“Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” – Matthew 6:9 RSV
In my own faith journey, being able to see God as a truly loving and personally present Father who is pleased with even my most feeble efforts to follow Him and live the life He has made me to live is a relatively recent development. Up until a few years ago, my prevailing image of God the Father was a bit more harsh. Like a detached Ward Cleaver, standing off in the distance shaking his head with a look of resigned disappointment on His face. Or less-than-jolly old Santa Claus making his list and checking it twice, with a “Naughty” column that seemed to be much fuller than the “Nice” one.
Indeed, the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer can be hijacked to paint a picture of the Father cutting a towering figure in a distant realm of Heaven, impersonal and imposing. Growing up Catholic with fairly strict parents, Jesus’ kicking off His blueprint for prayer with these words is a bit problematic on the surface. But while I’m sure the Lord wanted the disciples, and us, to always carry the proper reverence toward the Father, I believe that if we look closer, He’s not so much painting a picture of the Father, but more of the attitude we should always seek to bring when we approach His throne. An attitude of praise. Far from trying to make God seem more distant and unknowable in these opening words, He reminds us that God deeply desires our worship and praise, not from some need for self-gratification or an ego boost, but because He wants us to always be mindful of how good He is and how much He loves us.
Our praise to the Father is a sweet aroma, a New Testament version of the sweet aroma of burnt offerings that His people would offer up in Old Testament times. It says “God, you give us all good things, and so we offer back to you the best we have of that goodness, praising and acknowledging Your perfect love and care for us as Your children.” Jesus teaches us to revere the Father for who He is – merciful, loving, kind, and always working for our good. Keeping that picture of our Father opens our hearts and minds to His name being truly worthy to be hallowed (holy) above all other names. His throne room doors are swung wide open and we can approach with joy and boldness knowing we’ve come to the right place, to the One who truly can and will handle every concern we bring before Him.
God’s name is holy. But what exactly is God’s name? In our Western culture, just capital G “God” seems to be the default. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but it does seem to rob us of an opportunity to expand our thinking about who our Father really is. In Moses’ life-changing encounter with God in Exodus 3, He tells Moses that his name is “I AM.” My lack of formal Biblical scholarship notwithstanding, I believe what He’s telling Moses with this name is that beyond and above all time and space and matter, He exists. He’s not just a being. He’s The Being. And that makes His name something that’s far beyond a word, or a label, or even something that can or should be casually spoken at all.
I’m not a Hebrew scholar, but my mom was. During her studies I recall her talking about the unpronounceable name of God – something scholars call the Tetragrammaton – written as YHWH in Hebrew. (Of course, when you don’t use vowels, isn’t everything unpronounceable?) From that we get Yahweh and Jehovah (a Latin derivative) as names for the Almighty. The Israelites had many names for God: Yahweh, Jehovah (names that the Hebrews dared not speak) Elohim, and Adonai to name a few. Adonai seems to be the more favored name and if you’re a fan of The Chosen, that’s how they refer to the Father in the show. Whatever name God might have on his hypothetical drivers license though, Jesus wants us to always be mindful that Our Father and His name are to be kept sacred and holy.
Personally, I think any name we give God which strengthens our image and deepens our relationship with Him as a loving Father is likely pleasing and acceptable to Him. I once had a dream where God seemed to manifest as a big happy smiling Hawaiian man, like a big teddy bear Don Ho type of dude. It was early on in my journey toward a more loving fatherly image of God, and it really resonated with me. I looked up the Hawaiian word for “father” and discovered the term Makua kane. So now when I pray privately, I often use that term to help center my thoughts on a more loving, smiling, teddy bear of a heavenly Father than that 50s sitcom dad waiting to hear what trouble I got into today. (Sorry Ward, just grab your pipe and have a seat. Dinner will be ready in an hour.)
One other challenge I see from the generic capital G God name we tend to use is it can open a door to some judgmental and potentially misguided thinking. I recently had a conversation with someone who had said that they’d started watching a movie but turned it off after 20 minutes or so because of all the times that various characters used the phrase “god damn.” I get the thinking since we’re commanded in Exodus 20:7 not to take the Lord’s name in vain. But similar to the angst in some circles over profanity, I’m not sure we have a great handle on where, or if, we’re the ones who should be worried about drawing that line. There’s probably a whole separate post to be had around what it really means to do that and I’m not going to get into that here. I’m just going to keep an open mind to how we choose to address our Heavenly Father and trust that if we bring the right attitude, it’s all good.
Bottom line, whatever you take from Jesus’ opening words, as you learn to pray more intimately with your Father, may it draw you closer to Him. For me, learning to pray more meaningfully in the way Jesus taught us starts like this:
Our Father – My big smiling, happy, kind Makua kane.
Who art in Heaven – Door wide open to Your throne, waiting to welcome me into Your loving arms to share time with me, Your beloved child.
Hallowed be thy name – May my speaking your beloved, endearing name be the sweetest of aromas to you, filling your presence with joy and praise.