During Lent we are looking at how the Lord’s Prayer can be a Rule of Life as part of “Becoming A Church that Looks Like Jesus.” This week we are looking at the opening lines of the prayer as a way to Center on Jesus. You can download the slides from the online study.
To start thinking about how to Center on Jesus, we need to become quiet and centered ourselves. One way to enter a quiet place and center is to use a
‘breathing’ prayer. This ancient form of prayer and meditation is very simple.
You use a short phrase or prayer. Breathe in on the first half of the phrase
and out on the second. For instance:
(breathe in) Our Father in Heaven,
(breathe out) Holy is your Name.
Repeat, slowly and quietly several times, allowing the words to
sink into your soul.
Before we can think about a Rule of Life that uses the Lord’s
Prayer to Center on Jesus, we have to define who we say Jesus is. In the
Gospels Jesus asks his disciples, But what about you? Who do you say
I am? (Matthew 16:15, Luke 9:20, Mark 8:29)
There is a song by David Phelps that asks “Was he a poet turned radical politician trying to start a revolution? A preacher on a mission talkin’ bout fishing in a new kind of kingdom? Or a small town wannabe tired of carpentry carving out a little fame? John or Elijah, teacher, Messiah? Or just someone trying to make a name? Could the one we know as Mary's son Be the long awaited Holy One?” You may agree with some of those answers. You probably have your own responses. Think about it:
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How do you identify or name Jesus?
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What names do you have for Jesus?
Last week we looked at the idea that the Lord’s Prayer can be a
Rule of Life and a way to live a Way of Love. Becoming a Church suggests
we Center on Jesus by looking at his teachings, his example, his
Spirit, his way of love and his way of life [as] the key to having loving,
liberating and life-giving relationships with God, our neighbors, all of
creation, and ourselves. Jesus gave his disciples, and us, the basic
principles of a life centered on God.
We open the prayer by saying “Our Father in heaven, Holy is
your Name. Your kingdom come…” In the New Zealand Prayer Book we say: Eternal
Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that
shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven: The
hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
It's true that calling God 'Father" can be problematic for some. On the other hand, because we are given the gift of calling God “Father” or
even “Abba” or “Amma” an intimate familial form of address, we see from the
beginning of the prayer that we are in relationship with the one who is the
creator of all things. God, in fact, Centers on US! We are reminded that
we are children by many authors and by the Bible itself.
“We are called to step out as apprentice children, into a world of
pain and darkness…the temptation then is to switch off the news, to shut out
the pain…if, as people of the living creator God…we take the risk of calling
him Father; then we are called to be the people through whom the pain of the
world is held in the healing light of the love of God.” (Wright, p. 21)
“The opening words of the LP invite us to come to God as our
loving Abba/Amma…we can come and sit on our Abba’s lap and tell God what is on
our minds.” (Davis, p14-15)
[God] gives you his name…takes you home…God has adopted you…sought
you, found you, signed the papers and took you home.” (Lucado, p 15)
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of
a woman, born under the law, 5in order to redeem those who were
under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. 6And
because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ 7So you are no longer a slave
but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God. (Galatians
4:4-7)
NT Wright says the Lord’s Prayer is, in fact, “the risky, crazy
prayer of submission and commission, or, if you like, the prayer of subversion
and conversion. It is the way we sign on, in our turn, for the work of the
kingdom.” Micah 6:8 issues
a call to action: He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does
the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly
with your God.
Our response to our Abba/Amma is founded in LOVE. Deborah Smith Douglas tells of her 5-year-old daughter who wasn’t quite sure what to say to God. (The Praying Life) Smith recounts, “I poured orange juice and congratulated myself on such a splendid opportunity for age-appropriate instruction… ’God likes to hear from us…the same things all mommies and daddies like to hear from their children: please and thank you and I’m sorry.’ Emily considered this…she nodded…and said ‘maybe there are two other things I say a lot that God would like to hear from me.’ ‘What’s that honey?’ I asked absently…’Maybe,’ she suggested, ‘I could tell God ‘Wow!’ and ‘I love you.’”
As we start to write a Rule of Life based on the Lord’s prayer, we
remember that we are in loving relationship with our Creator, who is also our
Abba/Amma/Father. We can ask ourselves these questions.
What do those familiar words tell us about a Rule of life
with the intent of centering our lives on Christ?
What might we say in our Rule of Life to incorporate these ideas?
Does the Lord’s Prayer feel risky?
Is there anything about saying to God ‘you’re in charge’
that makes you hesitate?
The Lord’s Prayer opens by telling us we are in
relationship with God as Father. That means that everyone else in the world
is also held in that same relationship of love, whether they know it or not.
Therefore, we can bring the needs of the broken and hurting to our Abba/Amma.
During this week consider taking time to intentionally hold the needs that are
on your heart up to our loving Father God. Maybe this is something to include
in the Rule of Life you are writing.
Some ideas are to:
Pray for your neighborhood
Pray for Ukraine and her people.
Pray for world leaders
Pray for forgotten conflicts
Pray for those at our borders
Pray for injustice anywhere
This prayer found in Ephesians helps encapsulate what Centering on
Jesus might look like.
For this
reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and
on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he
may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through
his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are
being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend,
with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be
filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work
within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or
imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations,
for ever and ever. Amen (Ephesians 3:14-21).
Next week we continue by looking at "practicing a self-giving way" of life and how that is found in saying "your will be done"...
