Call Me: The Lord's Prayer for all of Life (The Name)
Chad Richard Bresson
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Introduction
Introduction
We had some cold weather this week. This isn’t my kind of weather. I prefer a temperature around 92. We’re nowhere near that right now. When we moved from Ohio, I sold the snow shovel. I don’t miss it. so I remind myself it could be worse. And it was worse in Toronto. One of the viral videos of the winter storms up north this week was a guy who showed up at his favorite cafe for a sandwich at lunch. The security cameras capture this guy trudging up to the door in knee deep snow. Only to find out that the restaurant was closed. He fell to his knees in disappointment. And then trudged off. The restaurant is now offering a free meal to the unknown snow trekker.
That guy falling to his knees in disappointment because his favorite restaurant is closed in the middle of a snowstorm is what many of us feel like when it comes to prayer. You ever been there? You bare your soul to God only to find him “not open”. Throw up your hands in exasperation and wonder “what’s the point?” Not only is he not open, you’re still cold, you’re still frozen, you are still in your crisis and there is no food on the way.
Between now and lent we are beginning a series on what we call the Lord’s Prayer. We frequently pray the Lord’s Prayer together here. but what does it all mean? Why do we do that? Last year we began a series on Luther’s Catechism. It was Luther’s instruction on how we are to approach God and life. Help for our relationship with God. Help for our living with other human beings. Help for life. Catechism is simply a fancy word for instruction. Instruction in an orderly manner. Luther’s catechism follows the story of the Bible. It starts off with the 10 Commandments. What does God expect from us? How are we to live? How does God view us when we break those commands? We looked at this and found out, yes the commands are helpful for life, but in the end, these commands condemn us. We don’t measure up. We never keep the commands the way they are supposed to be kept, in fact, it’s impossible to fully keep every single command all of the time. The law, the commands, tell us what we’ve done wrong. The commands produce guilt. And it never stops.
We need hope in that situation. And so we need Jesus. And the gospel. Christ’s life, death and resurrection for us. There is hope for us in what Jesus has done for us. We are sinners, but we are also God’s children. This hope is found in the Apostles’ Creed. In the Creed that we confess here as our faith we are shown the love and grace of God who dies for our salvation. The gospel is the answer for those 10 commandments that leave us condemned. It is the grand resolution for our broken relationship with God. Jesus, the Promised One of the Old Testament, and very God himself, comes and saves us from our sin. We celebrated that arrival at Christmas time.
There is a third piece to the Lord’s Prayer. If the Law shows us our need for Christ and the Creed proclaims what Christ has done for us in forgiving us and making it right, then what happens when I’m tempted to break the commands again? What happens when life gets difficult? Where do I turn? We turn to God, the only one who can help us in things that matter most. And Jesus gave us the template for asking God. We call it the Lord’s Prayer, we read it moments ago.
One of the things we are going to emphasize over the coming weeks as we work our way through the Lord’s Prayer is that there is no part of life that isn’t covered in the prayer. The prayer is for all of life. Whether it’s your relationship to God or your colleagues at work or some crisis in your life, it’s all covered here.
This prayer is in the middle of what we call the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is teaching and preaching the gospel. He’s drawing crowds. The crowds show up and he spends time listening to them, meeting their needs, and then teaching them. These crowds are curious about this Jesus, this new rabbi who claims that the kingdom of God has drawn near. They’ve been waiting for God to bring his kingdom again to Israel for a very long time. And now this guy shows up claiming that he is doing just that, bringing in God’s kingdom. This kingdom in the Person of Jesus is Good News for those who believe his message.
This crowd though, is full of sickness and disease and hurt and pain and suffering and oppression. Then need help for all of life. And Jesus gives them a prayer that is aimed at giving voice to their cries for help. In anything and everything.
Jesus says as much before he even starts:
Matthew 6:9 “You should pray like this:”
You have needs? Pray like this. You need help for anything? Pray like this.
There are some obvious and some not so obvious assumptions being made in the statement. The first is that
Prayer is a cry for help.
Jesus says we should pray. Prayer presumes an unequal relationship between the parties involved. One of the parties cannot accomplish whatever is being asked. If I ask you for $50, typically, what does that mean? It could mean all sorts of things, but among them it can mean that I don’t have $50, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking. There’s a disparity between the parties in prayer: the finite human being is expressing a need to someone greater than himself. This means, then, that prayer is a cry for help.
But this presumption that we should pray and this instruction to pray suggests this:
God is in a position to help.
Prayer is a cry for help to the One who can help. The prayer starts off with “our father.” Who is it that are most dependent on their fathers for help? Children. And that is precisely what Jesus has made us. Children. This crowd has needs. Terrible needs. Physical needs. Spiritual needs. Jesus sends them to the only place they are going to get the help they really need: the Father. They need help. The father in heaven can help. The Father who is eternal, but cares about his children can help.
One other assumption. When Jesus says “pray like this”, Jesus is assuming that
God hears our prayers.
Unlike this gentlemen in Toronto who made a supreme effort to get his favorite meal at his favorite restaurant and showed up only to find no one was around to help or listen, God is not like this. God hears. Time and again throughout the Bible, we are reminded that God listens to us. He hears our cries for help. Unlike idols who have mouths but cannot speak and ears but cannot hear, God is a person with whom there is genuine communication. The Father not only has the capability of helping his children who cry out for help, he hears those cries for help.
When there is need, there is a Father who is listening. Jesus says, when you pray, when you cry out for help to the only one who can help, there is a Father who listens. And what’s the first ask? What sits at the tops of the ask list?
Matthew 6:9 “Your name be honored as holy.”
At first this seems kind of shocking. What’s at the top of your ask list? What is it you want most from God? What is it that you pray for most often? Does it sound anything like this? Your name be honored as holy. This gets to the heart of why we are even opening our mouths to our Father in heaven to begin with. This goes beyond physical need. Our biggest need at any given moment is forgiveness. Our biggest problem is our sin. We’re not interested in the Father’s name being honored as holy. We’re too wrapped up in our own names. Making a name for ourselves. Staking our claims. Keeping our name at the top of everyone else’s lists. Making sure our own personal brand is primary.
Our first ask is aimed at displacing our name at the top of the lists. When we are baptized we are made God’s children and identified as such. We are baptized “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”. That name is with us forever. We honor his name as holy when we call on that name for help. For salvation. We read some of those passages. time and again throughout the Bible, faith is described as calling on the name of the LORD. We find out that that LORD is none other than Christ himself. Our greatest need at any given moment is forgiveness. We call on His name, the name that is above all names, to rescue us. To heal us. To forgive us. We honor His name as holy when we trust and believe.
This ask is the hardest because we have no natural desire to do this. In fact, Luther made the comment once that if we really honored God’s name as holy, there’s no need for the prayer any more. As creatures, we have one job: to make God’s name big. And we fail miserably all of the time. Life is to be lived as if God’s name and fame were the only things that matter. But we don’t. So we cry out for help. We cry out that God’s name be honored as holy because so often, we know in our own lives that hasn’t happened. Calling on the name of the Lord is the right use of God’s name.
That brings us to the final presumption. if this is our biggest ask because it’s our biggest need, then we run to the only one who can help us make his own name be honored as holy. We run to the only One the only name who can rescue us from our crises. So when Jesus says pray like this, he’s telling us that
The Father *wants* us to cry out to him for help.
If you need help, help in the most impossible way ever… honoring my name as holy… if you need help, call me. Call me. Are you kidding me? God wants to hear our cries for help. From the greatest ask… please help me honor your name as holy. Help me believe. Give me the faith I cannot manufacture myself. All the way down to the physical needs we have. Call me. What kind of Father is this who not only offers help, not only hears the cries for help, but wants to hear those cries for help, help to do the impossible, honoring his name as holy. He wants to hear us depend on him and trust on him. Why do you think as the story of the Bible is written, time and again we find that people are calling on His name? Because that’s what he wants to hear from us, not in a manipulative way, but because he loves us. This is his grace to us.
No matter what you face. No matter how much you struggle. No matter how much you think you don’t deserve forgiveness. The Father wants to hear your cry for help. He loves you. And this Father has promised that he will save. He will rescue. He will forgive those who cry out to him. We honor his name as holy when we cry out to him in desperation. In faith. The Lord’s Prayer is the Father telling all of us: Call me.
Let’s stand and pray this prayer together, using the words from
Matthew 6:9-13 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
Let’s Pray.
Your name be honored as holy is the prayer. Have no other gods before me is the command. Yet we again and again break the command and we pursue our own name and fame. We offend. We sleight. We fail. We sin. And so the One who always honored God’s name as holy died for those who don’t. We call on his name to save us and forgive us for not honoring the name as holy. That cry for help has us right here, right now. Every week, we come here and we cry out for help. Save us. Forgive us. And he does. right here in the broken body and shed blood.
