The Lord’s prayer: a father…in heaven
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
February 2, 2003
Matthew 6: 7-13
Flora Wuellner is a person who has truly been one of my mentors in the development and growth of my own spiritual life and I know that Flora has meant a lot to several people in this congregation and throughout Northern California. She tells a story about a time she was leading a guided meditation. In the meditation she asked people to close their eyes and reflect on God as a Father embracing them with large and powerful but loving and tender arms. Flora saw this as a warm, nurturing image. But after the meditation a woman came up to her and told her how difficult that meditation had been because she had been abused by her father when she was a child. And so this image of a God with strong embracing arms was absolutely terrifying for this woman. She was unable to participate in the meditation; it was just too frightening, too painful. Flora used that story to tell us preachers - be careful how you use images of God; use different images of God because what works for you, what may be meaningful to you, could prove to be very negative for someone else. The images we use for God can be so powerful; they determine how we relate to the holy in our lives, and how we then live out that relationship each day.
Which brings me to what is probably the most familiar and widely used image for God, an image coming from none other than Jesus himself; an image that begins the most widely used prayer in the Christian church, again a prayer coming from none other than Jesus himself: “Our Father in heaven.” Two images, really – God as Father and a Father who is in heaven. What might Jesus be saying as he uses these images for God?
God as Father…Our Father. For a lot of folks, especially, but not exclusively, those of the female persuasion, this is an image that has fallen out of favor. Too male, too patriarchal, too much old white man with a beard sitting on some heavenly throne. And to some extent, I have to agree with that, as I agree with Flora Wuellner that a diverse community of faith needs diverse images for God. But, on the other hand, it would seem that for Jesus, this was his favorite, most characteristic way of addressing God…as Father. Again, what might he have been saying about God?
A true story. In Phoenix, a seven-year-old boy with leukemia, who had been in remission for a year, suffered a serious relapse. He was placed on high doses of toxic medications that left him extremely weak. When his breathing became irregular, his doctors were pretty sure that he was near death.
His mother then called the Make-a-Wish foundation. Her son had always wanted to be a firefighter, so arrangements were made for him to leave the hospital for a day and visit a Phoenix fire station. The anticipation alone was enough to rally him. At the firehouse, he was seated in a hook and ladder truck and then driven through Phoenix with the siren blaring. After the ride there was a special ceremony back at the firehouse. He was given a fireman’s hat and a jacket with the battalion insignia. And over the pocket of the jacket was embroidered his name. Every firefighter shook his hand and welcomed him as their newest comrade. The boy said it was the happiest day of his life.
Back at the hospital, he actually improved enough to be able to return home for several weeks. But, sadly, it didn’t last. His breathing again became irregular and he grew physically weaker. Readmitted to the hospital, he was soon in and out of consciousness. His mother, seeing the end was near, asked if he could see some of the firemen one more time. The nurses, knowing what the earlier visit had meant to him, agreed, and basically waived the two visitors at a time rule.
When his mother called the station and requested a visit, she was told, “We’ll do better than that. Unlatch the window to his room and tell the nurses not to be alarmed when they hear a siren. Tell them it’s just the fire department coming to pay respects to one of their own. ” Within minutes everyone heard the approaching hook and ladder. Roused by the sound, the boy awakened to see fire fighters climbing through his hospital window. When one of them picked him up, he asked weakly, "Does this really mean I’m a fireman?” To which the firefighter answered, “You always were.”
“Our Father…” I believe that Jesus uses this image – a parental image – to express the intimacy, the closeness of God’s relationship to us and ours to God. No matter how far we may roam, or how badly we may get lost, or how distorted God’s image may become in our lives, God is there, saying, “You always were – you always were one of my children and you will always be.”
Yes, let us by all means explore different images for speaking of God, but I hope we don’t lose the intimacy, the closeness, the abiding love that are expressed when Jesus speaks of God as “Father.” With this one image Jesus teaches that our relationship with God is not about measuring up or proving ourselves worthy. No, first and foremost, our relationship with God is about relationship, belonging, being claimed as God’s beloved in all that life brings and even beyond life. How easily we get lost, finding ourselves alone and far from home. And from the darkness of our despair, our wandering, our pain, we ask, “God, are you still with me, do you still hear me, am I still your beloved child?” And out of the darkness, speaking as a loving father, God answers again and again, “You always were, you always were.”
Now in a brief communion meditation, there is not enough time to get into this any deeper, but I want to move on to the second half of first line of Lord’s prayer – “in heaven.” When I was in college I had a History professor lecture about Queen Elizabeth I. You may recall she was known as the “virgin queen.” Her subjects loved that name, loved calling her the “virgin queen.” The professor told us this title meant that she could feel close to her subjects, but not too close! I wonder if this is what Jesus is doing with the words, “in heaven.” “Our Father” – intimate, close. “In heaven” – seems to suggest some distance...close, but not too close.
Or could the phrase, “in heaven” be a reminder that this God who is as close and loving and intimate as a daddy, still is a God who cannot be domesticated, who is not created in our image, not answerable to us and our needs, who in fact, might hold us accountable and is not necessarily always on our side, no matter how righteous and moral we consider our side to be. “In heaven” just might express the rather radical notion that God is bigger then my agenda, my cause, my needs.
I’ve shared with you before this story told by a college chaplain: “A while back I got a call from a parent, an upset, very upset parent. The father was upset because his graduate school bound daughter had just informed him that she was going to ‘throw it all away’ as he described it and go do mission work with the Presbyterians in Haiti. ‘Isn’t that absurd!’ shouted the father. “A degree in mechanical engineering and she’s going to dig ditches in Haiti!’”
“’Well, I doubt that she’s received much training in the Engineering Department here for that kind of work,’ I said, ‘but she’s probably a fast learner and will no doubt get the hand of ditch-digging in a few months.’”
“’Look, said the father, ‘this is no laughing matter. I hold you personally responsible for this!’
“’Me? What have I done?’
“’You ingratiated yourself with her, filled her head with all that religious stuff. She likes you and that’s why she’s doing this foolishness.’
“’Now look,’ I said, struggling to keep my ministerial composure, ‘weren’t you the one who had her baptized?’
“’Why, yes,’ he said.
“’And then, didn’t you read her Bible stories, take her to Sunday School, let her go skiing with the Presbyterian Youth Fellowship?’
“’Well, yes, but…’
“’Don’t ‘but’ me,’ I said. ‘It’s your fault she believed all that stuff, that she’s gone and thrown it all away on Jesus, not mine. You’re the one that introduced her to Jesus, not me!’
“’But all we ever wanted was for her to be was a Presbyterian,’ he said meekly.
“’Sorry’, I responded, ‘You’ve messed up and made a disciple.’”
“Our Father…in heaven.” Yes, a God who will nurture and sustain and comfort us, much like a loving father. But also a God who is not some pale, idolatrous projection of our ego, serving at our beck and call. God has not turned sovereignty over to us. This is a God who just might drive middle class, upwardly mobile college students out of graduate school and into the poverty of Haiti, a God who might turn my financial priorities upside down, who just might tear us down and build us back again, who surprises us and uses us to do God’s will in ways we might never have imagined.
“Our Father” – a God of comfort, of nurture, of relationship
“In heaven” – also a wild and reckless God, determined to have God’s way with us, ready or not.