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WELCOME TO ONELIFE MINISTRIES! I INVITE YOU TO SHARE PRAYER REQUESTS AT THE EMAIIL ADDRESS GIVEN AT THE CONCLUSION OF TODAY'S WRITING.
Rev. Reginald Heber, born April 21, 1783, succeeded his father as Pastor to a church in an obscure, little English village, after studies at Oxford. At Oxford he had excelled at poetry.
Heber's plans to publish a collection of hymns based on the lectionary for liturgical congregations was blocked by the Bishop of London. However, he wrote fifty-seven hymns for his church, during his sixteen year pastorate there. One of the hymns is the classic "Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty," through which is expressed a personal relationship with God's holiness, a sense of reverence greatly needed among us today.
The first verse of this hymn speaks of God's holiness as both expressing God's power and grace, the worship of God as holy, and the identification of this holy God as the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, Blessed Trinity!
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In this third of our series on the Lord's Prayer, we look at the first petition. There are two panels of petitions; the first three relate to God, the last four to us. The first petition, to hallow God's name, is the basis for the remainder and shows the essential desire of a spiritual Christian.
"Pray then like this:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name."
*Matthew 6.9, ESV
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I will share several important matters about the petition to hallow God's name, a petition that reminds us that we cannot do this apart from divine inspiration. Why would we pray to be enabled to do that which we could do alone? Prayer itself is an admission of our reliance.
I open, however, stressing the role of prayer in the spiritual life. If we fail to understand the role of prayer, we will likely not be faithful in prayer. So, my first point will be prelude to others more specifically related to the petition.
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1) Prayer is the chief means to being a spiritually blessed person or faith community.
To illustrate this, I refer to a story shared in a recent OneLife writing.
Mr. Jones dies and goes to heaven? When he arrives, St Peter is waiting at the Pearly Gates. He takes Mr. Jones on a tour of heaven. Mr Jones is awestruck. The streets are gold, beautiful mansions glisten in sunshine, and choirs of angels sing the most beautiful songs.
Partway through his tour of heaven, Mr Jones’ eye is drawn to an odd looking building, a huge, windowless warehouse with just one door. "You don’t really want to see what’s in there" observes St. Peter.
"But I do, I do!" exclaims Mr Jones. He runs across the lawn. He opens the door to discover rows upon rows of shelves, floor to ceiling. Stacked on the shelves are thousands of white boxes, each with a name on it.
"Is there one with my name on it?" asks Mr Jones, while he rushes to the J aisle. He finds the box with his name and opens it. His mouth drops, his pulse races, and he says to Peter, "What are all these wonderful things inside my box? Are they the good things in store for me now that I’ve reached heaven?"
"No" replies St Peter. "They’re all the blessings God wanted to give you on earth, but which you never received."
Mr. Jones looked sad. "Why?" he asked St Peter. "Why did I miss out on all these blessings?"
Well, that’s a long story" replied St Peter.
We are to be abundantly blessed. Prayer is our connection to God, Who in grace blesses us. If we are prayerful, we will enjoy spiritual blessings. A prayer-full person or community cannot fail to be blessed immensely when practicing habitual prayer as an expression of faith in and love for God.
God wills to bless, and prayer opens us to God. If you say, "I want to be greatly blessed," pray. If a church is not enjoying being immensely, spiritually blessed, it should become a prayer-full people. If a faith group is not being greatly blessed, it is not prayer-full. When I discontinue intimate communion with the Holy Spirit, I lose blessing. I must reconnect to open the channel of blessing.
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2) To hallow refers to making holy.
Holy in Scripture refers to someone or something set apart, set aside, made different, or consecrated. A sanctuary is hallowed by being set aside for worship. The sanctuary may be made of the same materials as other buildings around it, yet, they are profane and the sanctuary holy.
Profane means "unholy," not in a moral sense, however. Profane refers to not set apart, not consecrated; hence, common. A loaf of bread at my table would be profane, or common. Placed upon the Lord's Table, that same loaf set apart for Holy Communion becomes holy, or un-common, through the Prayer of Consecration, which is the prayer for hallowing, or making holy.
Holiness does not essentially refer to morality. When I stand to consecrate, lift up, and offer the elements of the Eucharist to the people, this does not signify I am more moral than other persons. Rather, I represent Christ before His Church, even in his physical place, as one set apart for a sacred duty to the Body of Christ. This was made possible by hallowing me, by laying on of hands by representatives of the Body of Christ, who consecrated me to a sacred task for others. My priestly holiness, then, is relational and in service, not principally about morality or generosity inherent in me.
Holiness applies to many things. We speak of the Holy Bible, even though it is made out of the same physical materials as other books. The elements of Eucharist are made of the same elements of nature as all other bread and wine. Anyone or anything set aside, or ordained, for sacred service is holy.
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3) God's name is what we hallow.
What is God's name that we hallow? In Scripture God's name does not refer to any name assigned to God, like God, Lord, Elohim, Jehovah, Yahweh, Jesus, Holy Spirit. Humans assign names to God; there is only one name belonging to God.
What is the one name of God, before all names assigned to God? This one name is God Godself. In Scripture "name" refers to essence, nature, character. God's name is God's essence, or what makes God God. God's name is God's nature, or character.
Ironically, then, God is holy and we are to make God holy, or we are to holy God. Such is a literal reading of the petition to hallow God's name.
God is Holiness itself. To say "God" is to say "Holy." All holiness is of and from God, Who is the one Holy One. Scott Hahn, in Understanding "Our Father," writes:
"Holy" is His name - that is, His essential identity, independent of whether we exist in order to sense His wonder.
The request, then, to hallow God's name is a commitment to respect and reverence God. We do this in worship and how we live. We, also, hallow God's name as a way to inspire others to recognize God as God and, likewise, reverence God. We hallow God's name before others, when they recognize God is God by the way we live our lives.
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4) Hallowing God's name implies God's distance and nearness.
Holiness, in biblical faith and other religions, often refers to God's mystery, inaccessibility, otherness, separateness, and distance. We see this awe-inspiring otherness in Isaiah 6:
1In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3And one called to another and said:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!"
4And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"
6Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7And he touched my mouth and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for."
*Isaiah 6.1-6, ESV
Isaiah is awe-struck by God's totally-otherness. The angels sing of that totally-otherness. While the whole earth is full of the splendor of God, or glory, God's nature as holiness is set apart from the earth. God as God is totally-apart.
I recall more than one time having this awe-filled experience of divine Otherness, of Holiness. I was in deep meditation, when my consciousness opened up to the divine Mystery more intimately than I was ready for. My consciousness pulled back quickly from fear. This is a healthy experience, reminding us of God's godness and our humans' humanness. This is awe-full; such an experience is humbling.
This sense of the awe of the divine Mystery is sadly lacking in many churches and among many Christians. For example, I often sense that most Christians enter the sanctuary on Sunday as if it is a social meeting place, not a holy place.
However, the Christian faith harmonizes God's otherness and God's closeness. God as holy is equally distant and near. The Incarnation of the Eternal Word is the best illustration for us of this union of distance and nearness in holiness.
And the Word [Logos] became flesh [human] and dwelt [tabernacled, tented] among us, and we have seen his glory [divine splendor], glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth [or, faithfulness].
*John 1.14, ESV
John 1.14 speaks of God as a holiness desiring to be near us. Jesus becomes the nearness of the totally distant One.
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
*Matthew 1.23, AV
Scott Hahn writes of the closeness within God as holiness, or closeness being a trait in God's essence: "Moreover, what made Him holy was not intended to distance Him from us so much as to draw us near to Him in intimacy." And, also, "God's name is not merely transcendent and mysterious, it is intimate and personal and interpersonal."
This means God desires, indeed, is the desire, to be close, close to each one of us, close to us all. God, being holy, allows God to be equally accessible, fully intimate with any number of persons all at once.
The Lord's Prayer, in its opening, prepares us to be open to be near God. The prayer begins "Our Father." "Father" speaks of God as authoritative, loving, and near.
So, we affirm a mystery. The very otherness of God makes it possible for God to be close to everyone. God's nearness to all makes it possible for God to be totally other than us all.
Let us return to an example: the Holy Bible. The Scripture is a totally other book. Scripture being totally other allows it to be, also, equally open to everyone. No other book among us has proven so to inspire and mediate the Word to all peoples.
Yet, no Bible or other holy object or person has any inherent holiness. Only the Holy One is inherently holy. No person or thing, however holy, should be worshipped as the Holy. This, at times, occurs among well-meaning persons, and it is idolatry.
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We have noted these important matters for the spiritual Christian's life.
1) Prayer is the primary means of God blessing us.
2) We hallow God's name by reverencing God in worship and life, and by leading others to do the same.
3) God in holiness is experienced as a mystery Who longs to be near to each and all of us.
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So, this leads us to a question: Am I willing to allow God to show Himself as holy through my life? This means by attitude, thought, action, and character.
How do we, biblically speaking, do this? We find that being holy is our duty, which means it is not a choice we can choose or not and be Christian:
15But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
17Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.
*I Peter 1.15-17, NIV
There we have it, we are to set ourselves apart as devoted to God, with our whole selves. We are to do this in all we do, and we are to carry ourselves with awe that evokes reverence.
To do this, we need to have a sound, strong theology of God's holiness. Also, if we do not have a relationship with God in which we experience God as holy, not just think of God as holy, we will not consecrate ourselves to be holy.
A holy attitude and life is made possible through personal and communal experience of the awe-inspiring distance and loving closeness of God to us. Otherwise, no amount of morality, religion, or spiritual ideology on our part will lead to our hallowing God's name. To be inspired to be holy and witness to God as holy, draw near to the mystery and self-giving of God.
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Israel's major airline, El Al, rejected a plea by ultra-orthodox Jews with a priestly lineage to fly inside body bags. Why would they want to do that? Ritual law states that a priest who enters a cemetery becomes religiously "unclean," or "unholy." A ruling by a prominent rabbi said that flying over a cemetery was the same as entering it. He suggested body bags as a way of maintaining separation, but he abandoned the idea when airline security said it would be unsafe. Orthodox priests can now avoid being made ritually unholy by flying late at night, for noise levels require night flights to follow an alternate route that does not pass above the cemetery.
Now, the apparent exaggeration of commitment to holiness by these ultra-conservative Jews might sound bizarre. Possibly, while it sounds extreme to less conservative persons, such devotion to holiness can remind us of our need to be more committed to hallowing God's name through being holy persons.
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1) Define holy in your own words?
2) Have you had a personal experience of God as holy? Explain, if so.
3) Have you been in a group that experienced God's holiness together? If so, what was that like?
4) Does the faith group you share in regularly experience God's holiness together? Explain your response.
5) Has another person inspired you to experience God as holy? Explain.
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*For submission of prayer requests, write to Brian at barukhattah@embarqmail.com .
*Charitable contributions would be appreciated to assist Brian in the continuance of his work of ministry. For contributions, contact Brian at barukhattah@embarqmail.com .
*Brian's book of spiritual love poetry, An Ache for Union: Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major booksellers, or through the Cokesbury on-line store, at www.cokesbury.com .
*Brian K. Wilcox lives in Punta Gorda, FL, and Clearwater, FL, with his wife, step-son, and two beloved dogs. Brian has an independent writing, workshop, and retreat ministry focused on Christians living as spiritual disciples of Jesus Christ in everyday life. He serves the Christ Community United Methodist Church, Punta Gorda, FL. Brian is vowed at Greenbough House of Prayer, a contemplative Christian community in South Georgia. He lives a vowed, contemplative life and inspires others to experience a more intimate relationship with God-in-Christ. Brian advocates for a spiritually-focused, experiential Christianity and renewal of the focus of the Church on addressing the deeper spiritual needs and longings of persons.
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