Sunday, February 13, 2011

The Lord’s Prayer: “Give Us This Day Our Bread”

Over recent weeks, we have been looking at The Lord’s Prayer. People, in all times and in all places, have always wanted to pray. Jesus’ followers are no exception. In Matthew 6, Jesus tells his followers to remember that, when they pray to God, they are praying to their heavenly Father who loves them and knows already what they need. So with a God like this loving them, Jesus told them to pray very simply. Like this:
“Our Father in heaven, 
hallowed be your name. 
Your kingdom come, 
your will be done, 
on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread, 
and forgive us our debts, 
as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
And lead us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from evil. [English Standard Version]
We usually end the prayer with “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.” Some have asked me why we add these final words when they are not in either Matthew’s Gospel or Luke’s Gospel. Though these words are not in the earliest or best manuscripts and so do not appear in more recent translations, there are times when tradition serves the church well. These words were added later by the church as a doxology of praise to God. But theologian Dale Bruner has this interesting observation [Matthew: A Commentary, Vol. 1: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12, Eerdmans, 2004, p. 305]:
“The fact that the Lord’s Prayer ends so raggedly – with the devil! – is probably an invitation to close the prayer with one’s own free petitions.... The rough ending is an open ending.”
I like that! I think that’s also why our Roman Catholic friends wait for the priest to add his words at the end rather than everyone saying “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.” 

The prayer Jesus gives us is short and simple. In its marvellous simplicity is contained all that is necessary for us as his followers to pray. When we read the prayer in Luke 11, we hear Jesus telling his disciples, “When you pray, say this.” So our praying regularly and together The Lord’s Prayer basically word for word is a good thing. It fills our minds and hearts with words from the heart of Jesus when he taught his followers – including us! – to pray to his Father and our Father. On the other hand, when we read the prayer in Matthew 6, we hear Jesus telling his disciples “Pray like this.” In other words, here is the essence of how to pray to God. 

Each time we pray like this, we should remember God is our Father, whose name is to be honoured above all others and whose kingdom and will is for the whole of this Earth as well as for heaven. There is no other kingdom or will or name to be sought. God’s righteousness and God’s kingdom are to come first in our lives, in the lives of all Jesus’ followers and, ultimately, in the lives of all humanity. For two weeks in a row, we have sung the Scripture from Matthew 6:33 -- “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness” -- for that reason. As we fill our minds and souls with the essence of Jesus’ mind and soul and continue to grow in our understanding of what he taught, we can alter the words we use. The phrases of The Lord’s Prayer then become a kind of handrail, Dale Bruner suggests, along which we form our own words and responses to God. One of the places on the handrail is “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Almost every week, Marg and I walk up one aisle and down another in our local grocery store filling the cart with food items for the week to come. I imagine that’s a weekly or bi-weekly ritual for many of you as well. Then we line up with others at the checkout and pay for our food. Some people no longer regularly leave their home to buy their daily food; they go to the dining room in their residence for their meals. But they still pay for this service, of course! On the other hand, because of the circumstances of their lives, others have difficulty getting enough food for themselves and their families. So they receive government assistance. They may also go to a local food bank for groceries or to a local church such as ours and hope for a food voucher to help them get through the day and, perhaps, the next day. Or they might sit down to a meal once a day that is provided by an Out of the Cold group. 

Physical sustenance is a necessary part of our living. Jesus understands we need daily bread in order to live – we need enough food every day! So Jesus tells us to pray to his Father, who is also our Father, about our daily necessities, which reminds us who the ultimate Provider is of all the good gifts we have. The sense here of daily provisions is what housekeepers in Jesus’ time would understand as they made their daily lists of what the household needed to sustain itself and then purchased the food at the daily market. [Robertson, A. (1997). Word Pictures in the New Testament (Matthew 6:11). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems.] When Jesus taught this prayer, he emphasized that God is vitally interested in our daily lives, beginning with the food necessary for our physical bodies each and every day. So to pray about physical, social and personal needs is not a selfish attitude. Jesus actually commands his followers to pray this way.  

However, for those of us who have healthy bank accounts, I suggest it is difficult, more often than not, to think God has very much to do with our daily food. We are the ones with the cash or credit and we use them easily. Maybe that’s why the writer of Proverbs prayed this way [30:7-9 GNT]: 
“I ask you, God, to let me have two things before I die: keep me from lying, and let me be neither rich nor poor. So give me only as much food as I need. If I have more, I might say that I do not need you. But if I am poor, I might steal and bring disgrace on my God.” 
Perhaps that is why Jesus said it is hard for rich people to enter heaven. It would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, he said [Matthew 19:23-24]! It is too easy to forget about God when things are going too well or too easily for us.

Perhaps that’s also why Jesus instructed his followers to pray first to God: “Our Father in heaven, honoured be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, right here on Earth as in heaven.” Then when Jesus continued to pray “Give us our daily bread,” the clear connection is that the ultimate source for our daily bread is God – not someone or something else. In whatever form or from whomever the gifts of daily sustenance may come, all ultimately comes from God’s creation, God’s love and God’s gracious concern for all his creatures – human and otherwise. In other words, we need to leave room for God to help us in our lives when we think about even the basic of necessities of life.   

When we leave room for God in our lives, we are opening up the possibility for a relationship of trust with God. When we are not afraid to ask someone for something, we are implying there is a relationship of trust between us. For instance, I was more than happy when my children asked me for something they really needed. As their father, I wanted nothing more than to help. So when Jesus tells us to ask God to provide the bread we need for today, we are saying to God: We trust you, God our Father, to provide for us today. 

When we trust God in this way, we learn more and more about being grateful to God. There have been only a few times in my life when I have been close to being hungry -- especially when I was at college and living away from home. But I am one of those in this blessed western society who has never really gone hungry. So when I say The Lord’s Prayer each week and think deeply about this particular petition – “Give us this day our bread” -- I find myself being grateful for the food and sustenance I have this day and thank God again for it. 

Our problem, sometimes, is that we worry about a tomorrow that has yet to come. And may not come in the way we worry about! To worry about tomorrow is a draining experience. It distracts our focus from God and drains us of trust in the God whose very nature is love. In Luke 12:22-31, Jesus tells us not to worry about what we will eat or what we will wear and not to be afraid because our Father knows we need these things. Instead, we need to be concerned, first, with God’s kingdom and, if we are, Jesus says God will provide what we need somehow. Jesus is not saying it is wrong to think about tomorrow or to plan for tomorrow or to make provision for tomorrow; he is saying not to worry about tomorrow. To worry is to lack trust – and, often, gratitude too. But when we leave room for God in our lives, we will discover we can both trust God for our daily sustenance and remember to be grateful for all the good gifts in our kitchen cupboards.  

When we do trust God, we will find ourselves saying thanks to God again and again for our blessings. But as we say thanks, we may well feel more than a little guilty for being able to enjoy food in abundance while so many in the world “walk in hunger,” as we prayed in the Opening Prayer. (Did you notice how close that prayer is to a familiar grace people often use before a meal?) So at the moment we pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” should not our next sentence be “We are sorry we so often think only about our own need for bread” and then “Show us how to share our bread with the world”? William Barclay wrote: “No Christian can be content to have too much while others have too little.”

When we trust God in our own lives, we will not allow God’s other intended recipients of daily bread stay hungry. As one writer suggests, should we not shout, “Woe, woe to the persons or institutions or economic systems that keep people hungry” [Arthur Paul Boers, Lord, Teach Us to Pray]? Is not this prayer for God to give us our daily bread also a prayer for justice for others too -- a lively concern that there be enough bread for all people all over the world?

It is good our denomination receives and sets aside money from its mission and service fund for the relief of world hunger. It is good to encourage our governments to take seriously worldwide concerns for those who are hungry and give even more in matching grants to relief and development projects through CIDA. But what does the answer to “Show us how to share our bread” look like on a personal level? Maybe we can learn about that in unexpected places.

While working as a journalist for the Chicago Tribune, Lee Strobel reported on the struggles of an impoverished, inner-city family during the weeks leading up to Christmas [The Case for Christmas, Zondervan, 2005]. A devout atheist at the time, Strobel was mildly surprised by the family's attitude despite their circumstances. Here is part of his report:
The Delgados -- 60-year-old Perfecta and her granddaughters, Lydia and Jenny -- had been burned out of their roach-infested tenement and were now living in a tiny, two-room apartment on the West Side. As I walked in, I couldn't believe how empty it was. There was no furniture, no rugs, nothing on the walls—only a small kitchen table and one handful of rice. That's it. They were virtually devoid of possessions.
In fact, 11-year-old Lydia and 13-year-old Jenny owned only one short-sleeved dress each, plus one thin, gray sweater between them. When they walked the half-mile to school through the biting cold, Lydia would wear the sweater for part of the distance and then hand it to her shivering sister, who would wear it the rest of the way.
But despite their poverty and the painful arthritis that kept Perfecta from working, she still talked confidently about her faith in Jesus. She was convinced he had not abandoned them. I never sensed despair or self-pity in her home; instead, there was a gentle feeling of hope and peace.
Strobel completed his article. But he could not get the Delgados and their unflinching belief in God's providence out of his thoughts. So on Christmas Eve, he decided to pay the family a visit. He discovered that readers of his article had responded to the family's need in overwhelming fashion, filling the small apartment with donations of new furniture, appliances, rugs, a large Christmas tree, many wrapped presents, bags of food, warm winter clothing and even a generous amount of money. (We have heard of similar responses by the citizens here in Toronto from time to time to families in need.) But it wasn't the generous gifts that shocked Strobel. It was the family's response to those gifts. In his words:
As surprised as I was by this outpouring, I was even more astonished by what my visit was interrupting: Perfecta and her granddaughters were getting ready to give away much of their newfound wealth. When I asked Perfecta why, she replied in halting English: “Our neighbours are still in need. We cannot have plenty while they have nothing. This is what Jesus would want us to do.”
That blew me away! If I had been in their position at that time in my life, I would have been hoarding everything. I asked Perfecta what she thought about the generosity of the people who had sent all of these goodies, and again her response amazed me. “This is wonderful; this is very good,” she said, gesturing toward the largess. “We did nothing to deserve this -- it's a gift from God. But,” she added, “It is not his greatest gift. No, we celebrate that tomorrow. That is Jesus’ birth.”
To her, this child in the manger was the undeserved gift that meant everything -- more than material possessions, more than comfort, more than security. And at that moment, something inside of me wanted desperately to know this Jesus -- because, in a sense, I saw him in Perfecta and her granddaughters.
When we leave room for God in our lives like the Delgados did, despite having only a handful of rice at the time, we discover Jesus, the Bread of Life – Jesus who leads us into God’s kingdom. When Jesus was in the wilderness and tempted by the Evil One, his response to the first temptation was: 
“The scripture says, ‘Human beings cannot live on bread alone, but need every word that God speaks.’” [Matthew 4:4, GNT]
When people later asked Jesus to show them a miracle similar to the one their ancestors experienced in the desert when God gave them bread – manna -- from heaven to eat [John 6:30-35 and Exodus 16:12ff], Jesus answered this way:
“‘The bread that God gives is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’
‘Sir,’ they asked him, ‘give us this bread always.’
‘I am the bread of life,’ Jesus told them. ‘Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty.’”
I believe a second meaning behind this prayer for daily bread in The Lord’s Prayer is for a spiritually starving world to be given the Bread of Life – that is, the Word of God. Besides needing bread to eat, people also need bread for their souls. They need the gospel, the good news about Jesus – who is the Bread of Life – through whom human beings really live, both now and forever!

Let us trust God for our daily necessary physical needs when we pray “Give us this day our bread.” And let us be thankful too. Let us also pray for open and generous hearts to share that bread with a hungry world. And let us ask for Jesus, the Bread of Life, when we pray. Jesus came to this world for everyone. He is the Bread of Life people all over this world are hungering for -- whether they know it or not. 

My friends, may this be so for you and for me.

Rev. Chris Miller
February  13, 2011

OYM Oriole-York Mills United Church, Toronto
Visit with us online!
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Sunday, February 6, 2011

The Lord’s Prayer: “God’s Kingdom Come”

In recent weeks, Bob Dylan’s classic song “The Times, They Are a-Changing” can be illustrated from what is currently being heard and seen in the news.
Come senators, congressmen,
[add presidents and rulers and kings]
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is raging
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changing

The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast
The slow one will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fading
And the first one now will later be last
For the times, they are a-changing
First in Tunisia and now most prominently in Egypt. And it appears these changes may only be the beginning. These are truly “kingdom shaking” times. Will the shake-ups be minor or major? What new rule or kingdom will emerge in their places?

Jesus knew what it meant to shake up kingdoms. Did you hear the Call to Worship?
Jesus said: “Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here.”
Earth-leaders say: “We have our own kingdoms.”
Jesus said: “Change your life and believe the Good News.”
Many say: “Let’s get free of God.”
Jesus said: “Listen to me carefully.”
The Call to Worship is adapted from Mark 1 and Psalm 2 – a psalm of leaders and people plotting rebellion against God. But in the end the rebellion is doomed. The psalmist warns the kings and rulers that they are in grave danger. So he urges them to embrace God in adoration and to celebrate God in trembling awe.

Almost every week, along with millions of other Jesus followers in this world and in various ways, you and I pray together The Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed [or honoured] be your name; your kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as it is heaven.” Let me tell you, this prayer Jesus taught is a kingdom-shaking prayer of massive proportions. Have you ever felt its tremors?

When Jesus tells his followers to pray “God’s kingdom come,” he is saying various things to them. One, our lives will be shaken to the core. The way Jesus calls us to live in love in our community with others, the way we are called to relate with deep care to the Earth and the way Jesus calls us to relate intimately with God – our lives will never be the same. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ call to forgive others who have seriously wronged us (even to love our enemies), his call to be peacemakers, his call to consider ourselves blessed when people lie about us because we are his followers and his call to us to live with God as our most significant relationship – this kind of living can only happen for us when this prayer becomes deeply embedded in our souls: “God’s kingdom come.” I believe Matthew placed The Lord’s Prayer in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount to show how Jesus’ prayer provides the support necessary to live out what Jesus taught. In a previous message, I said: “If there is no prayer to a loving and compassionate Father at the centre of our lives, Jesus’ teachings are like a dry code of lifeless ethics.”

When we sincerely pray that we want “God’s kingdom to come,” we are identifying with a kingdom that “does not belong to this world.” That’s what Jesus told Pilate, the governor of Judea. Jesus said: “My kingdom does not consist of what you see around you. If it did, my followers would fight so that I wouldn’t be handed over.... But I’m not that kind of king, not the world’s kind of king” [John 18:36, The Message Bible]. What does Jesus mean that his kingdom is not of this world? Two of Jesus’ stories illustrate one aspect of his kingdom, Jesus said:
“God’s kingdom is like a mustard seed that a farmer plants. It is quite small as seeds go, but in the course of years it grows into a large tree, and birds build nests in it.”

Jesus also said: “God’s kingdom is like yeast that a woman works into the dough for dozens of loaves of barley bread -- and waits while the dough rises.” [Matthew 13:31-33]
Here’s a contemporary story with a similar meaning. I think Jesus would have liked the program Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman. This was a popular 1990s television series about an early frontier doctor and her devotion to medicine, her patients, her family and her friends. In one episode [Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman (CBS Television, 1994), episode written by Toni Graphia], Dr. Quinn's best friend, Dorothy, has breast cancer. She doesn't know how bad it is and is worried she may not have long to live. As Dorothy walks sombrely among the townspeople who are enjoying a picnic in a large clearing, Dr. Quinn’s 10-year-old son, Brian, runs up to her.
“Hey, Miss Dorothy, look what I found! Acorns! Sully says if I plant one, it'll grow to be as big as that oak.”

“None of us will live to see it get that big, Brian,” says Miss Dorothy. “That oak is a hundred years old.”

“Oh,” Brian replies. Dejected, he puts the acorns in his pocket and walks back to his family. He tells his mother, Dr. Quinn: “Miss Dorothy says there's no use in planting it. She says none of us will get to see it grow that big.”

Dr. Quinn takes an acorn from him and says: “Brian, you must plant it because, by next year, it will have grown up to your knees. The year after that, it will be taller than you. When it's time to go courting, you can take your young lady for a picnic under it. Then, when you have children, they can build a tree house in it. And some day you can tell your grandchildren about how you planted it. When that tree gets to be a hundred, it doesn't matter that you're not here to see it.” Dr. Quinn places the acorn back in Brian’s hand and says: “All that matters is today. Today, you hold a hundred years in your hand.”

Brian looks at the acorn thoughtfully, then asks Sully to help him find a place to plant it.
Brian could look forward to a lot of birds that would nest in his tree!

Jesus’ kingdom can work within and change other kingdoms on the Earth, like a small acorn seed planted in the ground breaks up the hard soil around it into workable earth, so good things such as kindness, compassion, peace, hope and love can sprout and grow. Where Jesus’ kingdom is worked into the kingdoms of this world through his people like salt, as Jesus said in another story, they can preserve what is good in society and provide zesty flavour to life. Jesus’ true kingdom is anything but bland! Jesus’ kingdom is also like rays of light coming together to penetrate the darkness and cause both the good and the bad to be seen for what they truly are.

When Jesus tells us to pray for God’s kingdom to come, what else does he mean? Certainly he means that God – not someone else or something else -- is clearly the centre and the Creator of this new reality. And as the Creator, God also is the One who cares for his kingdom. When Jesus began his public ministry, his first words were: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand” [Mark 1:15]. Those listening to Jesus then would have thought of three things when they heard the word “kingdom.” First, they were looking for a king whom they knew would also be the Messiah – that’s significant. Second, they would also be thinking of the kingdom as land (a sacred place or sacred space). And, third, they would be thinking of themselves as participants together with the king in this kingdom. Then along came Jesus who declared that the kingdom they were looking for throughout their long history had finally arrived and was now here – in him! What is significant for us to understand is that the arrival of Jesus into our human community brought the kingdom of God into fresh focus. Jesus upgraded the meaning of the kingdom of God not only for his original hearers but also for us. Here is Eugene Peterson’s expression of what Jesus meant:
“This kingdom you have been hearing about now for these many centuries is here. Listen to me carefully. Watch me attentively. Join me believingly. I am here to do kingdom work, and I want you to join me in the work. I want you to work alongside me.” [Eugene H. Peterson, Tell It Slant: a conversation on the language of Jesus in his stories and prayers, Eerdmans, 2008, p. 174]
If we were to look up all the references to the “kingdom” in the New Testament -- about 150 or so depending on the version -- we would discover the following three major themes. First, God’s kingdom refers to a redemptive community or society of people. It does not signify merely any kind of social community. God’s kingdom is wherever God’s people offer themselves as participants in the world where God rules in love and brings salvation. And God’s people, Jesus says, are those who “seek first – above all else – God’s kingdom and God’s right way to live” [Matthew 6:33]. Second, those who desire to participate in God’s redemptive kingdom community must enter by repentance, faith and obedience to Jesus. This is the essence of Jesus’ words in Mark 1:15: “The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel -- the good news.” The entrance to God’s kingdom is primarily by way of personal commitment to Jesus Christ whose death on the cross brought salvation to us. Third, the connection between God’s kingdom and Jesus is so close that the clear implication is “there is no such thing as kingdom apart from relationship with Jesus” [Scot McKnight, www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/ 2010/11/15/secularizing-kingdom/#more-10545]. This is another way of seeing that Jesus’ work among us is God’s kingdom work. And that he wants us to join him in what he is doing in this world.

There is one more major theme about God’s kingdom that I should mention because Jesus often spoke about it -- about the end of this age or the end of history as we know it and the coming of the new earth and the new heavens. Theologian and Gospel of Matthew scholar Dale Bruner said it this way [The Christbook Commentary on Matthew, Eerdmans, 2004, p. 300]:
“The most sophisticated biblical scholarship on the one hand and the most simple … faith on the other combine in believing that when Jesus teaches his church to pray ‘Your kingdom come,’ he is teaching her to pray for the coming of the new heavens and the new earth, for the end of this history and for the beginning of the new, and thus (as far as we know now) for Jesus’ own Second Coming. Here we are praying not merely for changes in history but for a complete end to this history and for the beginning of the new history of the world of God.”
When Jesus was on the cross, two thieves were also crucified, one on either side of him. One of them recognized that Jesus was innocent and should not have been there. The thief knew he deserved his punishment, but he also seemed to know enough about Jesus to ask: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” [Luke 23:42].

In Fuller Seminary’s Theology, News, and Notes [Dale Bruner, “Is Jesus Inclusive or Exclusive?” October 1999, p. 3], Rev. David Peterson told about a time when he was preparing his sermon.
His little daughter came into the room and asked, “Daddy, can we play?”

He answered: “I'm awfully sorry, Sweetheart, but I'm right in the middle of preparing this sermon. In about an hour I can play.”

She said, “OK. When you're finished, Daddy, I am going to give you a great big hug.”

“Thank you very much,” he said.

David Peterson said his daughter went to the door. “Then she did a U-turn and came back and gave me a chiropractic, bone-breaking hug.” He said to her, “Darling, you said you were going to give me a hug after I finished.”

She answered, “Daddy, I just wanted you to know what you have to look forward to!”
My friends, part of the fullness of our faith and the love of God is the great hope of Jesus’ Second Coming when he will truly reign. When there will be no more sickness, no more sorrow, no more pain, no more tears, no more mourning and no more death. That’s part of the promise of the new resurrected life with God. You can read this for yourself in the second-last chapter of the last book of the Bible – Revelation 21:4.

Through all we experience with Jesus because of his First Coming, we have so much more to look forward to in his great cosmic Second Coming.

May this be so for you and for me.

Rev. Chris Miller
February 6, 2011

OYM Oriole-York Mills United Church, Toronto
Visit with us online!
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Sunday, January 23, 2011

The Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Will Be Done”

There are a variety of reasons why people do not want to be followers of Jesus. There are also various reasons why people leave the Christian faith. Here is one reason. Drew Dyck is a Canadian born author whose most recent book is titled Generation Ex-Christian. It is about younger Christians leaving the faith. He tells about one interview with a young man who left to join the Wicca religion. Dyck wrote:
“Morninghawk Apollo (who renamed himself as is common in Wiccan practice) discussed his rejection of Christianity with candour. ‘Ultimately why I left is that the Christian God demands that you submit to his will. In Wicca, it's just the other way around. Your will is paramount. We believe in gods and goddesses, but the deities we choose to serve are based on our wills.’” [Drew Dyck, “The Leavers,” Christianity Today (November, 2010), p. 43; excerpted from Generation Ex-Christian, Moody, 2010]
C. S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, wrote:
“There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.'”
When Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray (Luke 11:1), Jesus told them to pray: “Our Father in heaven, may your holy name be honoured; may your Kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Or, with the words we have known for so many years and often use, “Thy will be done.”

Mary, the mother of Jesus, understood the personal significance of praying “Thy will be done” at the beginning of Jesus’ life. And Jesus knew the personal significance of these words when he prayed them at the end of his life on Earth.

Before Jesus was born, young Mary had a conversation with the angel Gabriel who told her she would “become pregnant and give birth to a son,” whom she would name Jesus. Mary was understandably perplexed because she was not involved sexually with anyone, not even with Joseph to whom she was engaged. Gabriel told her not to be afraid and added: “[Jesus] will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:33, NRSV).

I like how Eugene Peterson describes the interaction between Gabriel and Mary in his book Tell It Slant [Eerdmans, 2008; p. 178]:
“Angel or no angel, Gabriel obviously doesn’t know the facts of life. Mary fills him in, telling him that she is a virgin. But Mary doesn’t know the facts of the kingdom. Gabriel fills her in: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you….” As sure as she is of the ‘facts of life,’ Mary doesn’t insist. She opens herself to Gabriel’s King and kingdom announcement and prays, in effect, Thy will be done: ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord ... let it be to me according to your word’ (Luke 1:38, RSV).
Mary had the choice –as we all have the choice – to go along with God’s will or not. Mary could have refused to allow the Holy Spirit to be involved in her life in this way because of the potential for ridicule and real trouble. Then God would have found someone else. But she did not refuse. “Let it be to me, according to your word,” she said. And the will of God was done in Mary’s life.

Thirty-three years later, as Jesus wrestled with God in the Garden of Gethsemane in the certain knowledge he was about to suffer a horrible death, Jesus prayed: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42, NRSV). And the will of God was done in Jesus’ life. Jesus gave up his life on the cross and, three days later, he became the resurrected Lord of the Kingdom. Jesus’ life – from beginning to end on this Earth and beyond this life – is framed with the intent “Thy will be done!”

When Jesus teaches us to pray, he wants us to start with “thy” and not with “us.” Did you notice, we are not even mentioned in the first petitions to the Father? Except, Jesus does want us to know his Father is also our heavenly Father. That is radical and remarkable because you and I -- through Jesus -- are connected to God when we pray. We are in this Christian life together with Jesus as we pray to “Our Father.”

Jesus starts the prayer with the pronoun thy or your: May your name be honoured, may your kingdom come, may your will be done. When we pray this way, we are deeply involving ourselves in wanting God’s ways of working done on this Earth – by honouring God’s holy name, by intentionally calling for God’s kingdom to come and by desiring God’s will for the entire Earth to be done as it is in heaven.

But, then, halfway through his prayer, Jesus changes the pronoun to us. When we pray “Our Father in heaven, may your name be honoured, may your kingdom come and may your will be done,” our prayer involves us deeply with God’s purposes: “Your will be done.” But then we continue to pray: “Give us today the food we need. Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us. Do not bring us to hard testing but keep us safe from the Evil One.” Our prayer now involves God deeply with us -- in life-changing ways in all the details of our lives. (But these details are for later messages.)

The movement in the Lord’s Prayer from your will – being all about God’s will -- to being all about our needs is another way of expressing our intimate and personal connection with Jesus’ Father who is also our Father. As I noted last week, Jesus is teaching us to be real and honest and open with God. Let me remind you how The Message Bible in Matthew 6:7-9 introduces Jesus’ teaching on how to pray:
“The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this: Our Father in heaven … ”
What Jesus wants us to realize is that our connection with God is not a prayer formula or a prayer technique. Our connection with God is meant to be a relationship with God the Father who knows better than we do what we need and who loves us. Therefore, we pray with a sense of person-to-person intimacy, love and joy.

So what is the will of God? If we take the context of where Jesus is telling his disciples how to pray, it is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, which encompasses Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7. So when we listen to Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, we can hear the will – the intention -- of God.

Here are only a few things Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount that reveal God’s intention for us:
  • There are the Beatitudes. Jesus says those who are poor in spirit and those who are merciful to others will be blessed. Those who mourn will be comforted. Those who work for peace will be called God’s children. And those who are persecuted for doing what God requires will find the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
  • Jesus says God’s intention is that his people be like life-enhancing salt giving extra flavour to society and preserving what is good in society and in the culture. God intends the witness of his people to be like goodness-enhancing light so that others will see the good things God’s people do and give praise to God.
  • Jesus says God’s intention is that we have deep respect for all people and even love for our enemies.
  • Jesus tells us to stock-pile treasures that last in heaven rather than the fleeting treasures here on Earth for “our heart will always be where our riches are.”
  • Jesus calls us to be concerned, above everything else, with the Kingdom of God and with what God requires of us and not to be obsessed about where our food and clothes will come from.
  • Jesus constantly reminds us to trust God. He also says that those who listen to what he says and put what he says into practice are wise because this is like building a house on solid rock that can withstand the storms of life. Not to trust him and put what he says into practice is like building our lives on sand. When the storms of life come, we are guaranteed to fall apart.      
When I was a young Christian – both young in years and in my faith – a significant question for me was: What is the will of God for me personally? What does God want me to do with my life? Is there a particular vocation God wanted me to pursue? What would help me discern the answer to that question as well as to other questions as I grew in my relationship with God? Presbyterian minister and writer Frederick Buechner has helped me frame a profoundly personal sense of the will – the intent -- of God for us. Buechner wrote:
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.”
“The place God calls you to”: Is that not the will of God? Think of what this statement might mean for Jesus and for us. When Jesus teaches us how to pray, do we not sense in our spirits that Jesus’ “deep gladness” is to hallow or honour the holy name of his Father? To pray for the coming of God’s Kingdom? To do the will of his Father? When Jesus teaches us how to pray, do we not also sense “the world’s deep hunger” is that their daily needs be met – needs of body, mind, emotions and spirit? Is not the world’s deep hunger also to know their sins are forgiven -- and to be able to forgive those who have wronged them? Is the world’s deep hunger not also to know that God “will not allow [them] to be tested beyond [their] power to remain firm…. [And] at the time [they] are put to the test, [God] will give [them] the strength to endure it, and so provide [them] with a way out.” (You will find that last statement in 1 Corinthians 10:13.)

When Jesus teaches us – his followers -- to pray, do we not recognize Jesus is the primary connection between our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger? When we pray “Thy will be done,” Jesus is the One – through the Holy Spirit -- who causes us to acknowledge that the Father’s purposes will be done in whatever way God chooses to accomplish them. And so we pray that God, in his wisdom and love, will let us work with him to do his will. Someone has said: “I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help him. I ended up asking him to do his work through me.”
God’s will is down-to-earth yet planned in heaven. Jesus prayed that God’s will be done “on Earth as it is heaven.” When we pray thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven, we are saying God is not only in heaven but also at work here on Earth where we are – where we live and work and play and laugh and cry and love and hurt. When we pray “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven,” we are acknowledging, as Eugene Peterson expresses it [Tell It Slant, Eerdmans, 2008; p. 180]:
“God is at work in creation, in salvation, in blessing – on Earth. He is at work in our homes and workplaces, in our governments and schools, in our prisons and churches, in ships at sea and automobiles on highways, among the hungry and poor, among the newborn and the dying. Make your own list. Insert your own names. And then pray them.”

Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher and theologian who lived in the first half of the 18th century. I thought his brief prayer was appropriate for our Prayer of Approach:
“Father in heaven, now draw our hearts to you that our hearts may be where our treasures ought to be, that our minds and thoughts may look to your kingdom, whose citizens we are.”
Kierkegaard also wrote about human nature and how complex we human beings really are. But Kierkegaard was a disciple of Jesus and knew the difference between being merely an admirer and being a follower or disciple of Jesus. He wrote:
“If you have any knowledge at all of human nature, you know that those who only admire the truth will, when danger appears, become traitors. The admirer is infatuated with the false security of greatness; but if there is any inconvenience or trouble, he pulls back. Admiring the truth, instead of following it, is just as dubious a fire as the fire of erotic love, which at the turn of the hand can be changed into exactly the opposite -- to hate, jealousy, and revenge. Christ, however, never asked for admirers, worshipers, or adherents. He consistently spoke of ‘followers and ‘disciples.’”
May each of us consider not merely admiring Jesus but following him intentionally. May each of us also consider not my will but thy will be done. May this be so for you and for me.

Rev. Chris Miller
January 23, 2011

OYM Oriole-York Mills United Church, Toronto
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Sunday, January 16, 2011

The Lord’s Prayer: Who’s Your Daddy?


One day, a young boy asked his grandmother if he was a child of God. “Why, of course you are,” she replied. He looked puzzled and then responded, “Well I had better tell Mom and Dad -- they think I'm theirs!”

Who’s your daddy?

In the 1998 Disney movie Parent Trap, identical twins who were separated at birth by their parents' divorce accidentally meet 11 years later at summer camp. Together the twins plan to switch identities so each can meet the respective parent she's never known and try to bring their parents together again.
As Annie, who is pretending to be Hallie, disembarks from her plane, her father is waiting for her. Annie is tentative but exuberant as she sees him.
“Get into these arms, you little punk!” her dad says.
She runs to embrace him with a big smile, saying, “Dad! Finally!” The father tells her he has missed her and a lot has been happening. Annie responds: “A lot's been happening to me too, Dad. I mean, I feel I'm practically a new woman!”
As they're walking to the car, the father notices that Annie – who he thinks is Hallie -- can't stop looking at him and asks: “What? Did I cut myself shaving?”
Annie answers: “No. It's just seeing you for the first time. I mean, you know, in so long.”
As they drive toward his home, Annie discusses the camp, ending almost all her sentences with the word “Dad.” He asks her, “Why do you keep saying 'Dad' at the end of every sentence?”
Annie answers: “I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was doing it, Dad. Sorry, Dad.” They both laugh. “Do you want to know why I keep saying 'Dad'? The truth?”
The father says, “Because you missed your old man so much, right?”
“Exactly. It's because in my whole life -- I mean, you know, for the past eight weeks -- I was never able to say the word 'Dad.' Never. Not once. And if you ask me, a dad is an irreplaceable person in a girl's life. Think about it. There's a whole day devoted to celebrating fathers. Just imagine someone's life without a father. Never buying a Father's Day card. Never sitting on their father's lap. Or being able to say 'Hi Dad' or 'What's up, Dad?' or 'Catch you later, Dad.' I mean, a baby's first words are always 'Dada,' aren't they?”
The father asks: “Let me see if I get this. You missed being able to call me 'Dad'?”
Annie answers, “Yeah, I really have, Dad.”
Who’s your daddy?

Jesus understood the deep yearnings of his disciples to pray – even to pray properly. What do we say? Is there a right way to say our prayers? Jesus says that, when we pray, we are to closet ourselves away –or find a quiet spot by ourselves -- so we can connect with God the Father alone and not make a theatrical production of our personal devotion before the world. Jesus also says that, when we pray, we don’t need to say special magical words or special spiritual words. And we don’t need to be repetitive and long-winded with God. We just need to be real and honest and open with God. I appreciate how The Message Bible in Matthew 6:7-9 introduces Jesus’ teaching on how to pray:
“The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this: Our Father in heaven …” [Italics are mine.]
Our world abounds with many names for God. For instance, Hinduism has more than 330 million gods that they call aspects of the Supreme Being. Islam speaks of the 99 beautiful names of Allah. However, Jesus’ name for God is strikingly simple and uncomplicated: “Father.” In teaching us how to pray, Jesus invites us to pray very simply: “Our Father.”

“Our Father” – two simple words that need some unpacking.

First, “Father.” Jesus uses the Aramaic word – abba -- for “Father.” Children, young and old, used that intimate term for their fathers. It comes close to the way children in many languages refer to their fathers even today. Note the sounds ab-ba. Don’t they sound like papa, dada, daddy, for instance? Abba is a word filled with love and affection that theologian Dale Bruner says “is the most warm of [all] the Aramaic words for father.” What also intrigues me is that abba was never too childish to say. When children grew up, they still affectionately called their fathers abba. So when Jesus says abba, his disciples recognized the word. But they probably would have been startled by Jesus using such a familiar and affectionate name in praying to God. Yet this is an important issue in the way Jesus teaches his disciples (and us) how to pray. He teaches us prayer is personal. For Jesus, prayer is not depersonalized techniques and formulas to get God’s attention. Prayer to God is personal because God is personal -- even like a good father!

In the how-not-to-pray verses leading up to his prayer, Jesus calls God “Father” three times. In the Sermon on the Mount as a whole (Matthew 5, 6 and 7), Jesus uses the word “Father” 15 times! In 10 of those instances, Jesus expanded “Father” to include “Father in heaven” or “heavenly Father.” As Eugene Peterson, author of The Message Bible wrote: “Get used to this: Father.... ‘Father’ is Jesus’ metaphor of choice for God.” [Eugene Peterson, Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers, Eerdmans, 2008, p. 169]

Who’s your daddy?

For various reasons, some people have difficulty addressing God as “Father.” It may be because they have issues with their own fathers. Their fathers may have been emotionally or physically abusive or emotionally cold or verbally harsh. Or these so-called fathers may have been absent for much of their children’s lives --walking away from the family and leaving only the mother to bring up the children. And also, do we not live in a North American entertainment culture that more often parodies fathers than encourages their presence? Now I am not convinced the best remedy for a bad father is no father at all. When I say this, I am not saying an abusive father ought to be endured and remain in a family. But does it not make sense to intentionally encourage the gifts of a good father and teach and model the character of a responsible provider, a caring guardian, a compassionate and loving husband? Jesus gives us such a gift when he teaches us to pray “Our Father ... ”

The Lord’s Prayer is located almost exactly in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, which encompasses chapters 5, 6 and 7 of the Gospel of Matthew. It is as if this prayer is the support beam upon which the rest of Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon finds balance. Without this prayer, Jesus’ teachings and way of living with his disciples would not have happened in the manner Jesus and his Father dearly desired. If there is no prayer to a loving and compassionate Father at the centre, Jesus’ teachings are like a dry code of lifeless ethics.

Second, in teaching us how to pray, Jesus says to pray “Our Father.” The pronoun “our” is significant.

This is the only place in the Gospels where Jesus says “Our Father.” In other places, Jesus always talks intimately of “my Father” or in an absolute manner of “the Father.” When he talks to the disciples, he usually speaks of “your Father.” For instance, even after his resurrection, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, “Go, tell the disciples, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” The meaning of his distinction between “my” and “your” becomes clear when we think in the following manner (which, by the way, is a way to think theologically). The church has confessed down through its history that Jesus, our Lord, is God’s only Son. You might remember hearing John 3:16 as a child in the traditional King James Version: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.” Jesus’ relation to God the Father is absolutely unique. He -- and he alone -- is God’s Son by nature. That is the intent of Jesus being the only begotten Son of the Father. Christians are God’s children by grace – the grace of adoption (John 1:12). And all people are God’s children by virtue of creation (Acts 17:28-29). Jesus, and Jesus alone, is God’s Son by right.

So when Jesus connects with us and calls the Father “Our Father,” he gives us a remarkable and wonderful gift. He is passing on to us something of his personal and priceless relationship with his Father. Jesus is saying God is our Father too! It is the kind of relationship that we can have with God as well -- to which I say, Thanks be to God!

When we pray to the Father, Jesus is also connecting himself with us. We are praying together with him. We are living our life together with him. Jesus is not disconnected from our praise and our honour of God or from our desire to do what God our Father wills. Jesus is not disconnected from our experience of what we need, whether regarding physical sustenance or spiritual nourishment. Jesus also knows what it means to forgive others. Jesus understands our desire not to be tested too hard. In teaching us to say “Our Father,” Jesus connects with us in our experience of the daily grind of our lives. All of these things are focused in the rest of the Lord’s Prayer. But that’s for the next several messages.

We are connected with Jesus and we are connected with one another when we pray “Our Father.” When we say “our,” we place ourselves with Jesus and with all who pray. We are never alone when we pray. We are with Jesus and with all others who love and follow him. That’s why I believe our church’s small group called the OYM Prayer Supporters is a significant ministry among us. The group symbolizes our prayerful concerns and connections with one another. When they pray for us, when we pray for one another, we are not alone. Thanks be to God “Our Father!”

Who’s your daddy?

John W. Fountain is a professor of journalism at the University of Illinois. He was formerly a national correspondent for the New York Times. The National Public Radio runs a series called “This I Believe.” As part of the series, Fountain gave the following testimony [Excerpted from “The God Who Embraced Me,” All Things Considered, www.npr.org (posted 11-28-2005)]:
“I believe in God. Not that cosmic, intangible spirit-in-the-sky that Mama told me as a little boy ‘always was and always will be.’ But the God who embraced me when Daddy disappeared from our lives -- from my life at age four -- the night police led him down the stairs, away from our front door, in handcuffs. The God who warmed me when we could see our breath inside our freezing apartment, when the gas was disconnected in the dead of another wind-whipped Chicago winter, and there was no food, little hope and no hot water.
“The God who held my hand when I witnessed boys in my 'hood swallowed by the elements, by death and by hopelessness; [the God] who claimed me when I felt like ‘no-man's son,’ amid the absence of any man to wrap his arms around me and tell me, ‘Everything's going to be okay,’ to speak proudly of me, to call me son.
“I believe in God, God the Father, embodied in his Son Jesus Christ. The God who allowed me to feel his presence -- whether by the warmth that filled my belly like hot chocolate on a cold afternoon, or that voice, whenever I found myself in the tempest of life's storms, telling me (even when I was told I was ‘nothing’) that I was something, that I was his, and that even amid the desertion of the man who gave me his name and DNA and little else, I might find [in God] sustenance.
“I believe in God, the God who I have come to know as Father, as Abba -- Daddy.
[Fountain also said:] “It wasn't until many years later, standing over my father's grave for a conversation long overdue, that my tears flowed. I told him about the man I had become. I told him about how much I wished he had been in my life. And I realized fully that, in his absence, I had found Another. Or that he -- God the Father, God my Father -- had found me.”

My friends, may the personal knowledge of God as our loving heavenly Father also be so for you and for me. Amen.

Rev. Chris Miller
January 16, 2011


OYM Oriole-York Mills United Church, Toronto
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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

How Not to Pray (Series on The Lord’s Prayer)

Have you heard the story about a minister who dies and is waiting in line at the Pearly Gates? Ahead of him is a fellow dressed in sunglasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket and jeans.
Saint Peter says to this man: “Who are you, so I may know whether to admit you to the Kingdom of Heaven?”
He replies, “I'm Joe Cohen, taxi driver, of New York City.”
Saint Peter consults his list, smiles and says to the taxi driver, “Take this silken robe and golden staff and enter through the Gates.” The taxi driver goes into Heaven with his robe and staff. 
The minister is next in line. He says, “I am Joseph Snow, pastor of Saint Mary's for the past 43 years.”
Saint Peter consults his list. He says to the minister, “Take this cotton robe and wooden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“Just a minute!” says the minister. “The man before me was a taxi driver. He gets a silken robe and a golden staff. How can this be?”
Saint Peter answered: “Up here, we work by results. While you preached, people slept. While he drove, people prayed.”
We may smile and even laugh. But the kernel of truth in the story is that we human beings want God to notice us. This is especially true when we pray. And as Jesus said to his early followers, let me say to you as well: God does notice us. In verse 6, Jesus said, “Your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.” God can’t reward someone he doesn’t notice! But God does notice us -- and rewards us, Jesus says -- when our good actions and deeds are done for the right reasons and not for the wrong reasons.

Most of us, I would think, want to know how to pray. That was true of Jesus’ first followers. In Luke’s Gospel 11:1, when Jesus had finished praying his private prayers, his disciples asked him to teach them how to pray. In the beginning of 2011, this is my prayer as well: “Lord Jesus, teach me how to pray. And, Lord Jesus, teach these wonderful people at Oriole-York Mills how to pray as well.”

In Chapter 6 of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus divides his teaching on prayer into two sections: “How Not to Pray” in verses 5-8 and then “How to Pray” in verses 9-15.” The how-to-pray section is what we call The Lord’s Prayer or the Jesus Prayer. When Jesus tells us how not to pray, he wants to free us from some widely held mistaken notions about prayer. Once we understand this, we will more fully grasp how Jesus wants us to pray by teaching his marvellous prayer to God the Father. So today, we will take time to consider Jesus’ teaching about how we are not to pray.

Jesus said: “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! They love to stand up and pray in the houses of worship and on the street corners, so that everyone will see them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full.” Let me start with the negative. When we come before God, Jesus is clearly warning us not to make a spiritual production of praying. We are not to be theatrical show-offs, as someone said, before one another or before God. 

The literal meaning of “hypocrite” is of a performer who is doing good actions in a dramatic way so as to be noticed. Jesus rejects this kind of performing in the lives of his followers. He sets us up for his teaching on prayer by teaching first about helping people in need. This is a significant theme in Jesus’ life and teachings. Listen to what he says in verses 2 to 4 of Matthew 6:
“So when you give something to a needy person, do not make a big show of it, as the hypocrites do in the houses of worship and on the streets. They do it so that people will praise them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full. But when you help a needy person, do it in such a way that even your closest friend will not know about it. Then it will be a private matter. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.”
If we go back to verse 1 in Chapter 6, Jesus tells his followers not to do the right thing for the wrong reason. “Make certain you do not perform your religious duties in public so that people will see what you do,” he said. It is not that we are not to act in good ways, in right or righteous ways. Of course, we are to give our money to help those in need. Of course we are to pray, even in public. That’s what we do every Sunday morning in our worship. We have several times of prayer in our service, including what we call the Prayers of the People. But to those who are his followers, Jesus warns them about their motives. If the religious duties they do are done with an eye on the audience, they are not acceptable before God. Jesus said it this way: “If you do these things publicly, you will not have any reward from your Father in heaven.” Our reward will come from being noticed by our human audience instead of by God. And God’s reward isn’t merely any reward. As theologian Dale Bruner, in his The Christbook Commentary on Matthew [p. 288] reminds us: “Disciples make their life goal the hearing of their Father’s approval at the Last Judgment.”

But Jesus also told his followers how to do the right thing for the right reason. Here are his words in The Message Bible:
“When you help a needy person, do it in such a way that even your closest friend will not know about it. Then it will be a private matter. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.” [6:3, 4]
The right reason has to do with how we relate to God. Jesus wants us to do whatever we do because we are eager to please God. This is meant to be so private we won’t even tell our closest friend. So Jesus instructs his followers on how they can do whatever they do – whether helping others or praying -- with integrity and focused solely on God.

When it comes to our own prayers, here’s how The Message Bible stated what Jesus said: 
“Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense [God’s] grace.”
We don’t pray for show because God wants to meet us mainly in private, by ourselves, where we can be real and honest before him.

Many people today talk as if their life -- the way they live -- is really a prayer. So they do not recognize the need to stop, find a private place and pray some words to God. In other words, they don’t think they need to take time to actually talk with God. But prayer for Jesus is far more than a general sense of God’s presence with us in life. Prayer is the attempt to say words to God in privacy – in an intimate and personal conversation. Theologian Dale Bruner [The Christbook Commentary on Matthew, p. 288] observed that, for Jesus and thus for his followers, “Prayer is to a living person – to the living God – and it is not ... a psychological mind game....” 

There is a place for praying – for saying actual words to God – when we are on the go in the midst of our tasks and activities of the day. But it is difficult to have a good conversation with someone if we are multitasking – a 21st-century term we are familiar with. Just ask my wife. When she phones me at the office, she has this unerring sense of determining if I am on the computer or reading at the same time I am talking with her. She knows when she does not have my undivided attention. God knows it too. He knows when he does not have our undivided attention. That’s why Jesus wants us to pause and to “closet” ourselves at some time in our day away from things that distract us from giving God our undivided attention even for a few minutes. In that place by ourselves with God, we can strive to be as honest as we can be with God. If we do, we will discover that God will become the focus of our very existence. And we will become less self-centred and more God-centred.

Jesus said not to pray as a performance or a show before others because God wants us to talk with him, not to the people who might be listening. And God loves a one-on-one conversation.

Jesus also said: “When you pray, do not use a lot of meaningless words, as the [Gentiles] do, who think that their gods will hear them because their prayers are long. Do not be like them. Your Father already knows what you need before you ask him.” When we pray, we do not have to go on and on and on, repeating our prayer over and over again, because God already knows what we need. Jesus says there doesn’t have to be a lot of words before God will hear us.

Jesus is contrasting the sort of praying that went on in much of the non-Jewish world of his day. For instance, there was the conviction that the gods were reluctant to hear prayers unless the prayers were long – long, repetitive and sometimes filled with complicated magic words meant to persuade the deities to be favourable toward those who prayed. The lengthy prayers were also meant to prove the sincerity of the petitioners. But Jesus taught that, because of the loving character of God the Father, we do not have to pray that way. That’s why Jesus told his followers how to pray (and not merely how not to pray) and he began his prayer by saying “Our Father.” But that’s next week’s message.  

It has been a while since I saw the film Bruce Almighty [Universal, 2003, directed and produced by Tom Shadyac, written by Steve Kornen and Mark O'Keef]. But when I came across the write-up of the following scene, I was drawn to it because of how prayer was treated.

Bruce Nolan (played by Jim Carrey) is a mediocre news reporter in mid-life crisis. He complains to his girlfriend that God does a poor job of running the world. He could do far better. To his surprise, God (played by Morgan Freeman) gives him the opportunity.

You guessed it: Bruce does not do a good job of playing God. After wrecking his relationship with his girlfriend, Grace, he begins to ask God for help. The turning point comes when God helps Bruce cut through the pomp and pretence and teaches him to pray about the real issues in his life.
“What do you want me to do?” Bruce asks.
“I want you to pray, son. Go ahead.”
Bruce squints his eyes and attempts a prayer: “Um … Lord, feed the hungry and bring peace to … um … all of mankind. How's that?”
“Great … if you want to be Miss America,” God responds. “Now come on. What do you really care about?”
“Grace,” Bruce says, thinking of his girlfriend.
“Grace. You want her back?”
Bruce seems surprised by his own response. “No. I want her to be happy, no matter what that means.” Bruce closes his eyes. “I want her to find someone who will treat her with all the love she deserved from me. I want her to meet someone who will see her always as I do now -- through your eyes.”
“Now that's a prayer,” God says. “I'm going to get right on it.”
Jesus wants us to be real with God -- not play games. We can’t expect any response from God by trying to impress him with fine-sounding spiritual talk because God wants to meet with us privately for a real and personal conversation. And remember, God loves us. God is not a reluctant listener. 

Jesus knows intimately that God is a lover of people. That’s why, later in his ministry [Matthew 11:28], Jesus would graciously call to people and say: “Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads and I will give you rest.” Jesus wants his followers to understand that God knows all about them – their sorrows and joys, their burdens and comforts -- and what they need in their lives. And he wants his followers to bring their various needs to God as a child would, with trust in his father. 

As a church, we have many questions about where we are going in 2011. I do believe Jesus would love to hear us say: “Lord Jesus, teach us how to pray – for our sakes, for your sake and for the sake of the world.”

May this be so for you and for me. Amen.


Rev. Chris Miller
January 9, 2011

OYM Oriole-York Mills United Church, Toronto
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Sunday, January 2, 2011

God Believes In You

We could begin this new year by asking one another what we believe about God. That’s one of those questions people talk about whether they are in church -- or not. And it is an important conversation to engage in whether in our own minds or with others. What do we believe about God? But at the beginning of 2011, I want to turn the issue around and ask: “What does God believe about us?’

That question intrigues me because what God believes about us as human beings influences how God acts toward us. Belief and action are two sides of the same process and not separate entities. We too act as we do because of what we believe.

For instance, I believe my children are worthwhile. Therefore, they are worth my investment in their lives – investments of time, love, care, interest and discipline – and much more. One way I did that was to help them financially through university. Another way is to be available to them when they are in difficulty. When they were in school, I used to remind them that, if they found themselves in an awkward circumstance they knew they shouldn’t be in or did not want to be in, they could always blame their dad to help them get out of it. They could say I was really strict and they needed to get home right away -- or else! Sometimes they took advantage of my offer and sometimes they did not. [smile]

How God acts toward us depends upon what God believes about us. So what does God believe about us as human beings?

Psalm 8 is a significant place to begin. Verse 3 in The Message Bible set us up to consider where we humans fit into the immensity of creation in God’s eyes:
“I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your hand-made sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings.”
Creation is immense and God, the grand Artist, made it all. And yet, even though God’s handiwork is cosmic and majestic, God both notices and pays attention to us humans. That is what so captivated the psalmist. Here’s verse 4 in The Message Bible:
“Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, why do you bother with us [,God]? Why take a second look our way?”
While the immensity contrasts with seeming insignificance, the clear implication is that God does take the time and effort to look our way – and even be involved in our lives. Humans seem so inconsequential beside this incomparable and vast creation. Who among us has not stood under the stars in awe and wondered about our place in this incredible universe? We might continue to wonder if it were not for what the psalmist tells us in this psalm about the place and the task of human beings. And here are some reasons why God believes we are worth his love/the bother and the concern.

In the first instance, the place of humans among everything God has made is “just shy of God’s own Being” -- as one commentator puts it [John Goldingay]. Yes, that is exactly what the psalmist says in verse 5. It fascinates me that the psalmist did not say humans are “a little higher than animals.” That’s what many today might say. Instead, he says humans are actually “a little lower than God.” In a sermon, Rev. Jay Kessler described it this way:
Virtually every one of us in this room is the result of an educational system that has, drip by drip, like dropping water on stone, made an impression on our lives as to who we are. Very few of us, naturally speaking, think of ourselves as a little lower than [God] {the angels}.
We almost all think of ourselves as a little higher than the animals. That is, we have in our mind a mental picture of something we've seen in any natural history museum: an ascendancy of primates, little jumping creatures, eventually humped over with knuckles dragging, and finally standing erect. When we see the final "naked ape" embarrassingly like us, we say, "This is my heritage. This is where I came from." We think of ourselves as a little higher than the animals.
I wouldn't debate the fact [said Kessler] that as human beings we are mammals. We carry on the mammalian kind of processes: ingestion, digestion, absorption, assimilation, respiration, excretion, secretion, motion, sensitivity, and reproduction. We do these things without consciously thinking about them, just like all the other animals.
[However,] the central statement of Scripture about [humankind] is that we have been ... infused by God with a nature that is not a little higher than the animals, but one that is ... a little lower than [God]{the angels}.
My friends, we are not an accidental by-product of an accidental evolutionary process. And we are not something. We are someone. We humans are a deliberate creation by God – however God did that.

Because we are someone in God’s eyes, verse 5 also says that God crowned humans with "glory" and "honour." Imagine that. God gives us glory and honour! The imagery here is significant. Crown refers here to humanity’s authority over other created life. Another way to express this is to say: “God, you gave humans power to rule over all created life and you gave humans splendour and honour.” Surely the psalmist is thinking back to the beginnings of life in Genesis 1 and 2 where we human beings were made so as to reflect God’s image and God’s loving purposes for God’s creation. This is a place of wonderful responsibility.

Because we are someone in God’s eyes, verses 6 through 9 of Psalm 8 tell us that human beings have been assigned the task of ruling over everything in God’s creation: sheep and cattle, all creatures of the world, the birds and the creatures in the seas. God believes in us enough to give us this remarkable assignment with serious responsibilities for caring wisely for other living creatures on this planet.

No matter how human beings have failed in their assignment up to this point, the task still remains today. As followers of Jesus, we are not alone – we have never been alone – in the task God has called us to accomplish. The author of the Letter to Hebrews in Chapter 2:6-9, shows us, by quoting these same verses from Psalm 8, how we are connected to our task through Jesus, our Lord:
“What are human beings, O God, that you should think of them; mere human beings, that you should care for them? You made them for a little while lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honour, and made them rulers over all things.’
[The Scripture] says that God made them “rulers over all things”; this clearly includes everything. We do not, however, see human beings ruling over all things now. But we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, so that through God’s grace he should die for everyone. We see him now crowned with glory and honour because of the death he suffered.”
This is the task God gave to humans on Earth: to rule the Earth on behalf of God as those given glory and honour by God to do so. But God has not appointed humans to rule by exploiting this Earth and other human beings. In fact, throughout Scripture, God is clear we are not to destroy the Earth or oppress or take advantage of one another. God’s intention is that our rule should involve compassion and care for this Earth and all its creatures, including all humanity. Unfortunately, humans seem to possess an inner inclination toward exploitation and destruction. That’s why we need to be connected to Jesus who came to help us through the Holy Spirit to overcome that inner tendency to abuse others and to damage ourselves – in other words, to sin. But think of it: God believes human beings are capable of governing God's good world on his behalf, especially through Jesus Christ!

What more does God believe about us as human beings? James 1:2-4 gives us another insight. God believes we are capable of handling the tests and challenges of life that inevitably come our way. And who does not believe there will not be adversity and struggle for us in 2011? Here is the passage again from The Good News Translation:
My brothers and sisters, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way, for you know that when your faith succeeds in facing such trials, the result is the ability to endure. Make sure that your endurance carries you all the way without failing, so that you may be perfect and complete, [that is mature and well-developed in your faith and response to life].
We are capable because the faith in God and in Jesus that is within us shows its self in the way we handle the troubles and difficulties of our human condition. Our ability to succeed despite the troubles and difficulties we face does not come from thinking we can handle these circumstances on our own or in our own strength. Rather our willingness to exercise our faith and hope in God results in our being able to endure the challenges we are going through. Our willingness to trust that God is with us through anything and everything (whether we feel God’s presence or not), means we will come out the other end of the tunnel as people who have become more mature and developed in our faith. And if we are not sure what to do when we find ourselves in challenging circumstances, God expects us to pray to him and ask for help and for the wisdom we need. God loves to help, says James. Here’s how The Message Bible puts it:
If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
God believes we are capable of trusting him -- that he loves to help us, that we can be bold in our asking for assistance and that we can believe -- without reservations -- God is there for us even when the trouble is not removed from our lives.

God also believes we are capable of doing what is good. Micah was one of those Old Testament prophets who, in the words of Eugene Peterson, was “charged with keeping people alive to God and alert to listening to the voice of God” [Introduction to Micah in the Message Bible]. Hear what Micah said in Chapter 6, verse 8:
The LORD has told us what is good. What he requires of us is this: to do what is just, to show constant love, and to live in humble fellowship with our God.
A 2009 article in the Chicago Tribune newspaper [Barbara Mahany, "Cooking Up Compassion," Chicago Tribune (9-20-09), section 6] told the story of Bettye Tucker, a Christian cook who works the night shift at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. She has been doing her job for 43 years -- 28 of them on the night shift. She sees a steady stream of parents in her job, many of them frightened and weary. On one particular night in September 2009, Miss Bettye (as she is referred to by all who know her) served food to a mother whose three-year-old had fallen out of a second-storey window that morning, another mother whose 17-year-old was battling a rare form of leukemia and a third mother whose 18-year-old had endured seven hours of brain surgery. Their stories broke the heart of Miss Bettye and, as one co-worker said: “That's why she feeds every last one of them as if they had walked right into the 'too-small' kitchen of [the] South Side brick bungalow [where she lives]." A member of the hospital's housekeeping crew added this about Miss Bettye: "You need someone to bring you life, and she brings it in the middle of the night."

A picture of Miss Bettye that accompanied the article shows a woman with a beautiful smile. It's hard to imagine how much that smile would mean to a suffering parent or child. She says, "When I ask, 'How you doin' today?' and they say it's not a good day, I say, 'Don't lose hope.' When the nurses tell me it's a bad night, I say: 'I understand it's a bad night. But guess what? I am here for you. I'm going to get you through the night.'"

Another picture shows Bettye sitting down, head bowed, over a meal. "I'm a praying lady," she says in the article. "I pray every night, for every room and every person in the hospital. I start with the basement, and I go up, floor by floor, room by room. I pray for the children, I pray for the families, I pray for the nurses and the doctors. … I say, every night while I'm driving in on the expressway, 'Oh, Lord, I don't know what I'll face tonight, but I pray you'll guide me through.'"

The reporter who wrote the article offered these words about Miss Bettye: "[It] just might be, that divine helping on the side is the most essential item on Miss Bettye's menu. The one she stirs in every broth, and every whisper. The ingredient that makes her the perpetual light shining in the all-night kitchen."

God believes we are capable of doing what is good – of showing the constant love and compassion of someone like Miss Bettye.

God believes in us. God acts in amazing mercy, in understanding compassion, in generous forgiveness and in constant love toward us. And James 1:18, as stated in The Message Bible, reminds us:
“[God] brought us to life using the true Word [that is, Jesus the Lord], showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.”
That is who we are! That is who you and I are – in God’s eyes! May this be so – may we believe this to be so -- in your eyes and mine.

Rev. Chris Miller

January 2, 2011

OYM Oriole-York Mills United Church, Toronto
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