The Lord's Prayer: Who Art In Heaven - Matthew 6:7-13


How often do we treat prayer as if it were a tractor pull?  We hook our prayer requests into God and begin pulling (praying) with all our might.  We try to pull God to where we are or where we want to be.  I mean, isn’t that what we’ve always been taught that prayer is about, getting what we want from God.
What if, instead, we began picturing prayer as if God was the anchor at the end of our prayer line and we are a boat in the middle of the sea of life.  When we begin praying (pulling on that rope), rather than drawing God to us, the anchor holds firm and we are pulled from wherever we have drifted back to where God is, until we are centered above that anchor.
My brothers and sisters, while Jesus doesn’t use those analogies, when the disciples ask Him to teach them how to pray, that is what we learn from the prayer He teaches-- the prayer we so often call The Lord’s Prayer.
Last week when we gathered, we began to consider one of our previous journeys… a journey of examining the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, the prayer that we continue to pray together two thousand years later…the prayer we most often refer to as The Lord’s Prayer.   The purpose of this journey is to try to understand exactly what we are praying when we lift this prayer…do we truly comprehend and mean what we are praying, or are we simply reciting something from memory and saying it without thinking of its importance? As I shared last week, this prayer has power…the power to change our relationship with God, the power to change our relationship with each other, and the power to change our relationship with the world. 
Last week, we focused in on the simple words of “Our Father.”  In examining those two words, we learned that they held a lot.  They remind us of the fact that the God we pray to is a God, that through our Baptism, we claim an intimate relationship with.  It is as if we are calling God, “Daddy.”    It means that the God that we are praying to is a God that is close to us, not one that is far off somewhere else.  Secondly, we acknowledged that the “our” in “Our Father” is important.  We are reminded that God calls us into corporate worship, to be a Christian is to be part of the Church—no one can be fully Christian alone, and that we are joined with other Christians in worship beyond these walls. 
One thing that we briefly touched on last week and that I want to go into a little be more this week is that there are some folks out there, though, that some might struggle with praying, “Our Father.”  Many of those who struggle, do so because of the relationship they had with their biological parents.  Some of them may have been abused by their fathers, and so for them to pray “Our Father,” calls to mind a figure who beat them or took unfair advantage of them.  Still others offering the prayer “Our Father” may have had dads that abandoned or neglected them, and so for them to pray “Our Father” calls to mind an image of an absent god or one that cannot be depended on.  That is something that we need to keep in mind as we seek to minister to all people.  I am not suggesting that we need to stop praying “Our Father” or that we should alter its wording.  What I am suggesting is that we need to help those who struggle with understanding who “Our Father” is.  A big part of the solution lies in the second line of the prayer—“who art in heaven….”
Our scientific age has taught us that all we can know and understand is that which we can experience—that which we can see, feel, touch, taste, and smell.  We want to base everything on those experiences, so when we hear, “Our Father,” we want to immediately base what God must be like, based on the what we experienced as the male parent who raised us, for either good or bad.  However, Christ reminds us that the Father we pray to is not an earthly father, but our Father in heaven.  He is a Father, though intimate with us, that is far above and beyond an earthly definition we could give him.  He is the creator of this world and therefore cannot be contained in an understanding that is limited to this world.  In other words, for those of us who have had abusive or absent fathers, we need to understand that God is not like the father we have experienced, but the image of a perfect Parent, a Father who is always there offering love, forgiveness, and support.  Likewise, for those of us who have had outstanding fathers here on earth and who have always experienced our dad’s love and support, we need to understand that God, as the one who is beyond this earth, and therefore greater than any father that we have ever experienced.
However, to pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven…” is saying much more than the fact that God is beyond any fatherly experience that we have had on earth.  It says that God, though close to us, is far above anything on earth and therefore cannot be controlled by anything on earth. 
Throughout history, people have created images of the gods they worship, idols of gold, silver, wood, or pottery.  They would seek to manipulate their gods by manipulating the idols.  In declaring that our God is intimate with us yet not of this world means that we cannot manipulate God, we cannot control God.  We don’t manipulate God to doing our will by rubbing an idol a certain way, sacrificing in front of a piece of wood, or burning incense it its golden hands.  Our God is beyond earthly control…He has come into this world, but is not of this world.  He is the Creator of all things, not created out of the things.
That also means that our God cannot be contained.  Our God cannot be contained within these four walls.  We often take off our hats or dress a certain way if we know we are going to come into this sanctuary because we consider that we are coming into the very presence of God.  We forget that when Christ died, the temple curtain was torn in two and it was revealed that the experience of God is no longer limited to the holy of holies.  In the same way, God’s presence is no longer limited to this room.  We are just as much in the presence of God when we walk out those doors as we are when we are sitting in here.  This prayer reminds us that we are to have that attitude of prayer wherever we are, because God is greater than any one location—for we are in God’s presence whether we are in this room in the classroom at school in the boardroom at work, or in the bedroom of our homes; whether we are standing in cemetery, on a mountain top, along the sea shore, or on the prairie.  In this prayer, Jesus teaches us to live each day, everywhere we are with the awareness that what we are doing, we are doing in the very presence of God.  The Psalmist captures this thought when he writes: Where can I go from your spirit?  Or where can I flee from your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.  If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.  If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”[i]
“Our Father, who are in heaven…” also reminds us that God is our Creator.  He has created not only us, but all that is from the suns flung across the universe to the electrons and protons within a single molecule of matter.  As Creator God is greater than and cannot be defeated by anything in all this existence.  This prompts Paul to write these words of assurance and courage  to the Romans: “If God is for us, who can be against us…For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[ii]  In other words, take courage for there is nothing in all of creation that can separate us from God’s love—that sacrificial redeeming love offered through Christ Jesus.  Because God is our Creator, nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from Him, nothing can stand against us, nothing can destroy us—neither floods nor famine can separate us from God; neither cancer nor Alzheimer’s can separate us from God; neither broken bones nor gunshot wounds can separate us from God; neither elected officials nor terrorists can separate us from God; not even the grave itself can separate us from the love of God found in Christ Jesus.  To pray “our Father, who art in Heaven” is to hear a a call to courage.
To remember God our Father as Creator of all that is, is also to remember that He is Creator of everyone that was, is, or will be; that He loves everyone that was, is, or will be; that He offered Himself through Jesus to die for everyone that was, is, or will be.  God’s love is not limited to people of one profession, one religion, one color, or one nationality.  Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life—for everyone and will embrace all who come before Him, and join us all as brothers and sisters in Christ.  Therefore, we have the call to look upon everyone not according to their skin color, their ethnicity, their economic status, their political views, their lifestyle choices, or any other way, but, to see them as someone that God loves.
Praise be to God that we have a Father who is in heaven…a Father, our God, who is so much greater than anything we know…a Father who draws us to Himself and a Father who, as He draws us to Himself, also draws us closer to one another.  As we reflect on the greatest of our Heavenly Father, let us join together in the prayer which Christ taught us saying, “Our Father, who art in heaven…”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.




[i] Psalm 139:7-10
[ii] Romans 8:31b, 38-39

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