Lord's Prayer

 

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 debts, as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.  Amen.

How did writing the Lord’s Prayer, savoring each word you said, go yesterday?  Did you circle many words or only a few?  Did you put one bring rectangle around all sixty-five words?

For me, three words that leap off the page and land in my lap are: hallowed, kingdom, and will.

Hallowed is a fancy way of saying, “Holy”, which is another way of saying, “Set apart.”  When something is holy there is a specialness and sacredness to it.  Growing up, when something was  special, it meant that my parents put it out of reach or behind locked glass doors so my brother and I would, “Look with our eyes and not with our hands.” 

Unfortunately, we have been taught or caught this idea that if it is special/sacred/set apart we need a reason in order to enjoy it.  We have that bottle of wine for a “special occasion,” rather than popping it open on an ordinary Tuesday.  Or plates that can only be used when guests come or food that is served only for company.  This is NOT the understanding of Holy I want to promote.  I pray your understanding of holy would that you regularly eat off your wedding China and break out the glass crystal, because you realize every day is holy.  I know people who say that if you do something too much, it can drain the specialness out of it.  To quote my grandmother, “Hogwash!”  I say, “I love you” to my family every chance I get and those words never fail to convey the care I have.  I can never have communion too much or say the Lord’s Prayer too many times, the sacred will never be exhausted in these holy moments.

Kingdom is another word that I put both a circle and rectangle around (you didn’t realize you could that, did you?  Well, permission granted!).  This word recalls King Arthur, Monty Python, Disney’s Magic Kingdom, castles, knights, fairy tales, and a time of old.  Kingdom might bring to mind for you times of oppression when power was in the hands of a very few who forced people to do thing.  In Exodus, we hear how Israel was in the kingdom of Egypt and Pharoah forced them to make brick after brick – it was never enough.  So some people instead substitute in a word, “Kin-dom”.  Kin – as in family.  Dom – land.  Kin-dom is a land where we are all family, connected.  Others might suggest “realm,” as in the space where we are continually caught up in God’s presence. 

The third word is “will”.  There have been many sermons preached about God’s will, pastors claiming to know what God wants you to do, which sometimes involves you opening your wallet.  Yet, God is beyond our comprehension and control.  God doesn’t fit in our boxes. So, how do we know God’s will?  We don’t.  We have our prayerful guesses and hopeful intentions.  I wonder if you substituted the word, “Creativity,” what might break open for you?  As in, “Let thy creativity be what our lives are caught up in”.  Or “work,” as in, “Let us toil wherever God toils.  Let us roll up our sleeves to labor with God.”  Or what about “dream” and “prayer”?  As in, “Thy dream and prayer be known in our hearts as in God’s heart?”

Play with words, see what worlds they create for you this day.

Prayer:  Creating God open the thesaurus of our imaginations so our lives are caught up in You.  Amen.