Good morning to you
Today my machine celebrates the gift of life and, as my fingers flit across the screen, the words are dancing and landing all over … in the address bar, after my signature, just all over. I pray that our reflections on prayer has had a similarly positive effect on you.
Here’s today’s nougat
And Jesus said; “When you pray, say
Father, hallowed be your name
Your kingdom come” Luke 11.2
I remember during my first weeks in seminary, Rev Dr John Bracke encouraging us to ask questions about what we don’t see in the biblical text. And in the ESV which I’ve appropriated for the last 3 days, the Luke Lord’s prayer is bare bones.
The absence of ‘who art in heaven’, might have many possible explanations. But for me today, what came clearly across my mind was the concept of transcendence. That is God being beyond ALL limits (including heaven) which we could attempt to impose. This makes sense for me, especially with the clause “hallowed be your name” following. For God is absolutely divinely Other, set apart from our mortality, yet through Jesus Christ is so absolutely incarnate; with us in the midst of our ordinariness.
This has even more potency when I consider Bette Middler’s hit, “From a distance”, which suggests that God is only capable of seeing us and our issues with rose- tinted glasses where everything looks perfect. And if we relegate God solely to heaven, we run the risk of once again boxing God in. Especially when things go awry and God seems to be away. Doing other things. Not attending to our needs.
And if we’re placing God in a box which distances God from our reality, it doesn’t matter if God is holy. For God would then be impotent and incompetent. I would not put MY trust or hope or faith in One whom I can’t believe in.
So today I pray to my heavenly (though earthly) Father, who is transcendent (other worldly) while being incarnate (living inside of me); who is potent, present and compassionate. How about you?
Father, your name is set apart and for that, I worship you.
In Christ’s love and grace . . .
