we meet in a bar. People who think it’s a cool idea to have church in a bar usually say something about our church hanging out with people who Jesus would have hung out with. Like people who go to bars. They talk about how Jesus loves and accepts everyone, even those who go to bars. People are accepted in a bar. Our whole church goes to bars… one called ‘Dock of the Bay’ in particular. Anyway, we accept people the way they are the very best we can. And we love them because we love the Jesus who accepts them the way they are. Some of our folks have been hurt in other churches so they don’t feel comfortable in a conventional church building. Some folks may have never been to church much but they’ve been to bars a lot, so they are more at home in a bar. I’ve been to a lot of bars and a lot of churches. I figure folks go to bars and churches for a lot the same reasons. Because they’re hurting, lonely, needing love and someone to talk to. Or maybe because they’re in the habit of going. Whatever your reason for wanting to see church done in a different way, we welcome you at CrossBridge. Dock of the Bay Restaurant and Lounge, Sundays at 10am.

Angel Food 062808

Today (Saturday, June 28th) we had Angel Food Distribution. Every month we take orders for people who want to buy cheap food. It’s a great deal and I guess it really helps a lot of people. The thing has grown incredibly…almost doubling every single month that we’ve done it so far. We started with around 30 boxes and this month we had 664. (Two more boxes and we would have certainly had to explain to someone that we’re NOT the antichrist.) So these 664 boxes of food came in on a big truck from Georgia. People waited in line for hours to get their food just like they were waiting to get tickets for the next Rolling Stones concert. One family was there 2½ hours before time for delivery. Their wait was not significantly longer than most of the others. It was hot and humid and just about everybody had to stand for a couple hours to get their food. We had some cold drinks for them (thanks, Buffalo Rock) and we tried to make them laugh. And we tried to make them feel like someone cares for them. I told our volunteers that it was important to see people as people with feelings and needs and emotions and not just as another pair of hands holding another box of food as they move through the line. We wanted them to feel God’s presence as they picked up their food. Still, I would have been ticked if I had to spend a chunk of my Saturday waiting in a food line. Got stuff to do, you know. But these people were happy. I didn’t experience any bad attitudes or rude people. I couldn’t believe it. Hundreds and hundreds of people standing in the heat for hours and no one’s complaining. What if you had to stand in line next to someone who talked too much or had an annoying laugh? No bad attitudes, no complaining. At least I didn’t hear it. Someone said that its positive proof that God is working through this food ministry. Maybe they’re right. I was there to serve others. But I was the one who got touched. An experience of God’s presence was being extended to me through the ones there to get food. Everything was upside-down. We’re working on getting the process better streamlined to handle the volume of people coming through. But there seemed to be something very healthy and very healing about the waiting. Maybe its because it gave people a chance to slow down and not have to be busy for a little while. Maybe its because we need community so bad and people were able to connect with each other in the line. I know that rest and community are things that I need desperately. I would never have thought to go looking for them in a food line.