Sermon for 7th Sunday after Pentecost
Our Father
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
I love this story from the Rev. Michael Renninger, pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Richmond, Virginia:
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When he was a little boy, he loved to be carried in his parent’s arms.
In his mother’s arms, he felt so secure. He could smell that combination of her powder and her perfume and her skin. It was her smell that he loved.
And, he loved to be carried by his dad. He loved to ride on his dad’s shoulders.
But, most of all, he loved it when, at bedtime, his dad picked him up to carry him from the living room upstairs to his bedroom.
The little boy would place his head against his daddy’s chest as his dad carried him up the steps and got him ready for bed.
Well, one night the little boy realized that, if he listened carefully while his head was against his dad’s chest, the little boy could hear his dad’s heartbeat!
So, the little boy said to his father, “I can hear your heartbeat!”
As his father laid him in bed, he put his ear against his son’s chest. Then the father said, “I can hear your heartbeat, too!”
For the next several years, whenever his father carried the little boy to bed, his son would press his ear against his father’s shirt and then say to his dad, “I can hear your heartbeat!” And his father would say the same back to him.
It became their unofficial way of saying goodnight and I love you.
Well, you know what happened, eventually the little boy became a teenager and he was now too big to be carried by his parents.
Around the time the boy turned 14 the boy decided that his parents were the most embarrassing people in the world and that they did not know anything worth knowing! He could not wait to grow up and graduate high school and go to college and get out of this house, which, of course, eventually he did.
But, as often happens in life, when that little boy, now a young adult of 25 or 30 years old, when that little boy got married and started to have children of his own, a funny thing happened. Suddenly the boy realized that his parents were actually smarter than he used to think they were. Maybe they were not so weird after all!
After the son married and was raising a family of his own, his mother developed a heart condition and died too soon. The boy saved one of her sweaters because it reminded him of his mother and still even smelled like her.
His father lived much longer, but over time, he grew weaker and thinner due to illness.
One night after work, the son stopped by to check on his dad and found his father laying on the kitchen floor, surrounded by melted ice cream. Dad had fallen in front of the refrigerator and could not get up and could not get up to call anyone.
So, the son bent down to pick up his father who now weighed less than 100 pounds. The son gently carried his father to his bedroom. As the son gently lowered his father into bed, his father looked up at him and said, “I can hear your heartbeat.”
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Is there anything more intimate than to hear the heartbeat of another person? Do children ever feel more secure than when they are carried in the arms of their parents? Can human beings desire anything more than to be held so close and know they are loved?
In today’s Gospel lesson from St. Luke, the disciples have come to Jesus to ask Jesus to teach them to pray.
Now, this was not an unusual request in Jesus’ day – Rabbis would often be asked for prayer advise. But, compared to other rabbis, the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples is remarkable because of its simplicity and directness.
Many scholars have suggested that Jesus taught us all we need to ever know in the very first words of this prayer when Jesus taught his disciples, and us, to pray, “Our Father.” Jesus taught us to call God our Father.
Now, throughout the Gospels Jesus uses the image of a loving parent often to convey the truth of who God is and how much God loves us.
Now any human word we use to name God or to describe God conveys only a part of the truth about God, never the whole truth about God. Every noun we use to name God, well it tells us only a part of the truth. Every adjective and adverb, they, too, tell us only something, not everything, only something about God.
God is so beyond our comprehension that every human word we speak about God conveys that truth imperfectly and incompletely. There is always more to know and more to learn and more to experience of the living God.
In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus at one point uses the image of a mother hen gathering her young close to her to convey the reality of God’s love. In John’s Gospel Jesus uses the word “Abba” as the name for God. “Abba” is best translated as “Papa.” It conveys absolute trust.
The disciples asked how should we pray and Jesus answers that we are to call God our Father.
This is crucial because sometimes as we read in other parts of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, as we read about God in other parts of the Bible, we can get the impression that God is either distant or angry, that God needs to be placated or pleased, that God is somehow keeping score.
Other parts of the Bible even tell us of a God who likes to haggle and even bargain, as in today’s first lesson.
Now, of course, that is not all the Bible tells us about God, but many of us may have an impression that God is a judgmental God in the harshest kind of way.
But Jesus says that we should call God “Father” because God is so in love with all of his children that God wants to carry each of us in God’s arms. The God of Jesus Christ is a God who desires intimacy with us. This is a God who can be so close to us that God can hear our hearts beating.
This is why Jesus was born. This is why “the Word became flesh” as St. John wrote in his Gospel. For and from all of eternity God has wanted to tell us how deeply we are loved. God knew this message needed to be delivered face-to-face, so God sent his only son who became human in Jesus Christ.
In the ministry of Jesus Christ, God says to God’s children, to us, God says to God’s children, “Listen, I have something important to say to you. Whenever you draw close to the person of Jesus, when you draw near to Jesus and stay close to Jesus, you will hear the heartbeat of God and God will hear your heartbeat.”
In her book, Traveling Mercies, author Anne Lamott says that the two best prayers she knows are, “Help me, help me, help me” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Today’s text suggests that another best prayer can be just “Father, father.” And, it should be noted in the midst of all this “father” talk, that God would be just as happy with “Mother, mother,” as your prayer.
The wonderful thing about the Lord’s Prayer is that even if you did not have the best of fathers, even if your father was the worst of fathers, you can still pray this prayer, because in your father God YOU have a father who listens to your heartbeat.
As you pray the Lord’s Prayer today and anytime you pray this wonderful prayer, picture yourself held securely and closely in the arms of God, carried along your way by God’s strength and goodness. As you do this you can hear God’s heartbeat.
Then, throughout the rest of your day, whenever you are frazzled or busy or running late or angry or frustrated or fearful, stop for a moment and return to that image of God as your father. Return to the image of you as a child of God, a God who can hear your heartbeat.
When Jesus taught this prayer, notice that he did not begin, “My father.” No, Jesus simply said, “Father.” That is why when we say this prayer, we say “Our Father.” Jesus was not trying to create a self-centered, isolated sense of piety and spirituality. Our father God who hears our heartbeat is not just your or my daddy. God is everyone’s daddy. The God who loves us is the same God who loves our neighbor, the same God who loves our enemies.
To pray “Our Father” is to confess that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. No one gets to create a guest list for God’s love. God loves all people. God hears the heartbeat of everyone. In God’s love and care, everyone is welcome, no one is excluded.
If we just listen, we can hear God’s heartbeat and God can hear ours. Our Father – yours and mine of everyone’s.
Amen.
(With thanks to the Rev. Michael Renninger, pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church and the weekly video sermon series, “A Sermon for Every Sunday”).
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sunday, July 27-28, 2019
