By Lisa Larges

Scripture: Psalm 91

Hebrews 4:14-16

Luke 11:1-4

Let’s assume that you’re a decent person.  If this is Minnesota, and we’re in church, it seems like a safe enough bet.  And by “decent person” I mean that you try to live your life in accordance with certain values: to be kind, help out where you can, show up, do the right thing.  Maybe you do these things out of a religious conviction, maybe out of the cumulative years of experience – it’s easier to be nice, at least in Minnesota.

So there you are, a decent person, and then something happens to you – a loss, a difficulty of some kind, a sudden unexpected change, a disappointment.  And you think to yourself, surely I can handle this.  All those years of being a decent person should pay off now, those values should strengthen you, and those convictions should help you.  All you have to do is to martial your will, put on your big girl shoes, man up, bear down, power through, put on your game face.  And, if you have religious convictions, you may turn to prayer.  You will pray for strength, for courage, perhaps for wisdom.  Just a simple prayer is all that is needed, “God, help me to face these things that I must now face.”

What you won’t do is give up.  What you won’t do is admit defeat.

God, we say, or others tell us, will not give us more than we can bear.  So we try to bear up.

But, what happens to the decent person when our troubles are bigger than we are, when the sorrow is beyond our capacity to bear, when the worry overwhelms, when the problem is unfixable.

What if, hypothetically speaking, you start to notice that you’re drinking a little bit more than is proper, a little more often than you should.  What if it’s starting to get a little out of hand.  Then, you say to yourself, I need to cut back.

And so you do.  You cut back on the drinking, but then, all of a sudden you realize that you’re not cutting back any more, and possibly it’s a little worse than it was before.  So now, you are ready to say that this might be a problem, and you’re going to need to dig down deeper and get control of yourself and deal with it.  Maybe you should even stop drinking.  Maybe just for a little while.  So you stop.  But then you tell yourself that decent people do drink – they just don’t drink to the point where they pass out or black out or throw up on their shoes, or at least not all that often.  And you are a decent person, and, if only you exercise self-discipline, which you have proved in the past that you are capable of, then you too will be able to drink in the way that decent people drink.

The point is that you can handle it.  Unless, you can’t.

Which is to say, I couldn’t?

The first thing they’ll tell you when you walk in to AA seems to be so counter intuitive as to be wrong:  That you can’t beat this, and in fact, the more you try, the further down you’ll go.  The addiction is stronger than your will to resist.  Trying and failing to beat it, over and over again, that’s a recipe for shame, pure and outright.  You have to win by losing.  It’s a hard concept for anyone to take hold of, but especially hard for decent people.

The beginning of the end for me came in a phone call from a pastor friend.  Someone I didn’t happen to talk to all that often, but someone who recognized that I had a problem, saw that I was losing the struggle, and was led to intervene.  We talk for a while, and then she said, “How bad do you want it to get.”

Suddenly I knew exactly what she meant.  As Ann Lamot said recently of her own journey, “I had reached the point where I was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards.”

“How bad do you want it to get?” I knew where the train was heading, and I knew it was picking up speed.  I had a job that I loved, I had friends, and family who I loved and who loved me.  But, I could see it all going.  Drinking was more necessary than any of these things, and the shame and the loathing that that reality induced was unbearable.

I won’t say that having glimpsed this reality that I then went gracefully into treatment.  Predictably, I resisted strenuously every step along the way.  But, eventually, I wound up there, and there I began to learn that you can only win when you stop fighting.  It didn’t make any sense, it makes no sense now, but it works.  First, you admit you’re powerless, then, you win.

Maybe you’re thinking that I got the right building but the wrong meeting.  Maybe you’re wondering what any of this un-Minnesota-like oversharing has to do with the prayer that Jesus taught us and the lines for today’s reflection.

I tell you these things because I think these lines from the Lord’s Prayer confront us with the radical and counter-intuitive nature of prayer itself.  We don’t believe that God actually would lead us in to temptation, what kind of sadistic God is that?  And we believe that the time we’ve put in on being a decent person will pay off when such temptations come.

As a whole, in fact, this is a prayer that is problematic in several ways.  It is not a prayer we ourselves would have authored.  In the first place, were it up to me, I would not pray for my daily bread.  I would like tomorrow’s bread too; I would pray for a 401k of bread.  Nor would I make my being forgiven contingent on my capacity to forgive.  And I would rework this little section to say something like, “And grant me the strength, wisdom and moral conviction to face whatever temptations might come my way, that I might better demonstrate to the whole world that I am a good Christian. Thank you.

It’s a prayer that doesn’t make any sense – out here on the level where we can take it apart and review it clause by clause.  But in the heart’s insensible language, it’s all the prayer I need.

For the addict in me will tell you that temptation and I are well acquainted, best friends, in fact.  When temptation calls, I say I will be right over.  Here I am again, confronted by this powerlessness, by my own human weakness, my own simple, direct, at last and only need for God.

So, my heart clings to these words like they are a life raft in a tempestuous sea.  The heart cares nothing for the finer points of theological niceties as to whether God sets temptations in our path or the problem of evil.  Reconciled at last to my own powerlessness my heart cries out to God, keep me safe from temptation’s snare.  They are the plain,  unadorned prayers of the Psalmist: “Preserve me,” “Save me,” “Deliver me,” or, simplist of all, “Help me.”

Isn’t it in keeping with our own human capacity to find the easier course that we have, for 2 millenniums, so emphatically missed the point.  As if the disciples had asked Jesus what to pray rather than how to pray? As if they had said, “Give us the words to pray,” and not, “show us the way to pray.”

Not that there isn’t power and strength in praying the what – a kind of comfort in knowing that these words we say are said by believers all across the world and back through the ages; that those who come after us in this very space will use these same words.  It is a great linking prayer, and there is strength and solace in that.

I wouldn’t at all be surprised if the first disciples took the what for the how.  I can imagine that they too were glad to have a Script to follow when conversing with the Holy of Holies.  Nonetheless, Jesus uses these words to tell us something about the condition of the heart in prayer and not so much the content on our lips.

My Grandmother was a great believer, the sort that knew the Scriptures through constant study, and who could go toe to toe on all manner of doctrine.  And like many mothers of her time, she sent her sons, three of them into military service with a pocket edition of the Scriptures, and an inscribed note at Psalm 91.  It is the soldier’s prayer.

Googling Psalm 91 will bring up enumerable accounts of soldiers who recited this Psalm and were miraculously saved from danger or certain death.  Some of these have the added virtue of being true.

But, I don’t think my Grandmother understood the Psalm to be a talisman against evil,  but rather a clear and direct reminder  that in all things, God is with us.  In life, in death, God is near to us.  Like believers before and after her, my Grandmother was one of those who rested in the promises.

This is the how of prayer.  We come to God with the fears and struggles of our hearts laid bear.  All pretense is swept away.  Beneath the layer of our human striving, beyond our desire to be decent people, relieved of our own goodness, down at the level of simple human need, we come to God directly.  We sit down beside the well of living water, our cup is filled and we are renewed.  Strength for the journey, rest for our souls, these are the blessings of prayer.

Surely, temptations will come, and troubles too.  We will not always meet them well.  Even so, we can bring it all to God in prayer; our fears and our failings, our despair and our desiring, our uncertainty, our sorrow, and every obscure and pent up longing from the deepest recesses of our inmost self.

For the God who made heaven and earth is with us, and the God who is with us cares for us.  For this Jesus is our necessary demonstration.  He was tempted as we are tempted, knew sorrow, fear, loneliness, and doubt as we know them. Again and again the Gospels tell us that he went off by himself to pray.  And, knowing in himself the strength and comfort of that sweet communion, he taught us how to pray.

Every day, may we learn.

And may we remember.

Most Holy and Gracious Lord, interupt our lives, our status quo, with unexpected grace and healing. Amen

I have forgiveness issues. As I prepared to write this sermon it became clearer and clearer to me that I have forgiveness issues. You see I want to be vindicated where I have been wronged; I want my injuries to be validated where I have been hurt. I’m not a particularly vindictive person; it’s not that I want others to have to pay but I’m not always ready to let go of injuries. God’s conciliating justice is often so far beyond me. I am so often like the older brother in the courtyard crying out my disbelief that someone who has hurt me so badly is still loved and cherished. That the relationship of Father and child has taken priority over the misguided actions and poorly chosen words. As I considered forgiveness I realized that I am a carrier of ghosts. I keep alive memories of wounds, of injuries, of misspoken words and hurtful behaviors. And I want to hold others accountable! These are my forgiveness issues. Mostly that I want to be right. I, like the older brother, want to be right.

But Jesus asked, “do you want to be healed,” and the reasonable answer is “of course!” I don’t want to be injured, to be sick or wounded. Why would anyone want to be hurt? It’s just that if I don’t have any injuries, any wounds then I can’t hold anyone accountable can I? I can’t be vindicated for the harm done to me if I have no wounds.

And sometimes wounds need to be cared for, need tending, but if we are still doing that we aren’t ready to forgive. So Jesus asks us, “do you want to be healed?” because the obvious answer isn’t always the one we give. Sometimes we say no, I’m not ready yet, or no I really want to hold that guy accountable. And we maintain our wounds, our injuries, our ability to be recriminating. Forgive us as we have forgiven others isn’t to say that we should only be forgiven as we have done, but that it is only in forgiving others that we are restored to relationship.  We experience the love and forgiveness, the healing of Jesus Christ only as we are able to let go of our woundedness, our desire to be vindictive, our moral outrage at the wrongs done.

We know who we are by the stories we tell ourselves, by the stories we share with others. but perhaps the deepest stories we share are stories of wounding. When Brene Brown began studying love she heard stories of heartbreak. It was the wounds that people wanted her to hear, to know. It is in knowing and sharing our wounds that we come to feel known, to feel understood. Do we want to be healed? Have we become identified with our wounds? Are we willing to forgo the vindication, the validation that so often we long for?

I want to suggest that God’s justice is not retributive,  is not vindictive, it’s restorative. I want to suggest that while it is very human to desire vindication, to desire vengeneance, that this is not God’s justice. I want to suggest that in fact there is something about God’s restorative justice that offends, that is an affront to our moral righteousness, to our desire for balance and retribution. We have a tendency to want people to pay for what they have done. Certainly in our text today we hear the prodigal’s older brother insisting that restoring his younger brother to relationship was not OK. The younger brother had trashed his relationship with his family and there was no coming back from that, just ask his older brother. Damage was done. The feeling of betrayal was so deep. So often we want the scales to balance. We want fairness. God asks us to forgo our justice that God’s justice might triumph.

In the story of Jacob’s return to Esau we have another brother forced to return home. Jacob is running from Laban because there were rumors that Laban had turned against him. But is it any safer at home?

Always the liar and the cheat he is still afraid. He worries that his brother will not forgive him, may even kill him. And he sends sacrificial gifts before him as he comes nearer. He puts those with less value out front and keeps his wives and children in the rear. At one point he separates them into two camps just in case Esau arrives and wipes out one camp, at least the other would survive. Jacob knows he has cheated and he has lied, he has betrayed his brother repeatedly and he cannot imagine his brother not being angry, not seeking retribution. Caught between Laban in the rear and Esau in the front Jacob hides out, sleeping alone on the other side of the river from his family. If retributive justice prevails then Jacob is due for a reckoning and he is right to be afraid. He knows he deserves Esau’s anger and he can’t go back to Laban, not after the way he left. Jacob has done wrong to so many and so he spends the night alone, in the dark.

And he fights. He fights all night with the unseen stranger. Who is this anyway? This nightmare that won’t let him sleep? This unseen stranger who sees Jacob, knows Jacob, better than he knows himself. Jacob wants to see and know this stranger but the one person that Jacob resists seeing, doesn’t want to face is himself. Jacob is unmasked by God. His life is out of joint. He has destroyed relationship after relationship by seeking only his own desires. And now he is on the run.  Even now he is hiding. No longer can he swagger and posture, boast of his slight of hand, his quick wit, how he put one over on Esau or put one over on Laban.  He is left limping toward home as so often we all are. Limping toward reconciliation, limping toward love and hope, limping toward God and salvation.

Forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. This is our prayer. It is our hope. Because we don’t want to remain stuck, to remain separated from those we love, to remain divided in ourselves. We forgive because it is the only path to healing and restoration, but it isn’t easy.

We talk about forgiveness as if it were a decision, a one time event. Kara had me watch the movie about the Amish experience in preparation for this sermon. You might remember how they forgave the family of the man who had mercilessly gunned down ten of their girls killing five of them. I was struck by the comment made by the man who was first to meet with this family. He said, “We will forgive you,” not we have, but we will. Forgiveness takes time. It ebbs and flows with the tide of pain and memory. Just when we feel we have let our wounds go, something triggers us and we feel like we are right back there again, everything fresh and painful and forgiveness is miles away. So we pray and we realize that forgiveness is a process not an accomplishment; we pray to forgive because we can’t do it alone, the healing that is necessary to forgive comes from the Holy Spirit and not from us.

We left Jacob limping toward home, one more prodigal, returning from exile, limping toward reconciliation.

But I wonder what was going through Esau’s mind. I mean his twin brother, always the weaker and smaller of the two had cheated him and stolen his birthright and now he was coming home. People kept showing up with gifts addressing him as “Lord.” What was he thinking when he gathered together 400 of his men and went out to meet Jacob? I wonder if he knew himself. Perhaps he was thinking of what would be right and fair, that Jacob deserved retribution. Perhaps he was planning on exacting that retribution. That would satisfy our moral outrage wouldn’t it! That the one who cheated and maligned his brother even as his father lay dying would have to pay! It’s only fair right? But God has other plans. God’s justice is restorative, not retributive. God doesn’t care for our moral outrage but asks us instead to turn the other cheek, to sacrifice our desire for vindication, to let go of our wounds. And Esau does not meet Jacob as a wounded and injured man, raging in pain and grief, he meets him feeling strong and sure of himself, he meets him feeling healthy and grateful, he meets him as one who has been healed.

Our moral outrage is fed by our wounds. Esau forgoes the need to have his wounds addressed. He does not remind Jacob how he has hurt him. How angry and wounded he was when his twin brother betrayed him. Esau lets it all go. It seems somehow appropriate that we often hear this story told as if Esau were too stupid to realize what’s going on because in the story of the Prodigal son it’s the father who seems too stupid to realize how he has been wronged. It’s the father who violates social standards and refuses to be morally outraged as is his right.

Esau and the father of the Prodigal both respond not with moral outrage but by prioritizing the relationship. The relationship is the primary claim. We are brothers, You are my son, you are beloved. Can we learn to overlook hurtful words and actions as Esau and the father have done? Can we learn to see past the wounds inflicted and see the person behind them? Can we learn to not count the cost, to not exhibit our wounds, to leave off recriminations and see the heart of a brother, of a sister?

To the extent that we insist on vindication, that we maintain our right to be satisfied, we withhold ourselves from the kingdom, joining the older brother in the courtyard. But that’s OK because the Father is out there with us inviting us again to join the party, to be reconciled. Because the Father prioritizes our relationship above our behavior and waits for us to accept the healing that is offered. And when we are ready to accept God’s grace and healing, to let go of our wounds,  we are forgiven just as we forgive those who have injured us.

(guided visualization)

I invite you to settle back into your chairs and as you feel comfortable to let your eyes close, I invite you to take a deep breath and let everything relax as you imagine yourself in a beautiful garden surrounded by those who love you unconditionally, the birds are singing, a soft breeze is blowing and the warmth of the sun feels good on your skin. You look around you and realize just how deeply you are loved and cherished, that you are cared for. When you are ready I invite you to think of someone you are ready to forgive and imagine a child walking across the garden toward you and as this child comes closer you realize that this child is that person whom you need to forgive, perhaps it is someone you know to be older but in your mind they come to you as a child, uncertain, vulnerable. Perhaps the person approaching is a younger you, some part of yourself that you have never forgiven perhaps for being different, or doing something foolish or hurtful. As this child comes closer I invite you, if you are ready to embrace this child with tenderness and love knowing that there is in all of us that child waiting to be accepted, waiting to be loved, longing for relationship. Let yourself feel with deep gratitude a feeling of peace and love as you embrace this child. Remembering that forgiveness is not a one time decision but a process we know that we can always come back to this place, that God promises to be with us and that we can carry with us this sense of peace and calm, of love. Taking a deep breath and letting go of any need to be right or to do things right we slowly begin to come back to where we are, carrying with us a deep sense of gratitude. And I invite you stand and join in singing our closing hymn.

Friends from Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church, thank you for trusting me with this piece of the Word we proclaim together in worship. Friends from other places, here’s the deal: for the first five weeks of this season of Lent (there are six-ish weeks), instead of our fabulous pastor in the pulpit, different members of the congregation are preaching on various stanzas of the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples (a.k.a. the Padre Nuestro or the Lord’s Prayer). I was given the first stanza, which sometimes sounds like “Our Father, mumble mumble mumble.” The mumbles are often something like “who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

It was an honor and delight to preach, but there’s a glaring problem with the sermon: in contrasting a loving parent (metaphor for God) with a bully mentioned in the scripture reading, I missed the opportunity to point out that some parents are, in fact, bullies. Knowing the triggering power of family violence, Roberta Bondi wrote in her book  A Place to Pray (1998), “I can’t imagine that [a friend  of hers who experienced family violence] ever will be able to pray to God as Father, or Mother, either, for that matter.” I’m committed to learning more about this, learning about how to approach this and other kinds of violence as starting points for interpretation of my tradition’s sacred texts.

That being said, I’m more committed to people not having flashbacks now than I am to future sermons. At LNPC we talk a lot about wholeness, about its importance and how it looks different to each of us. So please, folks, don’t read my sermon if it’s going to make being whole more difficult for you. Let me know if you want highlights, or if you just want me to send you the funny picture of Ba’al. Or wait for a sermon from Ani, Cyndi, and the two Lisas—their sermons are just as good, even better.

Peace be with you.

Scripture Readings

Hosea 11:1-9

¹When Israel was a youth, I loved it dearly, and out of Egypt I called my child. ²But the more I called them, the more they turned from me; they kept sacrificing to the Ba’als, and offering incense to idols.

³Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. ⁴I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.

⁵They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall rule over them, because they have refused to return to me. ⁶Swords will flash in their cities, destroying their gates and devouring them because of their plans. ⁷My people are bent on turning away from me! To “The Most High” they call, but he does not raise them up at all.

⁸How can I abandon you, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is aching within me; I am burning with compassion! ⁹No, I can’t do it! I cannot act on my righteous anger! I will not turn around and destroy Ephraim! For I am God—no mere mortal—the Holy One who walks among you, and I will not come in wrath.[i]

Matthew 6:9a

[Jesus said] “Pray then in this way: Our Abba in heaven, hallowed by your name.”

Sermon preached at Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church on Saturday, February 25, 2012

When did you learn the Lord’s Prayer? Can you even remember? I can’t. It is simply the background music to my earliest memories of church. I don’t recall being taught the words, though perhaps my parents showed me how, the way they told me what the bread and grape juice at communion meant. I think I learned by doing, by stumbling along and repeating what I heard—most of us probably did. What this means, though, is that for most of my childhood I never said the first words to the prayer. Have you ever caught yourself doing this, too? Waiting for that moment that the pastor begins to intone “Our Father” so that you can jump in with “who-art-in-heaven-hallowed-be-thy-name”? I still sometimes do that, which makes me laugh at how well trained I am.

But eventually “Our Father” made its way into my prayers, and now, for the past few years I’ve begun with “Our Mother and Father” to remind myself of how expansive God is. But whether we use “Father,” “Mother,” the original Aramaic word “Abba,” a combination of these words of none of them at all, we’re still left with the question: why did Jesus think to begin the prayer that was to shape all of his disciple’s prayers with the metaphor of a parent? Why not rock? Or shepherd? [ii]

So, what do parents do anyways? Well, there are a lot of basics, like feeding and clothing your children, for sure, as well as providing shelter and affirmation. These are necessary for life. There are also a lot of practical things that parents teach, like how to read or how to cook or how not to embarrass yourself at the dinner table. Then there are all of the intangibles that parents pass down. There are the stories of who this family is: this is what we do, and these are the people who helped shape that—the crazy uncles and strong matriarchs and the people who moved and the people stayed right where they were. And along with the stories, parents give us their names. Last names more and more reflect the stories of our mothers as well as our fathers, and our ears perk up when we hear someone mention them, hungry for connection to a total stranger.

(When I met another Masters once, I wasn’t sure we were related. “It’s hard to say,” I told her, “some of the history on that side of the family has been lost. All I know about my great grandfather was that he was a bootlegger and a philanderer.” To which she replied: “Then we’re most certainly related!” Though we might not be biologically related, our family’s stories are the same.)

Parents pass on good advice and humor, too, and a few things that we’d rather they’d kept to themselves—things we thought we had opted out of only to find them emerging in our moments of anger and tiredness. Parents can pass on destruction, too, the marks of which last for generations.

Most of all, though, parents—and family, in general—give us the first sense of who we are. We don’t come into the world as atomic, separate individuals—some would say we never become that way, even—but instead our first identity is belonging. Parents say to their children: “You have a place in this world, because you belong to me.” That same message is echoed through the rest of our lives, between friends, siblings, cousins, lovers, and sometimes between people on opposite ends of the planet from each other: “You have a place in this world, because you belong to me.” Jesus radicalizes this: “Who are my mother and brothers? Don’t call anyone on earth your father. You have one Abba in heaven, and all of us here doing the will of God are one family.”[iii]

Jesus would have grown up listening to this passage from the prophet Hosea that we just heard. In it we get some perspective on who this God is, whom we call our Father and our Mother.

Did you hear the anguish in God’s voice? God is cut to the heart! The children God loved so dearly, the ones God led out to freedom, whom God has called and promised to stick by—“They are bent on turning away from me!” God cries! “They keep sacrificing to the Ba’als, offering incense to idols!” This isn’t an egotistic complaint, not pesky jealousy, not some nit-picky question like “Who is this Ba’al character you’ve been hanging around with, anyways?” God is witnessing violence: swords flashing, the destruction of city gates, a return to oppression like the kind the people suffered in Egypt.

So, who is Ba’al? How did he arrive on the scene? Well, truthfully, it was more accurate that Ba’al had been around longer a little longer than Israel had. When that rag-tag bunch of exiles and misfits that God had made into God’s own people arrived in Canaan—the “promised land”—there were already people living there, with their own local deities and sacred spots. There’s some good evidence that the victorious conquest stories from Joshua, stories that describe how Israel made their home in Canaan, weren’t as triumphant as they’re made out to be—mostly, people just moved in alongside their neighbors. [iv] A few centuries later—including a few wars, a united kingdom, the construction of a temple, and the kingdom’s eventual division—those neighbors were still there, along with their local gods. Ba’al was one of the more important gods, in charge of storms, rain, and fertility, son of the supreme sky god, El (a name that Israel later borrowed to describe their God, Yahweh).[v]

Last fall I happened to meet Ba’al. I was wandering through the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago when I happened upon a small, bronze figurine in a glass case with a little card next to it: Ba’al. “Really?” I thought, leaning in. “This is who all the fuss was about?” (You see, Ba’al shows up a number of times in the Hebrew Scriptures, and it’s never a good thing when he does.) I studied the expression etched onto his small face: he had a look that was definitely proud, and slightly bored, and cruel, even. His clenched fist was lifted above his head in what the card described as his “characteristic smiting pose.” No doubt about it: Ba’al was a bully. Sure, he could make rain come and crops grow, but don’t get confused: Ba’al isn’t interested in your wellbeing, but a lot more interested in being the one on the top. Earlier on in his book, the prophet Hosea says that Ba’al is the name that God doesn’t want to be called; “Ba’al” also means “master,” whereas God prefers a title like lover.[vi]

Can you picture our parent God, hands wringing in frustration and heartbrokenness? “Oh come on! Why are you calling out the “The Most High”?[vii] Don’t you see? I am the Holy One, who walks among you! Ba’al is not the one who raises you up! That’s me! Ba’al is the one who puts you down. Ba’al is the bully who tells you that you’re not good enough, who tell you to sacrifice more and more and maybe he won’t pummel you, who divides you up and gives you swords and says, “See those folks over there? If you want to prove to me that you’re tough enough, go beat them up!” Worshipping Ba’al is being formed in the image of a bully. It is like returning to Egypt: it is going back to slavery under a cruel Pharaoh.

And here’s God, our Mother, our Father, who cries out, “Remember whose image you’re made in? Mine! Remember how I scooped you up to feed you? How I lifted you up into my arms and soothed you when you fell and hurt yourself? I remember, because I was there teaching you how to walk.” Unlike Ba’al, the one with that characteristic smiting pose, this God who walks among us does not come in wrath. Sure, there’s plenty to be angry about: how violence is being perpetuated against innocent people, how the child God loves has bought into bullying as a way to get by in the world. But God’s can’t bring Godself to act on it! Instead, as the prophet writes later on, God tells the beloved child: “Come, come back, I’m going to resettle you in your own homes: homes where everyone is safe and cared for, homes where I’ll continue to make you whole.”[viii]

●                                    ●                                    ●

Jesus, at the very beginning of this prayer, invites us to stop and remember whose we are, who has claimed us. Saying “Abba, our Father, our Mother,” is an invitation to look up and see God stoop down to scoop us up, hold us in strong arms of protection and love.

And I think that it makes total sense that it would be from this place, this calm in the eye of the storm, held by God space, that we would confess the very next line in the prayer that Jesus taught: “Hallowed be thy name.” Or, in the words of the song we sang, “You alone are holy.” It slips from our lips, even, because held by the care of our Father, our Mother, we feel the affirmation of our beloved-ness, which is holy. And it comes unbidden, too, because this holy God is so other than our busted up world that says we aren’t good enough, and something down deep in us needs to tell the truth about that.

And if God is anything like one of my parents, then this is what happens next. After a tight hug God sits me down at the kitchen table. “You look exhausted, love. Have a cup of coffee.” And handing me a warm mug, God reminds me that these words I’ve spoken, “You are holy, hallowed by thy name,” while they are true words, are just the beginning.

“Don’t you remember? Flip back to that old book you hardly read anymore, Leviticus. ‘I am Yahweh, your God; as I am holy, so you’ll be holy, too.” That’s from Leviticus, chapter 19. It’s the declaration that sums up a long list of ways that God’s people live together: As I am holy, you also will be holy.[ix]

A lot of them sound pretty familiar: “You shall not steal. You shall not lie to each other.  You shall honor your mother and father and keep the Sabbath.” Some are more specific, but just as important: “You shall not harvest everything in your fields and in your vineyards, but leave some for those without food or work. You shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor.” We could probably add more to this, like we did with the kids at St. Joe’s last month.[x] For example, You shall not bully.

That funky, old-fashioned English word “hallowed” that so many of us have retained in the Lord’s prayer actually helps us out here. The petition “hallowed be thy name” doesn’t just mean that God is holy, but that this Holy One isn’t aloof or far off and calls us to make God’s holy presence known. Hallow is a verb: to make holy. And what are we hallowing? God’s name, God’s identity, God’s way of caring for life that those who wrote the Bible tried to express in long lists like Leviticus 19 and poetic snapshots like Hosea’s. To pause and acknowledge that we are called and loved is simply the first step; to live in the world like it matters, to make that love palpable and tangible—that’s the calling. Turning away from our participation in plans that pit neighbor against neighbor, standing up to bullies and doing justice is what we do in this family because we belong to our Father, our Mother—not to Ba’al.

So this is how Jesus begins teaching us how to pray: by grounding us in love, and in the mystery of that love invites us to share in God’s holy way of being in the world. From here the rest of the prayer naturally flows out: God’s reign comes and God’s will is done on earth as it is done in heaven; we trust in God’s abundance and share the bread that we have; our debts and our trespasses are forgiven, empowering us to forgive others; and lest we start suspecting that we are all alone in this, that God’s hands are tied, we pray for God to save us from temptation, trial, and evil itself.

So then even as God calls us to be as fully alive, just, and loving as God created us to be, even as we are called to hallow God’s name, the prayer leaves us in the same strong arms that scooped us up: the arms of our Mother, our Father. We have a place in this world because we belong to this God. May our lives give witness to this today, tomorrow, in the face of death this Lent, and in the joy of new life this Easter. May it be so, Amen.

I have a confession to make. When Ben, Ani, Lisa, Cyndi, and I sat down with Kara and the worship team to talk about this sermon series, this was the only part of the Lord’s Prayer that made me thing, “Man, I will take any petition except that one!” “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” … what does that even mean? There’s so much heady stuff wrapped up in this petition: the obscure meaning of “Kingdom of God,” concepts of what heaven may be like, and intense theology involving the end times. I realize we could go in a million different directions with this passage. So I sat and wrestled with this phrase for a while, and as I was doing that, one single word kept grabbing me:

Thy. Your. “Your kingdom come. Your will be done” … not mine.

In this part of the prayer, it sounds to me like we’re willingly submitting ourselves to God’s purpose. We’re not telling God what we want or what we think we need. We’re asking for God’s guidance. During this Lenten season, we’re focusing on prayer, and so today, I’d like to talk about silence as prayer – about listening to and for God.

I know that silence can be difficult and uncomfortable. I know it’s completely counter-cultural. I mean, let’s face it – our cell phones have become of an appendage than a simple tool. We can talk to people or listen to music or conduct business anytime and anywhere. We can have some sort of filler-noise distracting us all day long if we want it, drowning out the silence. But sometimes, we need to seek God out in uncomfortable silence. God is speaking to us (or trying to) – speaking to those places in our hearts and our lives where God knows we are in deepest need.

In our Old Testament passage for today, we encounter the prophet Elijah in just such a situation – a time of weariness and desperation in which Elijah seems to have run out of words, a time in which Go dis emphatically present in silence.

First, let’s go into just a little bit of background for today’s text. The great kingdom of Israel – the Promised Land that God led Moses to – has split into the northern kingdom, which is still called Israel, and the southern kingdom, Judah. This division occurred during the reign of Rehoboam, King David’s grandson, and Elijah comes onto the scene later as a prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel during the rule of the wicked king, Ahab, and his scandalous wife, Jezebel. Leading up to what we read today, Elijah has challenged 450 prophets of Baal and defeated them. And after this defeat, Elijah commands that all 450 prophets be slaughtered. Jezebel, a worshipper of Baal, was infuriated and called for the death of Elijah in return, so Elijah flees for his life into the wilderness.

And it’s in the midst of this fleeing that we catch up with Elijah. He’s tired. He’s weak. He’s being hunted by a very powerful, vengeful, and cruel woman. And he’s reading to give up entirely. Just prior to today’s text, we read that “Elijah came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. ‘I have had enough, Lord,’ he said. ‘Take my life’” (1 Kgs 19:4). God’s first response to Elijah’s cry is to care for him. God sends an angel to help revive Elijah. The angel brings him food and water and encourages him to sleep, and once he has rested, Elijah gets up and finds the save in Mount Horeb – the cave in which we find him.

Interestingly enough, God’s second response to Elijah is silence. “Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire, a sound of sheer silence” (1 Kgs 19:11b-12). This “sound of sheer silence” is a very special phrase. It isn’t just a normal since. The Hebrew in this one, small phrase is full of meaning and significance. We’re not talking about a passive silence, a silence that indicates an absence like when you sense that someone has left a room. This is a palpable, vibrating, active silence. There is tangible power and presence in this silence. The Hebrew words that make up this phrase carry connotations of fine, soft whispers but also of thunder. This silence resonates like thunder in the silence of our souls. It speaks to that place inside us that is desperately in need.

But it’s not always easy to feel this wordless, palpable awareness of God’s presence. We live in a world in which darkness and pain, suffering and misunderstanding exist and can cloud our senses. Scholar Choon-Leong Seow says, “The point is made quite deliberately that God is not locked into any one mode of appearing. Sometimes God is not made known to us through flashy theophanies. Sometimes God is known in unspectacular ways, through the quiet working out of history.”

And sometimes, it is this un-flashy, unspectacular intervention – this silence – that we need. In this world of smart phones and tablet computers, Facebook and Twitter and blogs and a million different TV channels available at the click of a button, we are bombarded by words from the minute we wake up in the morning to the minute our heads hit the pillow at night. And often, we fill up our prayer time with words because that’s what makes us feel comfortable, but in doing so, we forget to listen. Think about trying to have a discussion with someone. You’re trying to explain something or make your point or tell a story, but the person you’re talking to keeps interrupting and talking over you. All you want is to be heard, but you can’t seem to get a word in edgewise! And when you think about it, couldn’t this be the way that God feels sometimes? Choon-Leong Seow points out that, “[This second petition of the Lord’s Prayer] is an admission on our part that we are incapable, on our own, of making God’s purpose our purpose and of carrying through with it.” “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” remember?

I know that it can be frustrating trying to discern God’s will. We can feel like we’re floundering. But sometimes, we just have to sit back and listen. Believe me, I know it isn’t easy. On Mar. 1, 2011, I was certified ready to seek a call by the Committee on Preparation for Ministry in this presbytery. Twelve months later, I’m still searching for a call. After one whole year and a number of close calls with churches, I have to admit that I’m feeling a bit like Elijah. I’m feeling a little tired and a little weak. I’m weary of waiting. I’ve spent time searching for God, waiting for God to appear in some sort of flash. And even while I continue to keep one eye open for the wind or the earthquake or the fire, I also get the feeling that God is just waiting for me to listen. John C. Purdy reminds us that “Prayer is not asking God for what we want; it is asking what God wants of us. … We are requesting that we be more than spectators of God’s dramatic activity. We are asking that God exercise the divine purpose in and through us.” Did you catch that? “The divine purpose” … not whatever purpose we deem to be divine at the moment.

And then there are those times when we don’t even have words to pray. We’re completely worn down, and wordless prayers are all we can muster. We are anxious – all we have are gasps and tears, fears and doubts. We are amazed – all we have are smiles and dances, joy and awe. There are even times when the only prayer we can manage is the breath we breathe and the beating of our own hearts. And it is in this utter absence of words that we begin to grasp the power of silence. In silence, we can find centeredness and calm, renewal and rejuvenation. In silence, we can find our place to say, “Even so, it is well with my soul.” These are our “holy moments” – awe-inspiring glimpses of what God can do when we step back, when we listen, when we relinquish control.

And isn’t that ultimately what we’re asking for when we pray this part of the Lord’s Prayer? “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We acknowledge that God is God … and thankfully, we are not. We offer up our whole selves – all our hearts and all our souls and all our strength. In love and trust and absolute reliance, we place all that we are before the Creator of the Universe and humbly ask to play a role in the service of God’s compassion, forgiveness, and grace. “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We don’t have to know exactly what that means. The important question is this: Are we willing to spend time like Elijah – inhabiting the silence, indwelling the silence, and letting God’s will resonate within our souls? Amen.

2/25: Ben Masters – “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”
3/4:  Lisa J. Johnson – “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”
3/10: Cyndi Wunder –  ”Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors…”
3/18: Ani Goodenberger – “Give us this day our daily bread…”
3/24: Lisa Larges – “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil…”

Check back here for their sermons!