Readings: Luke 2:1-2a and Philippians 2:1-11
In the Gospel of Luke the
disciples see that Jesus brings healing and hope to people around him, and they want to be part of that kind of life.
They also know that he is what he is, and is able to do what he does
because of his deep communion with God; so they ask him to teach them to pray,
too.
After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the early church continues to see Jesus as their way of communion with God and of being able to make a difference for good in their own life and the life of the world. So they write hymns that celebrate Jesus as the one who reveals the way God for us, and Paul quotes one of these hymns in his letter to the Philippians.
Jesus says (in the Gospel of Mathew), “When you pray, don’t just heap up empty phrases to sound good in front of other people. Rather, say, ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…’ ”
Hallowed. It’s a bit of un unusual word these days.
To hallow. To revere someone. To consider something holy – innately set apart and above all else. To put a halo around something, or someone, or some place, or some time and to say this – this before all else is what counts, is worthy of wanting to know and be in communion with. This, above and before all else is what makes life – my life, and the life of the world, truly good.
Hallowed be thy name.
Do you remember when worship began Sunday after Sunday with “Holy, Holy, Holy”?
After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the early church continues to see Jesus as their way of communion with God and of being able to make a difference for good in their own life and the life of the world. So they write hymns that celebrate Jesus as the one who reveals the way God for us, and Paul quotes one of these hymns in his letter to the Philippians.
Jesus says (in the Gospel of Mathew), “When you pray, don’t just heap up empty phrases to sound good in front of other people. Rather, say, ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…’ ”
Hallowed. It’s a bit of un unusual word these days.
To hallow. To revere someone. To consider something holy – innately set apart and above all else. To put a halo around something, or someone, or some place, or some time and to say this – this before all else is what counts, is worthy of wanting to know and be in communion with. This, above and before all else is what makes life – my life, and the life of the world, truly good.
Hallowed be thy name.
Do you remember when worship began Sunday after Sunday with “Holy, Holy, Holy”?
Holy,
holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!
Holy,
holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.
That hymn has such
power to lead us in humility and awe into the worship of God that it was Hymn
Number 1 in a lot of old hymnals. And
even new versions for modern sensibilities still carry the original “hallowing
power,” like this one from the United Methodist Hymnal:
Holy,
holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning, we praise your
majesty …
Holy, holy, holy! Though we know but dimly,
Though the eye of humankind, your
glory may not see,
You alone are holy, you alone are
worthy,
Perfect in power, in love and purity.
Music like that
can be so engaging, and can move us into a holy place, which is why it felt so
good when the choir sang The Lord’s Prayer this morning. So much more moving than just saying it
together. Because music can reach down
into some deep place where we really live, and open us up from way down deep to
something bigger, more wondrous, more ultimately important for life than a lot
of what we normally live for and live by.
Can hallow something.
I remember as a boy listening to our parents’ old 78’s. It was an interesting collection – songs ranging from “The Doggie in the Window” by Patti Page to “Kiss of Fire” by Georgia Gibbs and “Lady of Spain” by Les Paul, and from “Warm Beer and a Cold, Cold Woman” by The Oklahoma Wranglers to “Bless This House” by Gracie Fields. And one song I most deeply remember is the Gracie Fields’ version of “The Lord’s Prayer.” When I put it on – and I did often (I must have been a little strange as a child), there was something about it that touched and transported me in a way that nothing else quite did. The prayer was something I knew, something that was part of my world; but when she sang it, and when I turned up the volume (when my parents weren’t home), and I let it fill all the house, it was something else.
Years ago when I would visit Bob Pearl – a member of this church who in his later years suffered terribly from Parkinson’s, he would always cue up some music – a short video clip of some performance for me to watch and listen to with him. Sometimes a song from a Gaithers’ Homecoming concert. Most often some blues or jazz great, like Deacon Jones, Solomon Burke or Odetta. And one time it was a clip of a young Aretha Franklin singing “the Lord’s Prayer” at a concert somewhere in the 1960’s, and as Bob and I watched her sing that prayer, and watched the reaction of the people there, he just turned to me and said, “She just turned that concert hall into a church.” It had that effect. It hallowed.
I wonder if there is something in us as human beings that not only is capable of hallowing – of making holy, but that actually yearns to be able to do this. Even needs to do this.
Which means we need to be careful. Careful about where we do this. With what. And in what direction.
We know, for instance, how deeply spiritual and religious were the rallies in pre-war and war-time Germany around Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party and policies. And that tapping into that inner religious need for something to worship and sacrifice yourself for, was one source of their power. It’s not surprising that one of the popular leaders and voices of the Rwandan genocide was a preacher. Nor how often in all our history the wars we fight are in the name of God and heaven.
That’s how some people understand all the passion today in the States around the holy trinity of the military, the national anthem and the flag at the beginning of NFL and other pro sports games, and how jarring it is to a lot of people when some of the athletes they pay to play the game kneel in critique rather than stand in support – essentially do not hallow all that those things represent.
Jesus in his time knew the same struggle. The Roman Emperor, the Roman Empire and its army, the Roman economy and its benefits for many – but not all, were revered and literally worshipped and counted on as the most important things in life by those many. Which makes it an act of defiance, really – an act of alternate loyalty and of counter-community when Jesus says, “Hallowed be thy name.”
Thy name. Not the name of Ceasar, or the gods of the Empire. But thy name, O God.
It’s good to think about this – these two little words, “thy name.” Because it’s easy, sometimes, to talk about God as though “God” were God’s proper name. But it’s not. “God” is more along the lines of a title, or a job description – to be God. And if we just leave it at that, it’s far too easy for us or others to just fill in the blank with some definition of God that suits us or suits them. To fill the role of God with some candidate of our own choosing.
But God self-identifies. Helps us know just who really is God. What God does. How on Earth God is, and calls us to be as well – living in God’s image as we are created to be.
I remember as a boy listening to our parents’ old 78’s. It was an interesting collection – songs ranging from “The Doggie in the Window” by Patti Page to “Kiss of Fire” by Georgia Gibbs and “Lady of Spain” by Les Paul, and from “Warm Beer and a Cold, Cold Woman” by The Oklahoma Wranglers to “Bless This House” by Gracie Fields. And one song I most deeply remember is the Gracie Fields’ version of “The Lord’s Prayer.” When I put it on – and I did often (I must have been a little strange as a child), there was something about it that touched and transported me in a way that nothing else quite did. The prayer was something I knew, something that was part of my world; but when she sang it, and when I turned up the volume (when my parents weren’t home), and I let it fill all the house, it was something else.
Years ago when I would visit Bob Pearl – a member of this church who in his later years suffered terribly from Parkinson’s, he would always cue up some music – a short video clip of some performance for me to watch and listen to with him. Sometimes a song from a Gaithers’ Homecoming concert. Most often some blues or jazz great, like Deacon Jones, Solomon Burke or Odetta. And one time it was a clip of a young Aretha Franklin singing “the Lord’s Prayer” at a concert somewhere in the 1960’s, and as Bob and I watched her sing that prayer, and watched the reaction of the people there, he just turned to me and said, “She just turned that concert hall into a church.” It had that effect. It hallowed.
I wonder if there is something in us as human beings that not only is capable of hallowing – of making holy, but that actually yearns to be able to do this. Even needs to do this.
Which means we need to be careful. Careful about where we do this. With what. And in what direction.
We know, for instance, how deeply spiritual and religious were the rallies in pre-war and war-time Germany around Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party and policies. And that tapping into that inner religious need for something to worship and sacrifice yourself for, was one source of their power. It’s not surprising that one of the popular leaders and voices of the Rwandan genocide was a preacher. Nor how often in all our history the wars we fight are in the name of God and heaven.
That’s how some people understand all the passion today in the States around the holy trinity of the military, the national anthem and the flag at the beginning of NFL and other pro sports games, and how jarring it is to a lot of people when some of the athletes they pay to play the game kneel in critique rather than stand in support – essentially do not hallow all that those things represent.
Jesus in his time knew the same struggle. The Roman Emperor, the Roman Empire and its army, the Roman economy and its benefits for many – but not all, were revered and literally worshipped and counted on as the most important things in life by those many. Which makes it an act of defiance, really – an act of alternate loyalty and of counter-community when Jesus says, “Hallowed be thy name.”
Thy name. Not the name of Ceasar, or the gods of the Empire. But thy name, O God.
It’s good to think about this – these two little words, “thy name.” Because it’s easy, sometimes, to talk about God as though “God” were God’s proper name. But it’s not. “God” is more along the lines of a title, or a job description – to be God. And if we just leave it at that, it’s far too easy for us or others to just fill in the blank with some definition of God that suits us or suits them. To fill the role of God with some candidate of our own choosing.
But God self-identifies. Helps us know just who really is God. What God does. How on Earth God is, and calls us to be as well – living in God’s image as we are created to be.
For Jesus, God’s
name was one or all of the 16 names of God spelled out in the Jewish Scriptures
– what we call the Old Testament. Names
like (in rough English translation):
God-Creator
of all that is,
God-Lord
of all nations,
God
who is and will be and causes to be as God wills,
God-Redeemer,
God-Healer,
God-who-makes-things-right-for-all,
God-who-lifts-up-the-oppressed,
and so on.
It’s this God – God
whose name is known in and through the stories of the people of Israel, whom
Jesus prays to as the ultimate god of his life, whose will and whose way he
says are more to be held up and held on to than any other, and to whom and whom
alone he gives himself unreservedly. And
it’s this – this kind of praying, and communion with this particular God that
insulates him from the idolatries of his time, sets him apart in his loyalties
and vision of how the world is made good, and gives him the freedom and power
he has to do God’s work.
And what about us? Is there a name of God that insulates us from the idoloatries of our time? A way of knowing and being in communion with God that gives us the freedom and power to be doing God’s work? A name we can hallow that sets us apart in our ultimate loyalties and vision of how the world is made good?
Are we to learn the 16 names of God in the Old Testament? And be thankful it’s not the 99 names of God identified in Islam, that we need to learn? Or the myriad of divinities identified in Hinduism that we need to honour?
We do, actually, learn some of these many names and faces of God – as we read the Old Testament, learn about other spiritual traditions, and simply befriend our Islam and Hindu and other-religioned neighbours and talk with them about things that matter. And that’s all for the good.
But is there some name of God distinctive to us, some name given particularly to us to hallow and to add to the world’s treasure of holy names to save us? A name that can insulate us from todays’ idolatries, and give us the freedom and power we want to be doing God’s work and not the devil’s in the world?
The answer, of course – like the answer to every children’s story in worship and every question in Sunday school, the answer that as little kids we learn to venture when we’re really not sure, because it can’t be far wrong, is Jesus. Jesus the Christ.
This is the name we are given, the way God self-identifies to us, the name God puts on the job application for the role of God in our life.
The earliest Christians knew this, and like us they wrote songs to help hallow this name, and be drawn into communion with the God revealed in it – hymns like the one Paul quotes in his letter to the Philippians – a hymn he quotes as freely as he does precisely because he knoes everyone knows it/ It’s a hymn about Jesus, the messiah of God who chose to come down from heaven to Earth; willingly gave up power and privilege over others to become a servant of the needy instead; let himself be humbled – even radically humiliated, in order to be able to lift others up to where they needed and longed to be.
God-who-comes-down-from-on-high
And what about us? Is there a name of God that insulates us from the idoloatries of our time? A way of knowing and being in communion with God that gives us the freedom and power to be doing God’s work? A name we can hallow that sets us apart in our ultimate loyalties and vision of how the world is made good?
Are we to learn the 16 names of God in the Old Testament? And be thankful it’s not the 99 names of God identified in Islam, that we need to learn? Or the myriad of divinities identified in Hinduism that we need to honour?
We do, actually, learn some of these many names and faces of God – as we read the Old Testament, learn about other spiritual traditions, and simply befriend our Islam and Hindu and other-religioned neighbours and talk with them about things that matter. And that’s all for the good.
But is there some name of God distinctive to us, some name given particularly to us to hallow and to add to the world’s treasure of holy names to save us? A name that can insulate us from todays’ idolatries, and give us the freedom and power we want to be doing God’s work and not the devil’s in the world?
The answer, of course – like the answer to every children’s story in worship and every question in Sunday school, the answer that as little kids we learn to venture when we’re really not sure, because it can’t be far wrong, is Jesus. Jesus the Christ.
This is the name we are given, the way God self-identifies to us, the name God puts on the job application for the role of God in our life.
The earliest Christians knew this, and like us they wrote songs to help hallow this name, and be drawn into communion with the God revealed in it – hymns like the one Paul quotes in his letter to the Philippians – a hymn he quotes as freely as he does precisely because he knoes everyone knows it/ It’s a hymn about Jesus, the messiah of God who chose to come down from heaven to Earth; willingly gave up power and privilege over others to become a servant of the needy instead; let himself be humbled – even radically humiliated, in order to be able to lift others up to where they needed and longed to be.
God-who-comes-down-from-on-high
God-who-empties-his-pockets
God-who-chooses-the-downward-path
(rather than the path of upward mobility)
God-who-gives-up-power-and-privilege-over-others
God-who-finds-real-power-to-save-by-giving-it-up
This is a pretty engaging image of God. A pretty distinctive and particular name of God.
This is a pretty engaging image of God. A pretty distinctive and particular name of God.
And when you
think about it, when you let this name into your heart and then flow into all
your being, it really does help insulate us from the idolatries of our time. It really does give us power and freedom to
be doing God’s work in the world like we want to.
And it’s ours. It is the name of God given to us, to add to
the world’s conversation about what is ultimately good and life-giving. It’s ours to add to the world’s understanding
of what really will save us. It’s ours –
our particular name of God to listen to, to turn up the volume on, and to let
fill all the house.
Lord, teach us to pray – as you do, and as others do.
Okay, Jesus says.
If you’re serious about it, pray this: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…hallowed be the name by which God has come to you…"
Lord, teach us to pray – as you do, and as others do.
Okay, Jesus says.
If you’re serious about it, pray this: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…hallowed be the name by which God has come to you…"
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