Hallowed Be Your Name

My Sermon at Lakeside Church

Good morning, church! If we haven’t met, my name is Joash Thomas and I’m a part of the Lakeside community. When I’m not teaching at Lakeside, I get to travel all over the world – speaking and teaching on justice from a Christian perspective.

The Scripture we’re going to be exploring this morning is a Scripture that’s really close to my heart – a piece of Scripture that has actually been very formative for me in my pursuit of justice as a Christian – the Lord’s Prayer.

Now, if this is your first time joining us or your first time back in the New Year with us, we’re actually in this sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer right now so we’re only going to be focusing on a very specific part of the Lord’s Prayer today – Hallowed Be Thy Name.

But before we get there, I want to zoom us out a little bit to share about why The Lord’s Prayer has historically been important in the Church. Because the reality is that if you’ve grown up in the church, you’re likely very familiar with this prayer. And if you grew up Catholic or Orthodox or in the Anglican Church, you’ve likely grown up saying these words. And this prayer that Jesus taught us to pray isn’t just prominent across the western church; it’s prominent across the Global Church. And maybe you’ve grown up praying these words but maybe you haven’t fully understood the importance of these words.

So here’s why this prayer is an important prayer in the history of the Global Church.

I’m reading from Matthew 6. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples:

“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. ⁶ But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

⁷ “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the (Pentecostals do – just kidding; I’m a 5^th generation Pentecostal ok? I’m allowed to say that) gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

⁹ “Pray, then, in this way:

Our Father in heaven,
may your name be revered as holy.

You know, we at Lakeside welcome questions because we believe that God welcomes our questions. He’s big enough to handle our questions. So I don’t have three main points for us today. I have three questions for us today; questions that I want us to wrestle with this morning. Here’s the first question:

1. What if our prayers were meant to form us to become more like Jesus?

What if our prayers were meant to form us? You know, I find it interesting that when Jesus’ disciples ask him how to pray, Jesus doesn’t do the thing we sometimes do of saying, “Pray however you want to pray.” Instead, he says, “Pray, then, in this way”.

Now I’m not saying that God doesn’t listen to our prayers if we don’t pray in this way. God is a good God – he listens and responds to however we pray. In fact, just a few weeks ago, I shared the story of my friend Ruby in the Philippines who was trafficked into cybersex trafficking den at 16 and prayed, “God if you’re real get me out here”; and was rescued by my colleagues and local police the very next morning. Ruby didn’t pray the Lord’s prayer. But God still listened to her prayer and he answered her prayer.

But there’s a reason why Jesus says, “Pray then in this way”. And the clue for that is found in the previous verse – “For your Father knows what you need before you ask him”.

You see, it’s quite unfortunate that because of our western individualism and consumerism, we’ve been shaped to see prayer as a matter of “supply and demand”. So we treat God as a vending machine at times. And we only pray when we need something from God. So our prayer life becomes very consumeristic and very, “Give me, Give me, Give me!”

Many of us also use prayer for heavy things that aren’t as consumeristic – things like direction, guidance, health for our loved ones. And there’s nothing wrong with those prayers too. There’s absolutely a place for that.

But Jesus didn’t teach us to pray the Lord’s Prayer so we can get better at asking God for things. We already know how to ask God for stuff. And like Jesus said, God knows what we need before we even ask him.

Now some of you are looking at me right now thinking, “Ok, so why even to bother to pray? If God knows what we need and he’s a good God, what’s the point of even praying?”

I’d like to reframe prayer for us a bit this morning. What if instead of looking at prayer as a means of asking for stuff from God, we looked at prayer a tool for spiritual formation? What if instead of looking at prayer as a means of just asking God for stuff, we looked at prayer as formational? What if our prayers were meant to form us to be more like Jesus?

And what if our prayers were meant to form us to become more like Jesus by loving God and loving neighbour as ourselves? So I’m reading this book right now called Invisible Jesus by Scot McKnight and Tommy Preson Phillips. And one of the things that the writers in this book argue is that so much of Western Christianity reduces Jesus to just a ‘sacrificial lamb’ – as just someone who had to die for us so we can go to heaven. So instead of studying the life and teachings of Jesus, instead of trying our model our lives after Jesus, we’re perfectly content with just reducing Jesus to this “Get out of hell” free card. And I think that one of the many reasons behind that is because we don’t often pray the way Jesus taught us to pray.

Because I would argue that the Lord’s Prayer - the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray when he said “Pray like this” – forms us to become more like Jesus in our world today. You see, when we pray these words, we join our voice with Jesus’ voice as Jesus’ brothers and sisters, as Jesus’ siblings. And when we somehow pray these words that Jesus taught us to pray, we slowly and mystically start to sound more and more like Jesus. And we start to think more and more like Jesus. And we start to live our lives more and more like Jesus.

And this is why the Lord’s prayer is arguably the most important prayer in the history of the Global Church – because it’s the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. And because it’s the prayer that slowly but steadily transforms us to become more and more like Jesus in our world today.

So with that context in mind, let’s now zoom in to the specific part of the Lord’s Prayer I’ve been asked to teach on this morning, “Hallowed be thy name”. Now this is probably the part of the Lord’s Prayer that is most ambiguous. Most of us don’t really know what on earth this means. Even for those of us who are familiar with the Lord’s Prayer, this is the part of the Prayer that we don’t really understand as well as the other parts.

“Hallowed be thy name.” A more modern way of translating this as we just read from the NRSV is “Your name be honoured as holy”. To be holy is to be ‘set apart’ and ‘sacred’ and ‘different’.

Because God is holy. And do you know what God finds unholy? Injustice. Oppression. Inequality.

Now let me pause there because I get the sense that there’s more reframing that needs to be done to our 21^st century western minds this morning! Don’t raise your hands for this - but when I say, God is holy, how many of you find yourself thinking of personal holiness? I’d imagine most of us.

Because when we hear the word ‘Holy’ or ‘Holiness’, we’re conditioned to think about it only in terms of personal sin and more specifically, if you were raised evangelical like me, sexual sin.

Now yes, holiness can absolutely be private and personal. But if you look at holiness or even sin, throughout Scripture, you’ll see that sin or holiness isn’t just private and personal; it’s also systemic and structural. And in fact, if you explore how the human writers of the Bible and even Jesus talk about sin and holiness throughout Scripture, you’ll see that they actually spend way more time talking about it as systemic and structural than they talk about it as private and personal. Which brings me to my next question:

2. What if we viewed sin and holiness as societal and structural instead of just private and personal?

How would that change the way we lived our lives? How would that change the way we view God, ourselves, and the world? How would that change the way we viewed the Lord’s Prayer, specifically the part that says “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” or “Your name be honoured as holy”.

Because again, you know what God finds unholy? Injustice. My friend, Zach Lambert once said it best. He said, “God hates sin because sin hurts his children.” Think about that – God hates sin because sin hurts his children. Now even as I say that, I can feel the discomfort in the room. Because the reality is that “sin” is a bit of a trigger word to many of us. And for good reason – because many of us have been conditioned to think of sin in shameful personal ways.

But what if I told you that one of the sins that the Bible talks about the most is actually injustice? And more specifically, economic injustice? What if I told you after idolatry, the sin that the Old Testament Prophets talk about the most is injustice?

Now this view of God finding injustice unholy isn’t a new view that Jesus introduces to us in the New Testament. It’s a view that’s present all throughout the Old Testament! Here are a few examples of God raging against injustice:

Amos 5:23-24 NRSV:

“Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

But let justice roll down like water
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Let me read the same passage from the Message version now. Amos 5: 21-24:

“I can’t stand your religious meetings.
I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
That’s what I want. That’s all I want.

Or Isaiah 1:13-17 from the NRSV:

“Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
¹⁴ Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
¹⁵ When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.

Your hands are full of blood!

¹⁶ Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
¹⁷ Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.^[a]
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.”

Or Micah 6:8 from the NRSV:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with your God?

Why does God say all this repeatedly to the people of Israel? He says this because Israel was systemically oppressing and enslaving their neighbours. They were being hostile towards immigrants and refugees. And they were being stingy with their resources.

You see, Western Individualism conditions us to see all sin (including injustice) as private and personal. But sin isn’t just private and personal; it’s also systemic and structural. Because toxic people create toxic institutions.

Which brings me to my third question:

3. What does acknowledging God as holy do to us and to the world around us?

This is where I’m going to draw us to the Table. The Table is a visible display of God’s holiness. There’s something holy about the Body of Christ, the bread and the Blood of Christ, the juice. And what’s interesting is that the bread and the juice are just mundane things. They’re ordinary things. But God makes them holy – just like he makes us holy, the mundane and ordinary of the earth.

In fact, many of you know this but I’m training to be an Anglican Priest right now. I actually get ordained as a Deacon next month.

And as part of my Deacon training, we had a session with a couple of my Bishops – Bishop Beth and Bishop Mike. And someone in my cohort asked Bishop Beth – if I spill communion wine on my white robes, what’s the best way to get that off? And you know, I thought Bishop Beth was going to say, “Use Tide Pods!” Don’t eat Tide Pods – this is 2025, not 2020.

But you know, I thought she’d say, “Use Tide Pods”. Instead, she said this: “You want to take that robe with the spilled wine to an outdoor tap, and you want to make sure as you’re washing the robe that the communion wine flows directly into the earth.” Wow!

Now we may not do that here at Lakeside but do you know why Anglicans and Catholics and Orthodox Christian priests do that? Because there’s something truly holy about Jesus’ Table.

But there’s something else about Jesus’ Table – Jesus’ Table isn’t just holy; it’s accessible too. And that’s because Jesus himself pulls up a seat for us at his Table. And he invites us to participate in this holy feast. And he invites us to be formed and transformed as we participate in his holy feast. And from his holy table, he sends us out to participate in his holy mission of making all things new – of being peacemakers and bringing God’s wholeness and Shalom to our communities, schools and workplaces this week.

The Lord’s Prayer and the Lord’s Table go hand in hand. Just like the Lord’s Prayer, that Jesus handed down to us through the church mothers and fathers, the Lord’s Table is also a tradition that Jesus has passed down to us through the Church. The Lord’s Prayer and the Lord’s Table both form us to be more like Jesus in our world today. And this morning, we get to participate in both the Lord’s Prayer and the Lord’s Table.

You see, we, the Church, are merely facilitators of this Holy Table; it’s Jesus’ Table so all are welcome. And Jesus modeled this Open, Inclusive Table for us by making space for even Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, to participate in his Table. If Judas had a seat at Jesus’ Table, then all of us are welcome this morning.

Preached at Lakeside Church in Guelph, ON (Canada) on Sunday, January 19, 2025.