The question “What’s in a name?” has been asked.  “Hallowed be thy name,” we pray.  Last week we talked about praying as a result of existential shock.  We pray the Lord’s Prayer and make these first three petitions partly because the things we are requesting have not fully be made known.  Hallowed be your name.  May your name be holy.  Which begs the question “What is the meaning of God’s name?”  What does God even mean?  As one writer puts it, it seems in many ways that God’s reputation is in tatters.  Listen to how God’s has been viewed over that last couple of centuries – “For Sigmund Freud, God is an overbearing parent dreamed up by insecure human beings who want a father figure who will always be there in times of need…For Karl Marx, God is a projection of the power of owners and kings into the minds of the poor, anesthetizing workers with promises of paradise if they go along with the system and hell if they transgress its laws of private property… To hard secularists, God is a philosophical habit or an evolutionary side-effect that dulls scientific curiosity and saps the personal ambition from the true masters of the universe – our own human race.”  God is a delusion, as we’ve heard. 

This would be bad enough if it weren’t for people who claim to believe in God and seem to sully his name.  Lines being drawn between people in the name of God.  Exclusion and tribalism in the name of God.  Killing in the name of God.  Followers of Christ who promise that God wants us to be rich.  Followers of Christ who say things about politicians like “any tongue that rises against him will be condemned according to the word of God.”

And we sit here and shake our heads.  But of course we look at ourselves too.  This is the thing about praying.  When we pray the Lord’s Prayer we do so with an attitude of repentance.  An attitude of recognizing our own inability to make God’s name holy.  We recognize that we have not set God apart in our lives.  We have not set God above all else.  We have not made God the foundation of everything in our lives. 

What do we do?   We pray…

Holy God

We must always start with God.  We’re talking about spiritual formation.  About being formed in the image of Christ.  Of prayer as a means whereby we are formed into the image of Christ.  It’s interesting that the first three petitions in this prayer are not about ourselves.  The first request in the prayer is a recognition that it is God who is holy.  Becoming better people – people who are ever coming to reflect who God is – is not a matter of moralism.  We hear things like “Better is always possible”, which is a nice idea, but it doesn’t really help me in knowing how to be better, or how to do better.  We hear things like “Do better” or “You should work on that” or even “Make better choices” – not helpful!  Before we look at what we should or shouldn’t do, or even worse tell somebody else what they should or shouldn’t do.  We need to look at who God is and what God does.

Which are the two essential parts of how we define God’s holiness – who God is and what God does.  Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God of hosts – the earth is filled with his glory.  This is the line from Isaiah 6.  We sang it at the start of our service which is good, because this is where we must always start.  I prefer a hymn like Holy Holy Holy to “I Surrender All” because – again while it’s a good thought – I don’t find it true in my life.  Any surrendering that we do comes about as a result of who God is and what God does.  God is holy – which means God is completely Other.  God is wholly holy, as I like to say.  God is not an extension of anything he created.  He is not an extension of us (with apologies to Sigmund).  God’s “otherness” means that God alone is due our worship and God stands outside any attempt on our part to manipulate Him.  One writer puts it like this – “This peculiar mode of being of God, as someone completely differing from us, inhibits any sort of idolatry, because idolatry means worshipping some portion of the world as God.  It also condemns any manipulation of God, on the part of religious powers or political powers.  The only attitude one can have in the presence of the Holy One is that of respect, veneration, and reverence…”  This is who God is friends, and we are reminded of this each time we pray this prayer.

Name

I mentioned the line “What’s in a name?” earlier.  Do you know what your name means?  I’m always interested in knowing what people’s names mean.  What’s in God’s name?  God’s name has been revealed in how God acts.  How does God act?  How has God revealed Himself?  He revealed himself to Moses with the name “YAHWEH”.   What does this mean?  I am who I am.  I will be who I will be.  This ineffable thing about God.  In light inaccessible hid from our eyes, as the hymn goes.  “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,” God will later tell Moses.  What does this all mean in terms of what God does?  God reveals himself to Moses and to the people of Israel as a deliverer – as one who delivers them from slavery, from fear, from desperation, from oppression, from darkness.  This is what God does.  Later on Moses will ask God to reveal himself.  God does so in this great passage in Exodus 34 where Moses asks God to show him God’s glory – in other words “Show me who you are!” and God tells Moses he can’t see his face, but can see his back and God puts Moses in a cleft in a rock and covers him so Moses will be ok and God passes by and says – “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty…”

This is our holy God friends.

The holiness story didn’t end there, of course.  The command came to Israel – Be holy as I am holy.  Israel was called to be thrice holy as one writer puts it – “a beloved bride, a people set apart, and a light to the nations who walk in darkness.”  This should be reminding us of something right about now.  This is the call to Christ’s church!  Of course we’re unable to do this on our own, aren’t we?  This is why I always say we’re not simply moralizing in church.  Do better.  Work on that.  You hear that in churches but I think we’re doing God and people a disservice when we reduce our message to mere moralizing. 
The promise was made, you see.  It went like this – “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.  I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes.” (Ez 36:22-23)

Be holy as I am holy.  How could we ever take that on?   By remembering the one who is praying this prayer.  The one who is teaching this prayer.  The one who is not only a teacher, but the one in whom all things hold together.  The Holy One of God.  The one we follow if we’re praying this prayer with any meaning at all.  The one whom we confess when we pray “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

It is in Christ that we find the answer to the existential shock I spoke of earlier.  God’s name is profaned among the nations.  God’s name is profaned by us when we put something other than God at the centre.   We pray “Make your name hallowed.”

This is not something we have to do.  We don’t have to make God’s name holy.  God’s name is already holy.  God is already in light inaccessible hid from our eyes.  He’s already love, grace, mercy, patience, justice.  He’s also with us.  We have seen his glory, the glory as of a Father’s only son, full of grace and truth.  His spirit is with us always, even to the end of the age.  We come to him like the prodigal son with a speech prepared because we know that we could never live up to the task of being the bride of Christ, of being a light to the nations – and by that I mean a light to our families, our neighbours, our co-workers.  How could we ever do this?  We are not worthy, we say.  We say “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am not longer worthy to be called your son (or daughter).”  Jesus stops us and reminds us of how we started this prayer.  “He’s our father,” Jesus says.  “That means I’m your brother.  You’ve been adopted into the family now.”  Keep praying.

And that friends, is good news.  To me, that is very good news.

In asking for God to make his name holy in and through us – in asking God to make his name holy and make us holy – we are recognizing that this can only come about as a result of God’s work.  We have a role to play of course.  We always do.  It’s to turn to God.  He has called us out of darkness, into light.  Luther compared it to being led out of a dark house into sunlight.  We’re not meant to be away from sunlight any more than a plant is.  I had a plant in my office away from the window that withered. Jennifer took it home, put it in her garden.  Brought it back, told me to put it in my window where it’s still flourishing.  We’re not meant to languish in the dark.  We’re meant to come out in the light and let the light of the Son warm us.  Let the light of the Son change us.  Holiness is of God.  This is important to remember for two reasons; we won’t think that holiness is something that is unattainable; we won’t think that we’re holy because of our own righteousness (which must lead inevitably to a “holier-than-thou” type of attitude).  Getting back to the sunlight image , Helmut Thielecke put it like this – “If Jesus does not teach us to pray, ‘Make me a consecrated, holy person,’ but rather teaches us to say ‘Hallowed be thy name,’ what he is saying is this: ‘It doesn’t depend at all on your own exertions and your own inner progress; honor God and let him work in your life, simply to stand still and let him be the “holy one” who will actually have first place in your life… Then the other will come of itself.  If you go out into the sunshine, or better if you put yourself under the sun, you can be sure that these spiritual energies and blessings will also flow into you.”

Put yourself under the sun.  Put yourself under the Son.  This is what we’re doing when we pray “Hallowed be thy name.”  Make this true in our hearts.  Make us recognize Father who you are and what you would have us be.  Make your name known in and through us and throughout the earth.

This prayer looks back.  It looks at the present.  It looks to the future.  Christ is the cornerstone of this prayer.  He’s the cornerstone of our lives.  He’s the one to whom the choir sings in Revelation – “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty.”  The lamb appears and the choir sings “You are worthy” because “you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nations, you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God.”

If you follow Christ that’s you.  That’s me.  Imagine.  How could we ever hope to do that on our own?  How could we ever hope to be a kingdom and priests serving God without turning to God often and with meaning and praying “Hallowed by your name”?  The promise hasn’t been fulfilled yet.  We see God’s name profaned.  We profane God’s name.  He loves us and calls us his children because of his Son.  “’To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.’ Only in the Lord, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength”.  That’s what God promised through the prophet Isaiah (Is 45:23b-24a).  We remember that promise and we look forward to that day.  In the meantime we pray.  In the meantime we ask God to make us that light to the nations.  May these things be true for us all friends.

Amen

The question “What’s in a name?” has been asked.  “Hallowed be thy name,” we pray.  Last week we talked about praying as a result of existential shock.  We pray the Lord’s Prayer and make these first three petitions partly because the things we are requesting have not fully be made known.  Hallowed be your name.  May your name be holy.  Which begs the question “What is the meaning of God’s name?”  What does God even mean?  As one writer puts it, it seems in many ways that God’s reputation is in tatters.  Listen to how God’s has been viewed over that last couple of centuries – “For Sigmund Freud, God is an overbearing parent dreamed up by insecure human beings who want a father figure who will always be there in times of need…For Karl Marx, God is a projection of the power of owners and kings into the minds of the poor, anesthetizing workers with promises of paradise if they go along with the system and hell if they transgress its laws of private property… To hard secularists, God is a philosophical habit or an evolutionary side-effect that dulls scientific curiosity and saps the personal ambition from the true masters of the universe – our own human race.”  God is a delusion, as we’ve heard. 

This would be bad enough if it weren’t for people who claim to believe in God and seem to sully his name.  Lines being drawn between people in the name of God.  Exclusion and tribalism in the name of God.  Killing in the name of God.  Followers of Christ who promise that God wants us to be rich.  Followers of Christ who say things about politicians like “any tongue that rises against him will be condemned according to the word of God.”

And we sit here and shake our heads.  But of course we look at ourselves too.  This is the thing about praying.  When we pray the Lord’s Prayer we do so with an attitude of repentance.  An attitude of recognizing our own inability to make God’s name holy.  We recognize that we have not set God apart in our lives.  We have not set God above all else.  We have not made God the foundation of everything in our lives. 

What do we do?   We pray…

Holy God

We must always start with God.  We’re talking about spiritual formation.  About being formed in the image of Christ.  Of prayer as a means whereby we are formed into the image of Christ.  It’s interesting that the first three petitions in this prayer are not about ourselves.  The first request in the prayer is a recognition that it is God who is holy.  Becoming better people – people who are ever coming to reflect who God is – is not a matter of moralism.  We hear things like “Better is always possible”, which is a nice idea, but it doesn’t really help me in knowing how to be better, or how to do better.  We hear things like “Do better” or “You should work on that” or even “Make better choices” – not helpful!  Before we look at what we should or shouldn’t do, or even worse tell somebody else what they should or shouldn’t do.  We need to look at who God is and what God does.

Which are the two essential parts of how we define God’s holiness – who God is and what God does.  Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God of hosts – the earth is filled with his glory.  This is the line from Isaiah 6.  We sang it at the start of our service which is good, because this is where we must always start.  I prefer a hymn like Holy Holy Holy to “I Surrender All” because – again while it’s a good thought – I don’t find it true in my life.  Any surrendering that we do comes about as a result of who God is and what God does.  God is holy – which means God is completely Other.  God is wholly holy, as I like to say.  God is not an extension of anything he created.  He is not an extension of us (with apologies to Sigmund).  God’s “otherness” means that God alone is due our worship and God stands outside any attempt on our part to manipulate Him.  One writer puts it like this – “This peculiar mode of being of God, as someone completely differing from us, inhibits any sort of idolatry, because idolatry means worshipping some portion of the world as God.  It also condemns any manipulation of God, on the part of religious powers or political powers.  The only attitude one can have in the presence of the Holy One is that of respect, veneration, and reverence…”  This is who God is friends, and we are reminded of this each time we pray this prayer.

Name

I mentioned the line “What’s in a name?” earlier.  Do you know what your name means?  I’m always interested in knowing what people’s names mean.  What’s in God’s name?  God’s name has been revealed in how God acts.  How does God act?  How has God revealed Himself?  He revealed himself to Moses with the name “YAHWEH”.   What does this mean?  I am who I am.  I will be who I will be.  This ineffable thing about God.  In light inaccessible hid from our eyes, as the hymn goes.  “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,” God will later tell Moses.  What does this all mean in terms of what God does?  God reveals himself to Moses and to the people of Israel as a deliverer – as one who delivers them from slavery, from fear, from desperation, from oppression, from darkness.  This is what God does.  Later on Moses will ask God to reveal himself.  God does so in this great passage in Exodus 34 where Moses asks God to show him God’s glory – in other words “Show me who you are!” and God tells Moses he can’t see his face, but can see his back and God puts Moses in a cleft in a rock and covers him so Moses will be ok and God passes by and says – “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty…”

This is our holy God friends.

The holiness story didn’t end there, of course.  The command came to Israel – Be holy as I am holy.  Israel was called to be thrice holy as one writer puts it – “a beloved bride, a people set apart, and a light to the nations who walk in darkness.”  This should be reminding us of something right about now.  This is the call to Christ’s church!  Of course we’re unable to do this on our own, aren’t we?  This is why I always say we’re not simply moralizing in church.  Do better.  Work on that.  You hear that in churches but I think we’re doing God and people a disservice when we reduce our message to mere moralizing. 
The promise was made, you see.  It went like this – “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.  I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes.” (Ez 36:22-23)

Be holy as I am holy.  How could we ever take that on?   By remembering the one who is praying this prayer.  The one who is teaching this prayer.  The one who is not only a teacher, but the one in whom all things hold together.  The Holy One of God.  The one we follow if we’re praying this prayer with any meaning at all.  The one whom we confess when we pray “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

It is in Christ that we find the answer to the existential shock I spoke of earlier.  God’s name is profaned among the nations.  God’s name is profaned by us when we put something other than God at the centre.   We pray “Make your name hallowed.”

This is not something we have to do.  We don’t have to make God’s name holy.  God’s name is already holy.  God is already in light inaccessible hid from our eyes.  He’s already love, grace, mercy, patience, justice.  He’s also with us.  We have seen his glory, the glory as of a Father’s only son, full of grace and truth.  His spirit is with us always, even to the end of the age.  We come to him like the prodigal son with a speech prepared because we know that we could never live up to the task of being the bride of Christ, of being a light to the nations – and by that I mean a light to our families, our neighbours, our co-workers.  How could we ever do this?  We are not worthy, we say.  We say “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am not longer worthy to be called your son (or daughter).”  Jesus stops us and reminds us of how we started this prayer.  “He’s our father,” Jesus says.  “That means I’m your brother.  You’ve been adopted into the family now.”  Keep praying.

And that friends, is good news.  To me, that is very good news.

In asking for God to make his name holy in and through us – in asking God to make his name holy and make us holy – we are recognizing that this can only come about as a result of God’s work.  We have a role to play of course.  We always do.  It’s to turn to God.  He has called us out of darkness, into light.  Luther compared it to being led out of a dark house into sunlight.  We’re not meant to be away from sunlight any more than a plant is.  I had a plant in my office away from the window that withered. Jennifer took it home, put it in her garden.  Brought it back, told me to put it in my window where it’s still flourishing.  We’re not meant to languish in the dark.  We’re meant to come out in the light and let the light of the Son warm us.  Let the light of the Son change us.  Holiness is of God.  This is important to remember for two reasons; we won’t think that holiness is something that is unattainable; we won’t think that we’re holy because of our own righteousness (which must lead inevitably to a “holier-than-thou” type of attitude).  Getting back to the sunlight image , Helmut Thielecke put it like this – “If Jesus does not teach us to pray, ‘Make me a consecrated, holy person,’ but rather teaches us to say ‘Hallowed be thy name,’ what he is saying is this: ‘It doesn’t depend at all on your own exertions and your own inner progress; honor God and let him work in your life, simply to stand still and let him be the “holy one” who will actually have first place in your life… Then the other will come of itself.  If you go out into the sunshine, or better if you put yourself under the sun, you can be sure that these spiritual energies and blessings will also flow into you.”

Put yourself under the sun.  Put yourself under the Son.  This is what we’re doing when we pray “Hallowed be thy name.”  Make this true in our hearts.  Make us recognize Father who you are and what you would have us be.  Make your name known in and through us and throughout the earth.

This prayer looks back.  It looks at the present.  It looks to the future.  Christ is the cornerstone of this prayer.  He’s the cornerstone of our lives.  He’s the one to whom the choir sings in Revelation – “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty.”  The lamb appears and the choir sings “You are worthy” because “you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nations, you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God.”

If you follow Christ that’s you.  That’s me.  Imagine.  How could we ever hope to do that on our own?  How could we ever hope to be a kingdom and priests serving God without turning to God often and with meaning and praying “Hallowed by your name”?  The promise hasn’t been fulfilled yet.  We see God’s name profaned.  We profane God’s name.  He loves us and calls us his children because of his Son.  “’To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.’ Only in the Lord, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength”.  That’s what God promised through the prophet Isaiah (Is 45:23b-24a).  We remember that promise and we look forward to that day.  In the meantime we pray.  In the meantime we ask God to make us that light to the nations.  May these things be true for us all friends.

Amen