Anyone ever seen the original The Parent Trap with Hayle Mills done in 1961? Have you seen the remake from 1998? In the remake Lindsay Lohan plays the twins and Dennis Quaid is the father. If you know the story then you’ll remember that identical twins, separated at birth by their parent’s divorce meet 11 years later at camp and change places. They want to meet the parent they’ve never had.
As Annie James, Lindsay flies home to her father who doesn’t expect anything out of the ordinary. Their conversation goes like this.
She runs to embrace him with a big smile, saying, "Dad! Finally!" The father tells her he missed her and a lot had been happening. Annie responds, "A lot’s been happening to me too, Dad. I mean, I feel I’m practically a new woman!"
In the car Quaid notices she can’t stop looking at him and asks, "What? Did I cut myself shaving?"
Annie answers, "No. It’s just seeing you for the first time. I mean, you know, in so long."
As they drive Annie discusses the camp, ending almost every sentence with "Dad". He asks, "Why do you keep saying ’Dad’ at the end of every sentence?"
Annie answers, "I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was doing it, Dad. Sorry, Dad." They both laugh. "Do you want to know why I keep saying ’Dad’? The truth?"
The father says, "Because you missed your old man so much, right?"
"Exactly. It’s because in my whole life—I mean, you know, for the past eight weeks—I was never able to say the word ’Dad’. Never. Not once. And if you ask me, a dad is an irreplaceable person in a girl’s life. Think about it. There’s a whole day devoted to celebrating fathers. Just imagine someone’s life without a father. Never buying a Father’s Day card. Never sitting on their father’s lap. Or being able to say ’Hi, Dad,’ or, ’What’s up, Dad?’ or, ’Catch you later, Dad.’ I mean, a baby’s first words are always ’Dada,’ aren’t they?"
The father asks, "Let me see if I get this. You missed being able to call me ’Dad’?"
Annie answers, "Yeah, I really have, Dad."1
I imagine you get the point. We too have someone who we call "Dad". Yes, I’m well aware not everyone fathers like shown on our bulletin. But God revealed Himself to us as Father not so we’d perceive maleness; but so that we might understand the care and intimacy He provides for those who are His children.
I believe that those who had rotten and hellish relationships with their fathers will find in God a Father who is able to heal their pain and loss. Those who embrace the God as Father can find the absent father has been replaced with the one who will never leave you or forsake you. The find the abusive father is replaced by a real Father, one who protects and keeps us safe. The weak, emasculated father is now the Almighty who is strong to save. The father who ruled by fear, threat and guilt now urges us with a true love devotion to what is best for us.
In this politically correct culture we live in it may be frowned upon but the fact is God’s self-revelation is that of "Father" but as Karl Barth said, ""when Scripture calls God our Father, it adopts an analogy only to transcend it at once." That is, Jesus moves us beyond our understanding of Fatherhood and gives us a picture of the perfect Father—God. It’s not the distant and aloof father of Mary Poppins or Life with Father. It’s not the abusive drunk who beats, abuses, and abandons. And its not the George Burns and Morgan Freeman version of god who hands out power and serves as the dispenser of wisdom. The God of the Bible is our daddy. He’s Abba.
Let me step away from the prayer for a moment to share with you why the movement away from "Father" language. It is somewhat related to the issue of male image but I believe at a deeper level it is an attempt to keep God at arms length. It is a human attempt to make God something other than the personal, intimate, seeker of the lost that His son came to save.
The first phrase that we are considering is, "Our Father who is in heaven, holy is your name." It sets the stage for what is to come because it is not the prayer of a peon to a Lord; or the underling to the master. We come to God as his children. God is NOT everyone’s father. God is the father of those who trust in Jesus, His son. John 1:12 says, "But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name" ASV.
This simple statement contrasts two very interesting views of God. The first, our Father. The second, Holy is your name. Perhaps you’ve seen the TV ad for Cingular a young man is told to call his future father-in-law Jim rather than Mr. McDermott. The son-in-law gets carried away with Jim, then Jimmy Boy, The Jimster, then he sings, "Jimmy cracked corn and I don’t care." You see Mr. McDermott grinning but the young man hears nothing because his call’s been dropped. He soon reverts to Jim, Mr. McDermott and finally Sir.
The intimacy of the Father over against the Holy God of Israel. The name that dare not be uttered has been revealed to us and it’s Dad. Even today many Jewish websites spell the word God with an asterisk in place of the o—G*d out of fear of using the name in vain. But those who are God’s children, those who have been adopted by God are free to call him Father.
This holiness moves God far beyond our human understanding even while the Fatherhood of God draws Him close. This is an age-old knife-edge of intimacy vs. transcendence. But the two go hand-in-hand for without a sense of his intimate presence of the Father we will find it difficult to accept the Lordship of a Holy God. Likewise, without a sense of God’s total ’otherness’ we cannot understand the depth of His demonstrated in Jesus by our Heavenly Father. This awareness comes about not through our intellect "but with the eyes of the heart."2
So why is this so important to us today? This prayer is a counterpoint to what was going on in their society. Religiously devote Jews often prayed in public. If their daily chores took them someplace and it was time to pray they prayed. I don’t think that’s what Jesus is against. He’s against the grandstanding when it came to prayer. Those who called attention to themselves as they prayed. Those who wanted to let everyone see how nice they were.
The paganism may have been less common but would have been present in the Roman army and others who came along with them. Their use words and incantations; magic and repetitive phrases would have probably been known to those in the Middle East as well. Jesus’ point is that neither the "religiously" correct prayer; nor the attempt to control God by the amount of words we say will have any affect on God. We don’t impress God with how we pray. We don’t awe God by our vocabulary or intonation. We can’t bore God into answering us. All the whining in the world won’t make God ignore His perfect will for us.
It is important because our conversations with God and about God are great barometers of our relationship to God. If our prayer is mindless chatter without any attention or thought it reflects the importance we put into our relationship with God. If our prayers are hurried affairs without any depth it is likely we relate to God with very little depth or commitment. If the prayers we make are a list of what I want God to do then it says something about how we see God’s role in our existence. Do you understand what I’m getting at?
In our culture and even sometimes in our own lives, we find we aren’t any different than those who Jesus condemned. We too, try to impress God. We remind God of all we’ve done for Him. We get up early on Sunday to go to church. We give money to the church. We’ve stopped cussing and smoking and given up other bad habits. We complain that God doesn’t do things the way we like. We grudgingly take a couple of minutes while we brush our teeth to pray and maybe bow our head over lunch and fall asleep after praying, "thank God today is over". Is that the type of intimate prayer our Lord is talking about? Is that the attitude we should have when we stand in the presence of the Holy God of creation and Lord of all that exists?
Some weakly repeat these 65 words[3] without any thought as to what they are saying. Some repeat those words without any sense of God as holy or as father. Some recite this prayer daily with a hope that it will magically make everything better. Some devoutly pray this prayer but don’t know the God or the Father to whom they are praying.
Alfred Lord Tennyson while on the Isle or Wight was met by a man described as an overwhelming bore by the name of Oscar Browning. He apparently approached Tennyson, stuck out his hand, and declared, "I am Browning." Tennyson knew only one Browning, Robert Browning and so he looked at the extended hand, said to the man, "No, you’re not", and moved on.
It is an unfortunate truth that many people are busy sticking their hands out to God and declaring to Him that they are His children when, in fact, they have never been humbled by their sins and come to God on His terms. When we know we’ve been called by God to enter into His family and we’ve taken advantage of that we can be confident in praying "Our Father". But that happens only through the power and blood of Jesus.
Consider the insert in your bulletin titled "Prayer Exercise". Last week I asked you to note how and when you prayed. Now I want us to start looking at how we address God when we pray. What are your favorite words when it comes to God? I’ve given you a list of passages you might check out to see if there are some new ones for you to experiment with.
A second exercise is to start changing the emphasis in what you pray. To do this just take the verse we’ve looked at today and recite it. The first time emphasis the first word, "OUR Father who is in heaven". The second time emphasis the second word, "Our FATHER who is in heave" and so on. When you do this you are going to discover that there are certain things thoughts, ideas, feelings, and the like that jump out at you when you stress certain words. Maybe it will be father, or heaven but something will pop with you. Try it and know that God will meet you as you pray.
1 The Parent Trap 1998 Disney imdb http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120783/ accessed January 18, 2007
2 Leadership fall 1993, p. 68
3 This is the count in the NIV translation
