The Lord’s Prayer - Hallowed Be Your Name - Luke 11: 2-4

The Lord’s Prayer is a powerful prayer that churches around the globe pray Sunday after Sunday. In fact, one of my favorite times in worship in seminary would be when we would pray this pray together in the language that was most natural for people and English would mix with Korean and Spanish and a host of other languages from around the world, as a reminder of just how important this prayer is to our spiritual life together. 

Yet, if you ask many people where you find the Lord’s Prayer in scripture they would immediately cite the Gospel of Matthew, which is certainly true. But there is another version, a version that we are not as familiar with, that we find in the Gospel of Luke. 

We are going to spend the next several weeks dwelling in this Gospel text together because it is so vital to our lives together. To our faith journey. What we miss, however, is what is happening right before and after this prayer as well. 

Jesus found himself off praying in a certain place and when he was finished, one of the disciples asked that he would teach them to pray. He went out to explain that John had taught his disciples how to pray - so can’t Jesus teach them. 

I want you to take a moment and let the gravity of what this unnamed disciple is saying sink in for a moment. The folks that Jesus called, they were Jewish. They may have had different ways that they went about their daily lives, some being Zealots, others tax collectors, and still others fisherman, just to name a few, but they were tied together by the central, core identity of being children of Israel. They were also all men, meaning that they at least went to basic religious schooling. And yet, here are these folks who are now asking Jesus how to pray to God. 

Yet, we often find ourselves in the same place as well, don’t we? Usually someone had to teach us how to pray. Whether we learned it from watching our grandparents at their knees, or hearing our parents pray over the kitchen table before a meal, or with a patient Sunday school teacher or friend, we learned how to pray somewhere. 

Maybe for some of us, its been so long since we learned how to pray that we forgot who first taught us. I have the opportunity to watch little children grow up right before my eyes. Most Sunday evening my brother and his family, as well as my grandparents gather around my mom’s kitchen table as we share a meal together. More often than not, we will ask my niece, Gracie, if she would like to pray. And she does. Friends, she is 4. She learned to pray from her parents and her wonderful Sunday school teachers and around that kitchen table. We, as a family, are teaching her how to pray. 

Do I think the disciples did not know how to pray at all? No. They grew up going to synagogue. But they saw something about how Jesus was praying, how Jesus was coming before God is this posture of relationship and trust and they are essentially saying - I want that. Teach us how to approach God. 

And Jesus does. In the Gospel of Luke, he keeps it so simple. Saying when you pray say: 

Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our sin, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to a time of trial. 

Five sentences that started out with this bold statement, “Father, hallowed be your name.”

It seems so natural to us, coming together and praying this prayer, every week that we miss the radical nature of what Jesus is saying. 

First and foremost, God is Father to Jesus. In other words, the basis of this prayer, of all prayer, is the relationship we have with God. And Jesus is inviting his disciples to also call God Father. To also have a relationship with this God whom they can approach at any time and in any place through prayer. 

Now to our ears, Father may seem a super formal way to address someone. But remember, folks aren’t going around teaching people to call God Father. God is God. Or called Jehovah. Or the Lord. Often it is tied to attributes of who God is - like Jehovah Jirah, the great provider. Instead, Jesus is telling his disciples to tie their prayer life not to what God can do, though God can do great things, but to a deep and abiding relationship. 

But God is not just Father. God is holy. Hallowed be your name is really formal language once again to our ears that means, holy is your name. Or I honor your name. 

What does it exactly mean to honor someone? It means that they have a special place in our lives. That we want to treat them with special regard. To respect them. So how do we honor God? By how we live our lives. And how we live our lives out there in the world, has a whole lot to do with our relationship with God in here, in our hearts. 

The way we live our lives should be a witness in the world that we honor the name of God. And for those who identify themselves as Christians, how we live our lives bears witness to Christ’s name as well. 

God’s name is holy because God is holy. Yet, even as folks who stumble into sin and fail to honor God as we should, we still are called God’s children. We still seek to get up each day and honor God with our lips and our lives. And by approaching God this way, first, as we pray, it is a reminder to us of how we are to approach God and how we are live our lives for his glory in the world. 

Friends, there are many ways to pray. We can sing our prayers. Pray them silently. Pray them out loud. Pray them as we work. Pray them as we create. Pray them any time of the day. For some it means praying at the same time each day and for others its whispering to God at moments throughout the day. When we remember that prayer is a way to communicate to the holy God we have relationship with, there is no wrong way to pray. 

In fact, we will never reach the depth and breadth of prayer. There will always be more ways to grow in our relationship with God. Always more to listen to. 

So as we approach this sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer I have a few challenges for you: First, take time to remember who taught you to pray. If they are still with us on this earth - say thank you. If they are not, thank God for them. They taught you about this God who loves you and who wants to spend time with you in prayer. Second, take time to teach someone how to pray. Whatever that may look like in your life. Teach someone what it means to pray to our holy God. Third, take time to pray. Pray for one another. But also pray to have a quiet heart that can also listen to the God who loves spending time with you. “Our Father, hallowed is your name.” Amen.