The great American theologian and philosopher Julius Henry Marx — better known to us as Groucho — once said that the secret to life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you have got it made.
Authenticity. That is the operative word this morning.
I did two things this past week that I do not enjoy. I had my first root canal, and I watched myself preach. I am not sure which was more painful. And watching, I noticed that when the camera is on my right side, it looks for all the world as though I am wearing a very bad hairpiece. Somebody who does not usually cut my hair cut my hair, and my hair has gone gray on the sides but not yet on top, and the effect is a rug. A cheap one. I promise you this is real. If I were going to buy a rug it would be a better rug than this, and it would not have these cowlicks, which have been following me around for sixty-eight years and which no barber has ever managed to remove.
Everything you see here is the real deal. Which is exactly the point Jesus is making in Matthew 6, where he says that when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. That is the actual Greek word, hypokritai, and at the time it meant an actor on a stage — someone playing a role, pretending to be somebody he is not, quite often wearing a mask. You have seen the thespian masks, tragedy and comedy. That is the picture. Do not, Jesus says, pray with a mask on.
Do not stand up in the synagogue and pray long, lofty prayers so that people will marvel at how spiritual you are. Do not pile up empty phrases. I have sat through a Thanksgiving meal with a roomful of pastors where the man asked to bless the food prayed so long the gravy had skin on it. I had the distinct impression he was getting all his praying done for the week. Do not do that. Go into your room, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret.
And then Jesus hands us the model — the one prayer that, apart from help, is universally known. Three things it tells us about the God we are talking to.
He is immanent
Not eminent. Immanent — close by, near at hand, a God who draws so close to his people that he is a Father. Our Father in heaven. We take that for granted because we have heard it all our lives. For the people on that hillside in Galilee it was radical. They knew God as creator, lawgiver, judge, deliverer, miracle worker, even husband. Father is something the gospel introduces.
Our son Andrew was about three when he found a photograph of my father in his dress blues, medals and ribbons and all. Dad was a career Air Force pilot who flew and fought in the Second World War and Korea, and he was my hero. We had our struggles when I was fifteen and far too smart for the old man, but we worked through them, and we were on very good terms when he died suddenly at the beginning of my second year of college. He never saw me graduate, never saw me ordained, never met Heidi or the kids. He would have loved them.
So I am telling Andrew all of this, and he interrupts me. And he would love me. Yes, son. He absolutely would. And what made a three-year-old so sure of a man he had never met was that my father's son was standing there telling him about my father.
You want to know what God Almighty is like? Look at Jesus. And notice it is our Father, not my Father. This is a family thing, not a solo thing.
He is transcendent
Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, and the seraphim crying holy, holy, holy. Hallowed be your name — honored, sacred, not to be handled flippantly. Your kingdom come, your will be done.
That second one is a dangerous prayer, because when you pray it you are making yourself available, and you do not know in advance what it will cost. I will say something unpopular: spirituality without sacrifice is the modern American evangelical heresy. We have somehow decided we can follow Jesus without any major change to our lives and without it costing us anything. I do not know what Bible that comes from. Jesus said take up your cross and follow me.
And if our Lord could pray in Gethsemane, not as I will, but as you will, knowing exactly what was coming, then we can pray it over our ordinary Tuesdays. Whatever the cost, he is worth the price.
He is gracious
Give us this day our daily bread. For those people on the hillside that was not a quaint saying. There was no refrigeration. That was survival, today.
Our problem is the opposite one, and it may step on some toes: many of us are overfed physically and malnourished spiritually. Henri Nouwen put it better than I can — much of what our culture calls important is like the final meal given to a man awaiting execution. It tastes wonderful. It does not keep him alive.
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Some of you carry deep wounds and I do not say this glibly, but holding bitterness is like swallowing poison and hoping your enemy dies. That grudge only hurts you. Take it to the cross, and take it there daily — you may have to bleed that one out slowly. The person you set free will be you.
When I talk to God I talk to him in a way I will not talk to anybody else. More open, more blunt. What am I going to do, fool him? He knows my heart. So I tell him what I am angry about and where my frustrations are. Respectfully — but plainly. He is big enough. You are not going to rock his world.
Come strong. Come clean. Come honest. Come straight. He will meet you wherever you are, as long as you are real.
