Beloved Children of God
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
25 July 2010: am
The Revd Judith Wigglesworth
- Colossians 2:6-12
- Luke 11:1-13
“How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” The closing words of our Gospel passage this morning contain two verbs: give and ask. Together, they sum up what is happening here this morning, in worship and prayer, and in welcoming three new members of the family of Christ in baptism.
In the passage from the gospel of Luke, the disciples ask Jesus: “Lord, teach us to pray”. In Jesus’ reply is the essence of the prayer we know as the Lord’s Prayer. We say it week by week in our Sunday worship; some of us may pray it daily in our own times of prayer. For some, the familiar phrases may evoke memories of when we first said them or learned them, or a heartfelt appreciation of how the words sum up all we do when we come to God in prayer. For some the words may roll off the lips without much thought, but for others the words may be new, unfamiliar, or a symbol of a faith we haven’t yet encompassed in our lives.
Wherever you sit on that continuum, let’s take a moment to look closely at just some of the words of the Lord’s Prayer – this prayer that is a gem, a gift from Jesus – both to the disciples then and to us today.
The prayer is addressed to “Father”, or as we usually say “Our Father”. The concept of the fatherhood of God was not something new to the New Testament. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the first occurrence of the idea of God as the Father comes when God tells Moses to say to the Pharaoh in Egypt: “Thus says the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son...Let my son go that he may worship me”. So Jesus’ listeners, probably familiar with the Hebrew scriptures, would have known that bound up in that word “Father”, was not just the concept of fatherhood, but also the concept of liberation – a new freedom.
Furthermore, the words “Our Father” are not just the starting point of the prayer, but a goal of the prayer in its entirety. Jesus was teaching that to be able to call God “Father” we need to be in relationship with God. This relationship was, and is, offered as a gift. The gift of liberation eventually came to the Israelite slaves in Egypt, and in Jesus Christ it reaches a new level of freedom through his death and resurrection.
The Lord’s Prayer also seeks the coming of the kingdom of God. Matthew’s fuller version includes the words “on earth as in heaven”, but even in Luke, with the words “your kingdom come”, there is a sense that the kingdom is not somewhere we go but something that comes. Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham, has written a very readable book called "The Lord and His Prayer" in which he teases out all the key phrases of the Lord’s Prayer. In relation to the kingdom, he writes: “The kingdom did indeed come with Jesus; but it will fully come when the world is healed, when the whole creation finally joins in the song. But...it must be Jesus’ music. And the only way to be sure of that is to pray his prayer.”
The “daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer has several layers of meaning: looking at the Greek in Matthew the emphasis seems to be on giving us today our bread for tomorrow, whereas Luke understands it as giving us each day our daily bread. They probably reflect different aspects of what Jesus intended. Either way, in the concept of bread is the concept of being fed; and in the concept of being fed there is the dimension of the nourishment of gathering around the Lord’s table. And the sacrament of baptism that we celebrate today leads us directly to that table.
Nathaniel, Lucy and Gretchen are being presented for baptism. In the words spoken by their parents and godparents, they will ask for the gift of a new freedom in God, and a new relationship with God, through Jesus Christ. They will be offered a glimpse of God’s kingdom, and nourishment through the Eucharist. Today the Holy Spirit will pour out God’s blessing on Nathaniel, Lucy and Gretchen. But what happens after that? How is baptism lived out, and expressed in their lives ahead?
Some more words of the Lord’s Prayer give us a clue. In the Lord’s Prayer we ask for God to forgive our sins, as we ourselves forgive others. There is reciprocity in those words. It is the way we, as children of God and followers of Jesus, are to live our lives. Just as we claim God’s blessing of forgiveness, so we are called to live by the same central blessing. Prayer and life are meant to be “locked indissolubly together”.
For Nathaniel and Lucy, baptised as infants, their parents and godparents will take a key role in nurturing their faith as they grow and become aware of the gift of baptism that has been bestowed on them. Gretchen, age 11, takes this step, also with the support and love of her parents and godparents, but is more aware right now of the meaning of baptism. On all three of them, the love of God, the light of Jesus Christ, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, will fall today and every day.
What about us, the community of faith gathered today in worship. First, we are witnesses and welcomers to these three beloved children of God. But there is more. In the words of Joy Cowley, “Life offers many opportunities that are baptismal if we make them so. At night we can give up our day to God before we immerse ourselves in sleep. When we wake in the morning to a fresh day, we can feel God’s words passed on to us through Jesus: ‘this is my beloved daughter/son in whom I am well pleased’".
We won’t get our relationship with God right all the time – but our Gospel reading reminds us to be persistent. We, like Nathaniel, Lucy and Gretchen, will need to ask, seek and knock again and again to tap into the grace-filled potential of life in Christ. Through this persistence we will, in the words of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, be given the opportunity to live our lives rooted and built up in Christ, established in faith, and abounding in thanksgiving.
May this be so, for all of us.
Amen.
