Dr. Ron Summers
August 17, 2003
When my brother was five years old, he got separated from my mother at the grocery store. One minute he was at her side; and the next he was alone in an aisle with shelves towering above him and strangers all around him. My mother didn’t realize he was lost until she heard a quivering, little voice calling out, “Virginia, Virginia!” My mother found him, hugged him, and wiped away his tears. Then she asked, “Joey, why did you call me Virginia?” My brother replied, “I knew there were lots of mommies here, but I knew there would be only one Virginia.”
When we pray, we face the same challenge that my brother faced in the grocery store years ago. There are lots of gods in the world. Only one true God, but lots of false gods to which people pray. These are the gods of the world. Nearly every tribe and nation has claimed to know and worship some god. Allah, Vishnu, Baal, Thor, and Zeus are just a few of the names. It is never safe to assume that when you are talking to another person about God that you are talking about the same God. I have heard much talk from apologists in the past couple of years that Christians and Moslems worship the same God. That is not true. Allah is not Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Allah is a mean, cruel, wrathful deity created in the image of the prophet Mohammed.
We must know God’s name if we intend to pray to Him. What name should we call when we feel lost and afraid?
The term for God in the scripture is Elohim. This was a generic term for God and was the term used by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But Elohim was not the name of God. Jacob wrestled with Elohim and demanded to know His name. He received God’s blessing but not His name. (Gen. 32:22-30)
Moses stood at the burning bush, and God (Elohim) commanded him to go back to Egypt to free the children of Israel from slavery. Moses said, “If they ask me your name, what shall I tell them?”
God said, “Say to the Israelites, I am has sent me unto you.” YHWH is the ancient Hebrew for “I am.” The Hebrew scriptures did not include vowels. When the Jews encountered these letters in scripture they used the word “adonai,” which translates as “Lord.” They believed YHWH to be the name of God, but they discouraged people from speaking it because it was thought to be too holy to say.
The God of Israel was hidden in a cloud and shrouded by a curtain. He was Lord and King, enthroned in heaven, awesome and holy. To see His face was to risk death. Those who petitioned Him came on bent knee. They sought to appease His anger and earn His favor.
In the midst of such fearsome and majestic images of God, Jesus taught His disciples to address God as a parent. Though the Hebrew scriptures occasionally spoke of God as a father, Jesus made it His primary imagery of God. He refused to distance God with titles like King and Lord. He threw open the doors of the throne room and invited us in.
Approaching a king is a very complicated process. You have to request an audience. You dress to impress and bring the proper gift. You acknowledge the king’s titles and honors. When you approach the throne, you kneel or bow. You make your request hoping to earn the king’s favor.
People often approach God in prayer in the same manner. Bringing candles, incense, and flattery, they hope to influence God’s attitude with adoration. No one would think of running and jumping into God’s lap and calling Him, “Daddy.”
Yet this is precisely what Jesus taught. He did not tell His disciples to pray to Elohim, Yahweh or even Adonai. He did not complicate prayer with additional requirements and expectations. He did not suggest that God listened to those prayers that were the most flattering. Jesus cut through the confusion and eliminated the pretense. He taught them a prayer of intimacy. He told them that they were to cry out to their “Daddy.”
This was radical theology. It still is. It does seem presumptuous and arrogant to call the creator of the universe your daddy. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were offended by Jesus’ use of the word “Abba.” In a culture that wouldn’t even speak God’s name, calling God, Abba, was nearly blasphemy. Indeed, taking such liberties was one of the reasons Jesus was crucified.
Those who vehemently argue for the title “God the Father” miss the point. Jesus was not interested in replacing one rigid title with another. He was defining our relationship with God in a new way. Claiming God as a parent was far more than sentimental fantasy. Jesus was challenging how we perceive God. For Jesus, God was the father we cry out for when we awake in the darkness, in the grip of a nightmare. God was the mother who dries our tears and kisses away our pain when we fall and skin our knee. God was a parent – loving, intimate, and committed.
Although the image of father is a positive one for me, that is not universally true. I took a group of youth to New York years ago and we did Back Yard Bible Clubs in a housing project. Most of the children were five to ten years old. As we talked about how God was their heavenly father and loved them, we got a negative response. Most of those children either had no father or had a very negative picture of a father. Only when we began telling the children that God loved them like their momma, did we get a positive response!
God is neither male nor female. He is spirit. What concerned Jesus was not God’s gender, but any imagery that denied God’s intimate knowledge and concern for His children. He told of a parent who gives good gifts to his children, who knows the number of hairs on their heads, who dresses them more splendidly than the flowers of the field, and feeds them more faithfully than He feeds the birds of the air. The father that Jesus spoke of was not a stern and distant taskmaster whipping the world into shape. He was a devoted attentive parent.
Whenever the church emphasizes any image that contradicts the parental affection and commitment of God, it slanders God’s character. When we portray God as an angry judge, we make God an abusive parent. When we suggest God is distant and demanding, we divorce God from His children. When we reinforce people’s fears about God, we deny our Father’s unlimited patience and grace.
Whenever I forget to whom I am speaking, my prayers become selfish and manipulative. How do I get the king to give me what I want? How do I convince the judge to rule in my favor? How do I get God to be interested in me? Remembering that God is my heavenly parent changes the way I pray. I approach God with confidence in his desire and ability to meet my needs. I can trust Him to do what is right for me.
Jesus assured us of God’s unfailing love. He said, “Which of you, if his sin asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fist, will you give him a snake? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him” (Matt. 7:9-11). God will never hand us a stone or a snake. God knows and supplies what we need even before we ask.
When I come to God with my complaints and demands, when I ask for what I think will satisfy, seek what I hope will fill my emptiness, and knock at doors I want opened, I am like a distrustful child. When I finally quiet myself and relax in His presence, I discover my complaints were selfish and my demands unnecessary. I am provided with exactly what I need – His love. I also discover that what I really desire is to be with Him.
When my children were small, they would get into an argument sometimes. Katie would say, about me, “he’s my daddy!” She knew that would draw the response from Sam, “No, he’s my daddy.” That would go on until I ended the argument by saying, “I am daddy to both of you.” Unfortunately, adults can be as selfish about God as my children were about me. We want God to be “my daddy.”
It was no accident that Jesus began His prayer with the words “Our Father” rather than “My Father.” This was a crucial distinction. I am reminded of how important every time I use the terms “my car,” “my house,” or “my children” in the presence of my wife. It is our car, our house and our children. And when it was three o’clock in the morning and one or both were throwing up they were “our” children.
My inclination is to focus on “my world” rather than God’s world. This tendency results in prayers that dwell on my needs, my problems, and my desires. Thomas Merton warned, “To consider persons and events and situations only in light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.” Praying to “Our Father” reminds us that we live in community.
When I pray for the needs of others, I am transformed. I often discover that my needs were not as serious as I thought. When I pray for the person dying of cancer, my diabetes doesn’t seem like such a burden. When I think of those starving to death around the world, my desire for a new car or house seems selfish. Praying for the needs of others always helps me see how my blessings exceed my needs.
Praying for others reminds me I am often the answer to their need. I am eight years older than my brother is. I can remember saying things to my parents like, “Joey can’t tie his shoes,” or “Joey can’t cut his meat.” Their reply was always the same, “Then you do it for him.” When we pray to “Our Father,” we are inviting God to tell us how to love one another.
On one of our visits to The Jimmie Hale Mission, I asked one of the residents to pray for a church member who was seriously ill. At the end of the service, the man came to me and said, “Thank you for asking us to pray for that man in your church. It made me realize that you believe that God hears the prayers of someone like me. It also made me realize how blessed I have been.”
Praying to “Our Father” for the needs of our brothers and sisters saves us from selfish prayers.
Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me daily” (Luke 9:23). The use of cross imagery is remarkable. Jesus believed that His suffering on the cross would have a redemptive effect on the world. When Jesus asks us to deny ourselves and take up a cross, He is asking us to suffer in order to bring healing to a hurting world.
Following Jesus will only cease to hurt when the pains of the world end. When we seek a painless relationship with God, we must completely ignore our neighbors. When we seek such comfort, God does all in His power to move us from complacency and make us aware of our responsibilities. The Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see the needs of others. Self-denial is an indication that we are intimate with God.
We are praying like Jesus when we begin calling God “Our Father.” These words invite intimacy, responsibility, community, and self-denial. They are the framework for everything Jesus encourages us to pray.
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