The Lord's Prayer: Hallowed Be Thy Name… Luke 11:1-4
One
evening little Johnny’s parents stood outside his room and listened to him
offer up his evening prayers. They
became confused, though, as they heard him pray, “Dear Harold, want to thank
you for my Mommy and Daddy and my dog, Spot.
Please be with Grandma and Granddaddy, and help me be good boy. Amen.”
The
parents went to bed that night pondering the strange way their son had begun
his prayer. Coming up with no answer, they
asked him at the breakfast table the next morning, “Johnny, why did you call
God, ‘Harold’?”
Johnny
replied, “that’s what they teach us at church.
You know, ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, Harold by thy name….”
Forrest Gump died and went to heaven.
At the Pearly Gates Saint Peter told him
that new rules were in effect due to the advances in education on earth. In
order to gain admittance, a prospective Heavenly Soul must answer three
questions.
They were:
1.
Name two days of the week that begin with the letter
"T".
2.
How many seconds are in a year?
3.
What is God's first name?
Forrest thought
for a few minutes and answered:
1.
The two days of the week that begin with
"T" are Today and Tomorrow.
2.
There are 12 seconds in a year.
3.
God has two-first names, and they are Andy and
Howard.
Saint Peter said, "OK, I'll buy
Today and Tomorrow, even though it's not the answer I expected, so your answer
is correct. But how did you get 12 seconds in a year? And where did you get the idea that God's
first name was Andy or Howard?"
Forrest responded,
"Well, There’s January 2nd, February 2nd, March 2nd, and so on..."
"OK, I'll give you that one
too," said Saint Peter. "But what about God's first name being Andy
or Howard?"
Forrest said, "Well from the song
"Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me I am his
own..." and then there’s the prayer, "Our Father, who art in Heaven, Howard
be thy name ...'"
Saint Peter let him in without another
word.
My
brothers and sisters, we come to our third sermon in our series on The Lord’s
Prayer, as we seek to recapture the power of a prayer that too often something
we simply recite from memory. We began
with “Our Father,” and realized what an intimate and close relationship we have
with God—the relationship of a child and loving parent, and the promise that we
are heirs of the Kingdom Of God with Christ.
We also were reminded that God calls us into a worshipping community. Last week, we looked into “Who Art In
Heaven,” and came to realize that although God is intimate with us, that he is
not limited to the things of this world—that as Creator, He is far above the
definitions, experiences, and powers of this world. Likewise, we were called to remember that just
as God is our Creator, He is the Creator of all that live and breathe, and that
we are called to love them, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of language, regardless
of gender, regardless of religion or lifestyle, regardless of any other
difference between us, because they are created and knit together in their
mother’s wombs by our Father in Heaven, and they, as much as any of us, are
those for whom Christ gave His life to show the Father’s love. Today we come to what is known as the first
petition, or first request made in this prayer, “Hallowed Be Thy Name.”
You
know, as I was growing up, I never thought that we were praying, “Howard or
Harold be thy name,” but for many years, I often wondered, “just what does hallowed be Thy name mean.” I do remember thinking for a while that I
thought that “hallowed” was just another way of saying “hollow.” It is a word that is not used in our times,
and can often be confusing, especially for younger folks or any age of people
who have not grown up around the church.
When
we pray hallowed be thy name, we are
praying that God’s name be treated as holy and sacred. We are praying that God’s name be treated
with reverence and respect. You know, in
the time of the Hebrew Scriptures, which we call the Old Testament, it was
considered profane to use the name of God.
The folks wouldn’t say it, and would not use vowels when writing
it. They would simply write down the
letters Y-H-W-H. Some of our translators
have rendered that as Jehovah, while other scholars feel that Yahweh is the
more appropriate understanding of this word.
Whichever way you want to understand it, the point is that it was, and
is, considered to be a very sacred name for God. When we offer up this prayer,
we are praying that God’s name will be used with this same type of reverence.
The
question that has to come up as we pray “hallowed be Thy Name is whether or not
we are using God’s name only in ways
that are holy and respectful. It is all
to obvious that our society bats the name of God around like it is a toy ball
to be played with. It is as if the name
of God has become hollow and without meaning for many folks. I would suggest that our society has forgotten
the command of God to not use His name in vain.[i]
It begins with the phrase that goes by the initials G. D., the one that used to
be taboo on radio and television, but is now one of the most common vulgarities
uttered in the media. This type of
language is not just limited to the adult sphere—there is a good bit of music
targeted toward teens that is filled with this phrase, over and over. However,
before we place ourselves on a pedestal and condemn those who use this phrase,
we must consider our own haphazard use of the name of God. Daily there are folks who use God’s name in
such phrases as “Oh ______,” “Oh my ________” or “OMG” “I swear to _______,”
and so on. This may seem extreme to you,
but it is truly an example of just how easily we toss the name of God around
without worrying how holy we are treating it.
We
must be careful how we treat that which is supposed to be holy. Nadab and Abihu learned that lesson a little
too late. Hear their story from
Leviticus:
Now
Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, each took his censer, put fire in it, and laid
incense on it; and they offered unholy fire before the Lord, such as he had not
commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed
them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what
the Lord meant when he said, ‘Through those who are near me I will show myself
holy, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron was silent.[ii]
They
went before the Lord, as priests, to offer a sacrifice, but what they offered
was unholy. The fire they brought forth
consumed them, and they were destroyed.
There is no need to sugarcoat it.
They came into God’s holy place and acted in an unholy way, and their
unholiness in God’s presence brought about their death.
Am
I suggesting that God is going to send a fire to consume those of us who use
any of the phrases I mentioned earlier?
Not necessarily. However, the
unholiness that Nadab and Abihu brought into God’s presence was what destroyed
them. If our speech is what is unholy in
reference to God, it is not beyond thinking that what we say can bring about
our end. Simply look back to the
illustration I offered of some of today’s music that teens listen to, and think
about what kind of lives and deaths have occurred because of the lifestyle that
music took them into.
However,
the passage from Leviticus takes us to a place beyond simply the way we use
God’s name. In the wake of their death,
Moses reminds Aaron (the father of Nadab and Abihu) that God had said: “Through those who are near me I will show myself
holy, and before all the people I will be glorified.”
It
is through those who claim to be God’s people that God will show that he is
holy. When we pray hallowed be thy name, we are praying that God’s name may be
considered sacred by everyone, not simply those who already go to Church. It is not simply our speech about God that we
need to be concerned about in reference to God’s holiness, it is our whole
lives. It is through us that folks get
to know God. If folks who are not
Christian, or even those who are already Christian, look and see a Christian
getting drunk, acting toward others with hate, taking advantage of others,
lying, cheating, stealing, or any other such behavior, they are not going to
see a holy God. They will see simply a
person who acts no different than the rest of the world. Paul puts it this way, “so we are ambassadors for
Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of
Christ, be reconciled to God. For our
sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God.”[iii] Paul reminds us that we are God’s ambassadors
to the world. We represent God to the
world.
If
we truly are praying intently that God’s name may be hallowed throughout the
world, then we must examine ourselves.
We must ask ourselves “what of God are others seeing in me in the way I
live my life?” In the words of the
Apostle Peter “Therefore prepare your minds
for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus
Christ will bring you when he is revealed. Like obedient children, do not be
conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead, as he who
called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written,
“You shall be holy, for I am holy.” [iv]
Even as we pray “Our Father,” we are reminded that it is
not simply our God that we are representing our world, it is Our Father. Those who know that we claim the name
Christian, that we claim to be brothers and sisters with Christ, that we claim
to be followers of God, neither of whom they have seen, will look to us, as
members of God’s family…to see what we look like, figuring that as His
Children, we will look like He does. As much as we pray this prayer, let us live
our lives to ensure that the world comes to know that Our Father is holy…and
that His Name is not Harold, Howard, or even hollow…but it is Hallowed…may the
world look at us and see God’s characteristics, His “DNA,” His holiness…flowing
from us…as they see that we have been
shaped by the prayer we now pray, Our
Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…
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