Our Money Story: Remember

This morning we begin the first of three weeks looking at the Lord’s Prayer. We also begin four weeks thinking together about stewardship. Now, you may say that connecting these two things  makes no sense whatsoever. How in the world does money connect with prayer? 

Well, if you’re at all like me, this makes perfect sense. Because for many of us, I would imagine, at some time in our lives we have spoken a desperate prayer to God, asking for money. Maybe it was at the end of the month, when the money from our paycheck was no more. Wondering how we might make it to the end of the month. Put food on the table for our families. Pay our electricity bill to keep the lights on. I dare say that the connection of money and prayer makes perfect sense.

So, today, we read the Lord’s Prayer, not as we generally know it, from Matthew. But, from Luke. A shorter, more condensed prayer. To the point. Just like the direct conversation about money we will be having over these next weeks. 

For us to think and to speak directly of money is to automatically invite tension into this space. We quickly want to avoid the conversation. Yet, money and possessions are one of the most common topics in scripture. Jesus talked about money more than faith. Or prayer. So, our money story is a spiritual story. Over these next weeks, you will be invited to explore your money story. To compare it to God’s money story. And to consider making your own stewardship practices a fuller expression of God’s story. And of who you are. And what you believe. 

So, we begin today, reading three short verses that we will be using for each of these weeks. Today, I am reading from the Common English Bible translation. 

Jesus told them, “When you pray, say:
‘Father, uphold the holiness of your name.
Bring in your kingdom.
Give us the bread we need for today.
Forgive us our sins,
    for we also forgive everyone who has wronged us.
And don’t lead us into temptation.’” --Luke 11:2-4 (CEB)

We begin today by considering the first verse. “Father, uphold the holiness of your name. Bring in your kingdom.”

In our book club this month, we read a lovely book written for middle school children - One Crazy Summer, by Rita Garcia-Williams. It’s the story of 11-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters. And of their experience in the summer of 1968 traveling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with a mother they barely know. When they arrive in Oakland, they learn that their mother has taken on a new first name. They’ve only heard about her as Cecile. Yet, she has changed her first name to more fully reflect who she is. Nzila. A poet’s name, she says. “A poet who blows the dust off surfaces to make clear and true paths.”

This is not something appreciated by 11-year-old Delphine. Just a few pages later, Delphine notes that a “name is important. It isn’t something you drop in the litter basket or on the ground. Your name is how people know you. The very mention of your name makes a picture spring to mind, whether it’s a picture of clashing fists or a mighty mountain that can’t be knocked down. Your name is who you are and how you’re known even when you do something great or something dumb.”

Your name is who you are and how you’re known. Isn’t that why Jesus begins his prayer the way he does? With a name that tells us who he is and how he knows God? Father. Parent. In the Aramaic, Abba? This is how Jesus addresses God and how he invites his disciples to address God. Up to this point, it was unusual to name God in this way. The Hebrew scriptures sometimes compared God to a father, but it is rare that they referred to God as Father. Jesus uses this title to reshape the disciples’ thinking about who this God is. Shifting their understanding from the angry God that the Jewish people had come to know. And instead expanding their understanding and relationship with God as one of parent and child. Giving them permission to call God, Father. And to claim their protected position as God’s own children.

Now, for some of us, to call God, Father, can be difficult. Especially if we have not had good relationships with our fathers. Or have had negative experiences with patriarchy. Yet, it’s important for us to understand that as we are created in the image of God, so God is in the image of human beings, possessing both male and female attributes. Parental attributes. Loving, compassionate, nurturing. Yet firm, establishing necessary boundaries for their children and in their relationships with their children. To call God, Father, or Abba, is to simply view God as parent.

But, as young Delphine notes in the book we read, one’s name is not just who one is, but also how one is known. However we address God as parent, we are invited to regard God’s name as holy. As God is holy. The Hebrews believed that the name of God was so sacred, that they used the word Jehovah. A word that in Hebrew could be pronounced without any consonants. Like a breath moving through their lips. Yehovah. A name spoken with whispered awe. Awe appropriate for such a powerful and deeply loving heavenly Father. A Father whose reign is not just limited to the heavens. But, a powerful and loving Father who seeks to pour out God’s heavenly reign into this world. “Bring in your kingdom,” Jesus teaches the disciples to pray. Bring in your kingdom of peace and justice. Your kingdom of love. Bring it to this world, this earth, this planet, this ecology, to these animals, to these people, even to the industry of our world. So that you, Father, might be fully experienced here. Just as in heaven. This is the prayer Jesus teaches the disciples. And what Jesus was living out on earth, offering and living into an economy, as Walter Brueggemann writes, “that was sure to collide with established economic patterns and with those who presided over and benefited from these patterns.” Jesus’ term for this alternative economy was “kingdom of God.” A social practice. And a set of social relationships there were consistent with the God of the covenant. The God of Israel. To mention this “kingdom of God,” was to call on Jesus’ disciples to remember who this God - this Father - was. [1]

It’s the same God we remember every time we celebrate communion and hear the Great Thanksgiving - the words that precede our receiving the bread and wine, the body and blood. In this thanksgiving, we remember how God moved over the waters. How God led Israel with a pillar of fire from bondage to liberation. We remember that still, small voice and then the prophets, proclaiming a new way - a new Messiah. We remember Mary and Joseph and the angels. The blind man and the leper. And the crowds that Jesus healed. Him walking on water. The little children running to him. We remember the justice he preached. The hosannas and palm branches. The love that changed the world. We remember this each and every week so that we do not forget who this God is. And so that we remember who we are. And, what our money story is to be.

So much of our beliefs and our behaviors are rooted in stories. Narratives that are personal, familial, societal, cultural, and religious. We subconsciously absorb and construct many money stories. Perhaps our money stories are about scarcity. Coming from or living in stories of fear and shame. Of never having enough. Perhaps they are stories that the church is dying and no longer relevant. Or the stories that our actions in this world won’t have any impact. 

How might we begin to unpack and reconstruct these stories to make them a better reflection of who we know God to be? Who we remember God to be. The God of scripture. The God who meets Israel in the wilderness with manna. Who, even in the midst of desperate and fearful prayers, provides. Abundantly. An extravagantly loving God. Never content with just a heavenly kingdom. But who pours out that love into a Spirit-breathed creation. To bring life and freedom. This is the God we remember.

May we, over these weeks, begin to tease apart our own complicated money stories. To rewrite them if necessary. So that they more fully reflect what we believe. Who God is. And who we remember and know this God to be. Our Father, Lord of heaven and earth. Amen.

Preached August 23, 2020, online at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.

12th Sunday after Pentecost

Readings: Luke 11:2-4; Psalm 103:1-5

[1] Brueggemann, Walter. Money and Possessions. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016). 23.

Learning to Follow: Life in Relationship

“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“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. 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.

“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

“Pray then in this way:

Our Father in heaven,
    hallowed be your name.
    Your kingdom come.
    Your will be done,
        on earth as it is in heaven.
    Give us this day our daily bread.
    And forgive us our debts,
        as we also have forgiven our debtors.
    And do not bring us to the time of trial,
        but rescue us from the evil one.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. (Matt. 6:1-20 NRSV)


Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator; Jesus, our Redeemer; and the Holy Spirit, our Sustainer. Amen.

Good morning! Welcome to week 2 in our sermon series on “Learning to Follow.” We’re spending 3 weeks in chapters 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew, a series of teachings called the Sermon on the Mount. 

Last week, we focused on chapter 5, in which we saw the great reversal that is God’s kingdom. That, unlike the world, which values “winners,” God values the losers. The broken, who are among us and out in our world. Those on the margins. 

We also learned that, as God’s forgiven and called people, our lives are also to be lives of great reversals. Lives where our focus is on God. And, then, lives in the world as salt and light. Salt meaning catalyst. Light meaning illumination. So, to be people who get things going and then who lead the way in the world.

So, how do we do this? It’s easy for me to stand up here and tell you to be salt and light. To get things going and to lead the way. But, if you’re at all the practical person that I am, I wonder how we become people like this. What are the steps? What’s the step-by-step instruction to transform us into God’s salt and light? How do we learn to follow?

These are the questions Jesus focuses on in today’s lesson. Now, if you were listening carefully, you heard three steps. Three practices that Jesus lays out in this teaching. What are they?

In the verse 2, Jesus talks about almsgiving. What is almsgiving? Yes, it is giving money to the poor. Practice number one.

Then, near the end of our reading, in verse 16, Jesus gives instruction on fasting. Practice number two.

Finally, in the heart of today’s reading and, interestingly, in the exact center of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches about prayer. Practice number 3. And, given its location in the middle of Jesus’ teaching, it is the focal point. The most important of the three. Prayer.

So, who of you would like to open our time of study today with a prayer? Exactly as I thought. None of you are chomping at the bit to pray, particularly, to pray out loud. I know exactly how you feel. Because I was once in your place. Thinking that praying out loud was for the professionals, right? That’s why we train up pastors to lead our worship, to prepare the prayers for us to be used in worship. Because they’re the professionals!

I have to share with you that earlier this week, I was in a gathering of pastors from our conference - all Lutherans, all experienced pastors, all who have been doing this for awhile. And, when, our conference dean invited one of us to say the opening prayer, we were all just like you. Completely silent. So much for being the “professionals!”

Why are so many of us so afraid of prayer? Perhaps we think that the words we pray aren’t good enough, aren’t sophisticated enough. Or perhaps we think that our simple, 2-3 sentence prayer is not long enough. After all, if we pray to God, to a deity who we profess to be all powerful, all knowing, and all present - doesn’t God deserve some long, flowery prayer from us? (I remember once being at a rally for workers and a local pastor was invited to open the rally with a prayer. It went on and on and on. To the point that I began to pray to God, “Please God, let this prayer end!”)

So, I found it really interesting this week, as I studied this text, that things weren’t much different in Jesus’ day. In verse 7 of today’s reading, Jesus begins his remarks on prayer with this sentence, “When you pray, don’t pile up a jumbled heap of words! That’s what the Gentiles do. They reckon that the more they say, the more they are likely to be heard.”

That was the practice of Jesus’ day in the non-Jewish world. We know from many writings of that time that many non-Jews used a particular formula in their prayers. That they would use long, complicated magic words that they would repeat over and over and over again. They did this because they believed that this would eventually tire out their gods and goddesses to the point that they would eventually relent and give what was asked. They also believed that, unless what one was praying for was given in the greatest possible detail, it was a very real possibility that the wrong favor would be granted. It’s like a child who was not just asking for an animated stuffed animal this past Christmas, but, a child asking, specifically, for Bella, a Fingerlings Hugs - the Advanced Interactive Plush Baby Monkey Pet by WowWee. Just to ensure that she would get what she wanted.

So, Jesus teaches a very different prayer practice. Because Jesus teaches about a very different kind of God. One who already knows what we need even before we ask. One who doesn’t need to be worn down, but who is ready to provide. And one who seeks to be in a relationship with us that is the same as that of a father or a mother to a child. And, so, Jesus gives the crowd - his many followers - a framework for prayer.

Notice I said a framework. Because as Jesus introduces this prayer that we know by heart, he doesn’t necessarily say to use this prayer, but to “pray, then, in this way.” Like this. Not word for word, necessarily. But, using this framework. A simple four part framework that, by the way, Jesus gives in Aramaic. The language of the people. Instead of Hebrew, the language of the synagogue. Which, in itself, is a signal to us that God doesn’t want us to use some magic formula, but to talk to God - the creator of the universe - using our own words and our own language.

First step in the framework. Jesus locates God above all. “Our Father in heaven.” This doesn’t mean a god who exists in some remote place or afterlife. Or a man-made idol. In Jesus’ day, this title for God took the Jewish people back to God’s acts in the Exodus. Acts of deliverance and rescue. Acts by a God who is over all things. Who loved them. And who loves us. Like a parent.

Second step. Jesus acknowledges God’s name as holy. In Israel, after the Babylonian exile, the divine name was regarded as too sacred to be said aloud. It was replaced with the Hebrew word Adonai (My Lord) and, then, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, with Kyrios, meaning Lord. When Jesus acknowledges the holiness of God’s name, he wants it to be as holy to us as it was to Israel. And that God’s name and the holiness of God name might be spread throughout the world. And spoken with reverence, not as some afterthought. 

Third step. Jesus gives privilege to God’s kingdom and God’s will. “Your will be done. Your kingdom come.” In this step, Jesus sets God’s kingdom and God’s will as the priority. God’s kingdom, or God’s reign, brings deliverance and salvation, presence, restorative justice, peace, healing, joy, repentance, and return to God. These are the seven characteristics of God’s reign in Isaiah. We are to pray for it. That it might be accomplished. Not in heaven, where it already exists, but, here. On earth. Now. 

Fourth step. Jesus invites us to pray for what we need. But, before we move further into this step, did you notice the focus of three of the four steps? The focal point of 75% of the prayer? Yep. It’s God. Why? Because God and God’s will are to be the priority. And, because God already knows what we need. So, while prayers for gifts of daily bread and material things we need in our lives, plus prayers for mercy - that we might forgive others to the extent that God has forgiven us - as well as, prayers that God might deliver us from trial and temptation and from the wicked...while all of these might be important for us mostly to calm our anxiety and our own lack of faith, for God these prayers for our needs are nearly superfluous. Because God is so attuned to us and our needs that we need not even ask for them. 

There you have it. A four-point plan for prayer. A methodology for you and I to reach out to our God. Because that’s really what this is about, isn’t it? It’s about our relationship with God and God’s relationship with us. A relationship initiated and implemented by God through Jesus Christ. A relationship modeled by Jesus. A communal relationship. Because, did you notice that all of the pronouns other than those that refer to God are in the first person plural? Give us our daily bread. Lead us not into temptation. Forgive us. Not me. 

Jesus is very practical. He knows that the more we engage in prayer, in talking to God, and in deepening our relationship with God, the more we will turn to God and seek to be among God’s people. To deepen our relationships together, which then lead to the other spiritual practices. Practices that lead us to action. To serve those on the margins - who are the priority in God’s kingdom. To give to the poor. To fast,  so that we might fully understand what it feels like to be hungry.

Through prayer God changes us, turning us from our own greed and our own priorities to God’s priorities in God’s kingdom. Today. Now. "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” May God make it so. Amen.

Preached February 3, 2019, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Epiphany 4.
Readings: Matthew 6:1-20; Psalm 20:7.