Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“He said to them, ‘When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.’”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, August 16, 2020
by Dr. Kimberly Leetch, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: God’s name is holy—so delicate we can scarcely breathe upon it. As we hold God’s name as sacred, we level up our loyalty and devotion for God.
One of the things Jesus came to rectify was how complex and complicated the Jewish laws, rites, and rituals had become. Even something as basic as prayer had become an obligation, rather than a way to communicate with the divine.
Jesus introduced his followers to a simple prayer—one that communicates our loyalty and devotion for God, and also requests of God things to meet our basic needs.
We will spend the next four weeks looking at three short verses that make up the Lord’s Prayer. While it may seem daunting to tackle three verses for four weeks, there is enough packed into these verses to preach for a lifetime!
Our prayer begins with an intimate address to a loving parent—one of heaven and divinity. This itself was (and is) quite a shift from the onerous, angry God the Jews had come to know. Jesus reframed humanity’s relationship with God as one of parent and child rather than master and slave. Healthy parents are loving, compassionate, nurturing, and are also firm and set boundaries for their children and for their relationships with their children.
However, limiting our understanding of God solely to that of parent can be a barrier to some who did not grow up with healthy parents. This is where the holy nature of God’s name comes in. Any time we address God, whether it be as parent, creator, disciplinarian, peacekeeper, rock, or hen, we are invited to regard God’s name as holy. In our culture of “OMG” where words are often used as weapons, we have lost a little of what it means to regard a name as holy. (Hebrews couldn’t even say the name of God, using “Jehovah,” which can be pronounced without any consonants. “Ya-ho-wah” is not more than breath moving through our lips—what better way to speak a sacred name?) We might consider God’s name as a hand- blown glass ball that may crack if set down without the utmost care. How might we approach a God whose name is so valuable we can barely even breathe upon it?
What’s the most valuable asset available to you today, right now?
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