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In the name of our ever-loving, life giving God, who loves us more than we can imagine, who loves us for who we are, in spite what we have done, what we have left undone, and what we will or will not do, and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, our redeemer. Amen.
When we first entered this interim period of having no priest; a period that is likely to continue for some time, I began a series of homilies entitled, "Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi." Lex orandi, lex credendi is a term that was coined by the 5th century disciple of St. Augustine, Prosper of Aquitaine. This rather enigmatic phrase literally means the law of prayer , the law of belief. I tend to define it as how we pray is shaped by what we hold dearest in our hearts and, conversely what we pray about shapes what we hold in our hearts.
It is unfortunate that Prosper wasn't invited to the Council of Nicea, where our creeds were formulated because the truest creed is one that was given to us by Jesus, the "Our Father" or the "Lord's Prayer." We don't often think of prayers as creeds, but this prayer, the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples reveals something about God and reveals something about ourselves. It gives us something to believe that has pragmatic relevance in how we live.
There are two versions of the Lord's Prayer in the Gospels, the one we heard this morning from the Gospel of Luke and another in the Gospel of Matthew, which is the more familiar version. This morning I would to take a few moments to look at this prayer, not so much as prayer, but rather as a creed, that says something about what we are to hold dear in our hearts and reveals what it is that we, as Christians are to do.
The most important two words of this prayer/creed that we are familiar with are right at the beginning, "Our Father" or as Luke's version simply states, "Father." This is what we are claiming God to be, our Father, the creator of everything and a father/ mother/ the creative parent to everything that exists. Jesus said those words. Jesus says those words with us every time we say them. Jesus is not God's only child, not God's only creation, we all are and Jesus is our brother.
"Who is in heaven" are words that meant something in Jesus day as a place, that dome that covered the Earth from horizon to horizon. But we, today, have a much broader, much more expansive understanding of heaven as something that totally surrounds us, no matter where we look. Heaven is all around. "The kingdom of heaven," Jesus said, "is at hand." God is as close to us as our next breath. St. Paul put it this way to the Athenians in Acts 17, "God is that being in which we live and move and have our being." That's how close God is to us at every moment.
"Holy is your Name." Have you noticed in our Episcopal liturgies and in our hymnal that the word "Name" in reference to God is always capitalized. We really can't name God, because God is so other - so holy. In fact, we really can't describe God as a noun, a solid construct, because God is always active, always defies description in a concrete manner. People who say Jesus is the face of God, get it part right. But think about that for a moment - the face of Jesus is our face. You want to see God - look in a mirror or look at the person next to you wherever you are - you're seeing God in part. God is a pronomial verb, something so real, so intimate and imminent that God is more felt than something or a someone that can be adequately described by language. Yet we know God to be!
"Your will be done on Earth as it is heaven." This is a revelatory statement. It is telling us something about the workings of God. Let me put it this way. God's will is done, in spite of what we do or don't do. The bottom line is God's will is done, is being done, is taking place. The sad fact is most don't see it, most don't understand that God works through what we do, with what we do, and around what we do. God's will seeps through us. The only part we have to play in this is how we see it carried out in our lives. God is creative. God loves to play in the dirt to create things out of the messiness that is - the question is how do we want God's will to take shape in our lives? What are we offering God to work with when it comes to us?
"Give us this day our daily bread." Remember, a few Sunday's back I said God was a minimalist. How minimal is our daily bread - the simplest form of sustenance. We're not just saying, give me my daily bread - we're talking us. The totality of us - the people that have and the people that don't have. We're talking about the migrants, the people with out food and shelter, the imprisoned, the persecuted, those who seem to be without. We need to think about that, because they are a part of us. And Jesus is not only talking about food; he's talking about the Word that sustains us and the words we use to sustain each other. The Gospels remind us that we are fed by the Word of God and I might add by the words we use. Do we like the menu we're serving up?
"Forgive us our sins, as we forgive the sins of others" or as Luke records, "Forgive us our sins because we forgive the sins of other." How are we doing with that? How well are we forgiving the sins of others. I have often felt that after saying the Confession of Sins during our services instead of priest standing to pronounce the absolution, we just turn to everyone present in this church and say, "I forgive you." I might not have done anything wrong in my eye or might not feel you've done me wrong, but I'm going to forgive you - just in case and I'm going to mean it. Christianity has not fully lived into the promise of God's forgiveness in it's two thousand year history. It hasn't even come close. [I think we would be living in a much different world if it had.]
"And do not put us to the test." This is another revelatory statement. God does not test us. We test God. We test each other all the time. What we sometimes perceive as a test from God is perhaps God telling us something rather than testing us about something. If we feel tested, what is the nature of the test - What am I lacking in? What am I not getting? Better yet, what are we not getting? What is God strengthening me in? God doesn't need to test us. God knows us, better than we know ourselves. So what is it that we need to know about ourselves, about myself?
The Lord's prayer is the best creed of the church because it touches the heart. I have sat at the bedside of those who are dying, of those who are sick and in deep need. People in those positions don't ask for the creeds, they ask for prayer and they know and want this prayer - no matter what state they're in or whether they are very communicative, I've watched people mouth these words [who have stopped speaking for some time] because they matter.
Let me say one final word about prayer in general. The measure of one's faith is revealed in the context of one's prayers. Scripture, Jesus, and the apostles all advised us to pray without ceasing - to submit everything to God in prayer. It may be that some of us don't want to bother God with our trivial problems, the attitudes that we acquire, the feelings we entertain that bother us because we feel we should be able to deal with it, but those are the things we frequently need to let go of in order to let God work through them.
May we find in our prayers the depth of faith to let God be God, the liberation of hope as God works through us, and the immensity of God's love that encompasses all.
Amen.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
Let me say one final word about prayer in general. The measure of one's faith is revealed in the context of one's prayers. Scripture, Jesus, and the apostles all advised us to pray without ceasing - to submit everything to God in prayer. It may be that some of us don't want to bother God with our trivial problems, the attitudes that we acquire, the feelings we entertain that bother us because we feel we should be able to deal with it, but those are the things we frequently need to let go of in order to let God work through them.
May we find in our prayers the depth of faith to let God be God, the liberation of hope as God works through us, and the immensity of God's love that encompasses all.
Amen.
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Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
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