Who Are You Talking To?

 This is the message from the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday, August 9, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Revelation 4:1-11 and Matthew 5:38-48.

            The first sentence of the Lord’s Prayer, as I’m sure you know, is this:  “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

            At least, that’s the first sentence the way we say it now.  The Bible gives us two versions of the Lord’s Prayer, one from Matthew and one from Luke.  And they are not identical.  In the first sentence of the prayer, we use Matthew’s version.  Luke does not say, “Our Father”, he simply says, “Father”.  Luke also does not say, “in heaven”.  He leaves that out.

            We don’t know if Luke left that out for a reason, or if it’s just a different way different people remembered the prayer.  Remember, these gospels were probably written thirty years or so after the death of Jesus.  It would not be at all surprising if, that many years later, there were slight differences in the way people remembered exactly what Jesus said.

            I think there is a point to be made here, though.  God certainly is in heaven, of course.  We heard about that in our reading from Revelation today.  But God is also present on earth.  That may or may not be a physical presence, but as Christians, we believe that God is active in our lives through the Holy Spirit.  In other words, God is in heaven, but God is not only in heaven.  God is here on earth, too.

            The part of the prayer I want to focus on today, though, is the part Matthew and Luke agree on.  They both tell us that Jesus said of God the Father, “hallowed be your name”.

            That word “hallowed” is an old English word.  We rarely use it outside of the Lord’s Prayer.  The only reason we continue to use it there, really, is out of tradition.  There’s a more common word we could use.  That word is “holy”.  Something that’s hallowed is holy.

            So what does it mean to say God is holy?  I mean, just because we use that word more does not mean we necessarily know what it means.  What it means, in this context, is “being entitled to worship as being sacred”.  So when we say that God is holy, we mean that God is worthy of worship.

Why do we need to start our prayer with that?  I mean, God already knows that He is holy, right.  God certainly already knows that He is worthy of worship.  God does not need to hear it from us.  But Jesus told us we need to say it to God.  And Jesus told us it was the first thing we need to say in our prayer to God.

I think at least part of the reason is that, when we begin praying by saying God is holy, it focuses our prayer.  It forces us to think about who it is we’re praying to.  We’re praying to God.  We’re praying to someone who is greater than anyone or anything we can imagine, in every sense of the term.  God is more powerful than anyone or anything we can imagine.  God is wiser.  God sees more.  God knows more.  God is stronger.  God has more ability.  God is more caring.  God is more loving.  God is better than anyone or anything that ever was, ever is, or ever will be.

In fact, God is perfect.  That’s what Jesus says in our reading from Matthew.  God is absolutely perfect, in every way we can imagine and in ways we cannot imagine.  God is so perfect that God even loves God’s enemies.  God is so perfect that God continues to try to change even those who persecute him.  Those are the things Jesus told us to do if we want to be perfect.  The reason he said that is that those are the things our perfect God does.

When we begin our prayer by saying God is holy, we remind ourselves that we are praying to a God who is worthy of our worship.  God is worthy of our worship because God is perfect.  And I think, when we remember that, it changes the way we pray.

How many of us, when we pray, include “the list”?  You know what the list is.  The list is the list of stuff we want God to do.  Now, the list may or may not be things for ourselves.  It may be prayers for healing for loved ones.  It may be prayers for our country or for our world.  And if it is things for ourselves, it’s not necessarily because we’re greedy or selfish.  There are times when we need to turn to God for help with things.  In fact, there are times when we have nowhere else to turn but to God.

Using “the list” is not necessarily a bad type of prayer.  After all, Jesus told us that if we ask, we will receive.  But I think a lot depends on our attitude.  

If we come to God with a list of demands, if we start treating God like some sort of cosmic vending machine where all we do is put in a little money and press a button and out pops whatever we want, well, I don’t know that God really appreciates that type of prayer.  And I think that if we start out our prayer by recognizing who God is, by saying that we worship God because we know that God is better and greater than we can imagine and that God is perfect in every way, including ways we cannot even think of, we’re a lot less likely to treat God that way.  We’re a lot less likely to demand that God do this or that.  

We’re a lot more likely, instead, to come to God humbly.  We’re a lot more likely to recognize what a privilege it is that God allows us to come to him.  We’re a lot more likely to see that it’s an honor to be allowed to pray to God at all.  And we’ll see how arrogant and foolish and just downright ridiculous it is for us to come to God and try to tell God what to do.  Instead, we’ll very quietly and humbly ask God to consider doing what we ask.

And we’ll also be a lot less upset with God when God does not do what we’ve asked.  Because we’ll realize that God, being perfect, cannot make mistakes.  When God does not do what we want, it’s not because God messed up.  It’s because God knows better than we do.  It’s because what we asked for is not what’s best, or because the timing is not right, or because God has something else in mind for us.  We’ll see that it’s we who’ve made the mistake, not God.

That does not necessarily make things any easier to accept, of course.  There are those among us who are suffering very serious medical conditions.  There are among us who’ve lost loved ones recently.  There are those among us who are dealing with family issues, or broken relationships, or family problems.  There are all kinds of things that happen in this world that just seem wrong.  And when we pray about those things, and we ask God to take care of them--not out of selfishness on our part but because we honestly want those things to be made right--and nothing happens, or sometimes the situation even seems to get worse, well, it’s hard to understand why God does not seem to be taking care of things.  And sometimes, we get upset or even angry with God for not taking care of things the way we think God should.

I understand that.  I’ve done that.  I’m sure God understands it, too.  But here’s the thing.  When we get upset or angry with God, what we’re really saying--whether we know it or not--is that God owes it to us to take care of us.  We’re saying that we deserve to have God take care of things for us.  We don’t necessarily intend to say that.  In fact, we probably don’t realize we’re saying it.  But if we think about it, that’s what we’re saying:  that we deserve to have God take care of things the “right” way, the way we want God to take care of them.

But the other aspect of recognizing that God is perfect is recognizing that you and I are not.  We are flawed, sinful people.  Because of that, God does not owe us anything.  We don’t “deserve” any good things from God.  In fact, the truth is that all of us, most definitely including me, are very lucky that God does not give us what we deserve.  Pretty much anything God gives us is much better than what we deserve.  God does that for us because God loves us, not because we deserve it.

Jesus told us to begin our prayers by remembering who God is.  God is holy.  God is worthy of worship.  God is perfect.  God does not owe it to us to even hear our prayers, much less answer them.  God allows us to come to God with our prayers because God loves us.

So when we pray, let’s pray this way.  Let’s remember who God is.  Let’s go to God humbly.  Let’s go to God knowing that prayer is not a right, it’s an honor and a privilege given to us by God.  And no matter what happens, let’s trust our holy and perfect God.