Covenant Weekly

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I didn’t grow up in a liturgical tradition. There were no hundreds-of-years-old service structures, planned readings, or written prayers for us. There are many good things I gained from the tradition I did grow up in, but there are days when I feel regret for not being rooted in the structures and prayers of an ancient tradition. On days when I don’t know what to pray, and those days seem more and more frequent for me, I rely on the Holy Spirit to interpret my groanings. I’ve learned that there is a long tradition of church prayers to help God’s people in those moments…I just haven’t learned them. The one prayer I do have is one that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. And it is one I find myself increasingly leaning into and praying. For the next few weeks, we’re going to walk through different elements of this prayer. Today, we’re starting at the beginning of the prayer Jesus taught us to pray. A prayer that has become known in some traditions as the Our Father. 

Just as a final word of introduction, I’m going to review The Lord’s Prayer twice each week. The first time will be a contemporary translation of the prayer as written in Matthew 6:9-13. I’ll be using a translation called The Common English Bible. Then, after considering one part of the prayer and sharing some reminders for the week, I’ll close with the traditionally used version of the prayer. I’m closing with that, not because I think it is better or to simply uphold tradition. I’m closing with that because I want to invite you, wherever you are to pray that prayer with me each week thinking deeply about what you are praying and what we are praying together.

This is the prayer Jesus taught his followers to pray.

Our Father who is in heaven, uphold the holiness of your name.
10 Bring in your kingdom so that your will is done on earth as it’s done in heaven.
11 Give us the bread we need for today.
12 Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you, just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.
13 And don’t lead us into temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

Let us consider that first sentence:
Our Father who is in heaven, uphold the holiness of your name.

The father here is God. This is not meant to be a gender identity term. It is a social structure term. A Father, in their patriarchal structure, was the one who was responsible for everything; the one who ultimately oversaw everything; the one in whose name everyone in the family acted; the one who everyone in the family was supposed to seek to honour.

Life, provision, status, care - all these things flowed from the father. At the very beginning of this prayer, we are to root our source of all of these things in God.

And at the very beginning of this prayer, our Father is set in a location called “heaven.” “Our father who is in heaven.” A great tradition has developed over the centuries of envisioning heaven as a far place up in the sky. It is believed that God lives there - up there somewhere wherever that is. And that Christians who die live there, too - somehow…with no body or with a temporary body or with a new body - that part is debated. The description of this heaven is often taken from the Book of Revelation which describes something called “the New Jerusalem” with gates made of extraordinary jewels and streets made of pure gold. As a result, when we pray this, we often picture God in some distant extravagant palace city in the sky. But that is not the way Jesus talked about heaven.

Heaven is, in brief, the dwelling place of God. That place in Revelation (which is meant as a metaphor and is described as something coming down to earth) is heaven, not because it is ornate. The ornateness has nothing to do with its heavenliness. It is heaven because God is there.

But Jesus described the kingdom of heaven as something that came near with him. Everywhere he went, he preached the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. Heaven wasn’t somewhere out there. It was here and now as he preached, healed, showed love, and brought shalom - rightness and peace - into the world.

As we pray to our Father in heaven, we aren’t praying to a God who is distant. We are praying to a God who is present and active in any and all good and right and beautiful and loving realities in this world. We are acknowledging, within the struggle and pain, that God is with us and that not all is broken or lost.

Our Father who is in heaven, uphold the holiness of your name.

I love this last part and it means so much to me when it feels like everything is falling apart around me. Holiness is a fancy religious word that can means “other” or “set apart.” (Click here to read more or watch as short video on the idea of holy.”) This prayer identifies that God is holy and calls on God to remain that way.

You see, we don’t want or need a God who brings along more brokenness and pain and mess. We’re all to aware of that reality and are experiencing it almost every day. We need a God who is different than that. We need a God who is, at the core, pure and right and fully love. We need a God who is “set apart” who is “other.” If God is not those things, what hope do we have!

But because God is holy and has brought that holiness close as our Father, there is hope in the trouble. The pain and mess isn’t the end of the story. We get glimpses of heaven here and now with the hope of full rescue and healing beyond the threat of death - the ultimate act of brokenness. So we pray:

Our Father who art in heaven, uphold the holiness of your name.

This is a prayer of confession that we are not what God is. Because of that, it is a prayer of humility and submission. But it is also a prayer of deep and profound hope.

Reminders

• Thanks to everyone who participated in our Coffee & Conversation on Sunday. There was good conversation and I’m so grateful for the contribution from everyone who was there.
• Our annual meeting is scheduled for March 5 at 3:30 pm. At that meeting we will officially receive our financial statements from 2022. We’ll approve our budget for 2023 and affirm people for specific roles at the church. Our Annual Meeting booklet with the full agenda and reports will be posted on the event page on our website as soon as that document is available.
• In the coming weeks, watch for more information about our summer VBS. We are revisiting our Inspire Maker Space Camp theme this year so we’ll need lots of help. We’ll need group leaders, station leaders, tech people, registration people, and people praying for the week. Watch for more information about Inspire and block off the evenings of July 10-13 in your calendar!
• Finally, there are three areas of Sunday ministry that we really need some people to join in service. Please consider helping in one of these areas:
  • Tech people - we need people who can be trained to run a computer program or operate the sound board or set-up and run the cameras. These things can sound intimidating, but two out of the three are pretty straightforward once you’ve been trained. (Running the soundboard well takes a bit more practice and skill.) If you’d be open in exploring one of these areas to see if you could do it, please talk to Brent. Talking to him isn’t making a full commitment. It is a step in considering this possibility. We’d love to give more of our youth a chance to be in the youth program on Sundays instead of being in the booth every single week.
  • A second area we would really like some help is to reestablish greeter teams on Sundays. You could volunteer by yourself and be partnered with someone or you could sign up as a team if you and a friend want to do this together. The requirements are to be welcoming and friendly as you greet people, get kids signed in, and help point people in the right direction (whether that’s to a seat in the auditorium, to the coffee, or to the washroom). If you’d be open to this, please talk with me, Jon, or to Terry Dupuis.
  • The third area I want to mention is our coffee ministry. Letitia Jefkins has taken this on, but would like one or two back-up people in case of weeks when she can’t make and serve coffee. She’d be glad to show you the routine that’s being developed. You can talk directly to her or talk to me (Jon) and I’ll connect you!

As we close today, I invite you to pray the traditional version of The Lord’s Prayer with me.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass
against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

Blessings to you as you move through the remainder of the week.