Abba. Hallowed.
Can you remember a time when you became very aware that you were in a different culture? Maybe you were traveling internationally and found yourselves amid people who didn’t look like you or speak your language. Or perhaps you simply found yourself in a part of the city where people of differing ethnicities call home, and you felt like you were in another part of the world. It could also be that ethnicity had little to do with it. It is possible to find yourself in the company of others who look and sound like you, yet approach life very differently. Sometimes marriage or friendship brings us this exposure.
We tend to move through the world with a base assumption that everyone else sees the world as we do. We eventually discover that is not the case! We then have a choice. Do we get curious and embrace the differences, growing our understanding of others (and ourselves), or do we get grumpy and judgy, believing that these “others” are wrong?
I grew up in a family and in churches that were quite reserved. The focus of faith, in particular, was on what we thought more than what we felt or what we did with our beliefs. I even heard “non-thinking” expressions belittled at times. “Don’t trust your feelings (or express them!)” and “You can’t work your way into salvation” come to mind. And yet, as I experienced different communities of people, and different families, and different faith communities, I was challenged to reconsider my bias toward my narrow way of being in the world.
This is important when it comes to our faith as Jesus followers. Jesus wasn’t a Westerner. The culture that shaped him was not overly shaped by Greek thought, which is more cerebral and logic oriented. (Note: this is not to say that other worldviews are uninformed or unthinking). Jesus and the Judaism that informed him certainly were devoted to their scriptures and traditions and took them very seriously. Yet they were Easterners. They held the text differently than Westerners. They were moved more by the overarching story than getting caught up in the literalness of the stories they shared. And they were feelers and experiencers of their faith. Prayers and songs were meant to be lived and breathed, and not simply to pass down a story or support a theological position like penal substitutionary atonement, which so many classic hymns focus upon.
When we venture into the Lord’s Prayer (or, if you were raised Catholic, the Our Father), we must force ourselves to not be Western, lest we miss the greater expression Jesus was offering his audience. Jesus spoke Aramaic, which is related to Hebrew. The New Testament is written in Greek. Greek doesn’t always translate well into English. Aramaic doesn’t always translate well into Greek. Eastern sensibilities don’t always translate well into Western thought. Most of you who are reading this were raised with a bias toward Greek, Western thought. That’s not Jesus. Jesus practiced his faith and engaged the world very differently than we do. To miss this point is to miss much of what he taught about prayer.
Our Father who art in Heaven.
The prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) begins with “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” The name with which Jesus preferred to address God was Abba, an informal, intimate word that correlates to Dad or Daddy more than the formal word, Father. I believe this wasn’t simply a word choice, but an expression born from experience. He experienced and related to God as a child with a loving, supportive dad. Familiar. Loving. Mutually affectionate. I think the author of 1 John 3 was similarly influenced when he wrote (1 John 3:1), “Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the children of God!” Have you made that transition yet, from viewing God as only “out there” in the distance, to intimately within us, loving us as a healthy parent loves their kid?
In his book, Prayers of the Cosmos, Neil Douglas-Klotz helps us overcome the translation problems between Aramaic and Greek, and Greek and English, by giving voice to different ways to expressing the meaning behind Our Father who art in Heaven. The Aramaic phrase is Abwoon d’bwashmaya. Abwoon is where we get Dad/Father. Take some time and appreciate the fullness of what the Aramaic is trying to express with each of the following phrases:
O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos,
you create all that moves in light.
O Thou! The Breathing Life of all,
Creator of the Shimmering Sound that
touches us.
Respiration of all worlds,
we hear you breathing—in and out—
in silence.
Source of Sound: in the roar and the whisper,
in the breeze and the whirlwind, we
hear your Name.
Radiant One: You shine within us,
outside us—even darkness shines—when
we remember.
Name of names, our small identity
unravels in you, you give it back
as a lesson.
Wordless Action, Silent Potency—
where ears and eyes awaken, there
heaven comes.
The author encourages the reader to try a meditation focusing on the Aramaic word for Dad/Father, Abwoon. With your exhale, slowly speak the name in its consonant parts: Ah – bw – oo – n. Recognizing each part will have an effect. Try it for 30 seconds, or 30 minutes, or 30 years and see what happens...
Hallowed Be Thy Name.
What does it mean for us to say, “Hallowed be Thy name?” Hagios is the root Greek word for holy, which refers to being transcendent, set apart, and wholly different. To hallow something means to honor it as holy, giving it a higher position than others in our thought and lives. The Aramaic phrase is this: Nethqadash shmakh. Take some time and reflect on the following phrases, wondering which resonated most with Jesus. Did each in turn resonate more depending on what he was experiencing in his life? What about you?
Focus your light within us—make it useful:
as the rays of a beacon
show the way.
Help us breathe one holy breath
feeling only you—this creates a shrine
inside, in wholeness.
Help us let go, clear the space inside
of busy forgetfulness: so the
Name comes to live.
Your name, your sound can move us if
we tune our hearts as instruments
for its tone.
Hear the one Sound that created all others,
in this way the Name is hallowed
in silence.
In peace the Name resides:
a “room of one’s own,” a holy of holies
open, giving light, to all.
We all look elsewhere for this light—
it draws us out of ourselves—but the Name
always lives within.
Because we honor God as holy, giving God allegiance above all other names and voices, we become set apart with God. The writer of the New Testament’s letter, 1 Peter, says it this way:
You will be holy because I am holy... You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people who are God’s own possession. You have become this people so that you may speak of the wonderful acts of the one who called you out of darkness into his amazing light. – 1 Peter 1:16; 2:9 (CEB)
Note that the identity as God’s people carries with it an expectation, a charge, a call to behave as God’s people. We are not invited to be a community of faith simply so that we can enjoy inner peace the rest of our lives, but that we might bring Peace into the world wherever it is absent. This is echoed in the Jewish scriptures:
Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today. Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer. For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the LORD your God; him you shall serve; to him you shall hold fast; and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise; he is your God who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen. – Deut. 10:15-21
Speaking for myself, I never gave much thought to the “hallowed” phrase. I simply considered it as another way of acknowledging the first line about God being in heaven. Biblical scholars and theologians William H. Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas see more, however:
The Lord’s Prayer is like a bomb ticking in church, waiting to explode and demolish our temples to false gods. It may have slipped past you, but any time you make a statement like “Holy be your name,” you have made a revolutionary claim that promises to land you in the middle of conflict, maybe even war... It is commonplace to hear God’s name taken in vain today. Though it may well be blasphemy, saying “God damn” may not be the greatest blasphemy against the name of God. The German soldiers who went into battle in World War II bearing Gott mit Uns (“God with Us”) on their helmets are a greater blasphemy to the holy name of God. To invoke the name of the free, mighty God as patron of our causes is to take the name of God in vain. – Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount Together (p. 194). Kindle Edition.
Willimon and Hauerwas went on to suggest that when American presidents call for God to bless our troops, we are taking the name of the Lord in vain. What do you think about that?
Catholic Priest and Liberation theologian, Leonardo Boof, offers his own insight:
We are not sanctifying the name of God when we erect church buildings, when we elaborate mystical treatises, or when we guarantee his official presence in society by means of religious symbols. His holy name is sanctified only to the extent that these expressions are related to a pure heart, a thirst for justice, and a reaching out for perfection. It is in these realities that God dwells; these are his true temple, where there are no idols. Origen said well, in commenting on this supplication of the Lord’s Prayer: “They who do not strive to harmonize their conception of God with that which is just take the name of the Lord God in vain.” – Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount Together (p. 198). Kindle Edition.
How is this all sitting with you?
I find this all quite impelling and compelling, to use a Richard Rohr way of thinking. When I consider the dynamic, intimate, pure-love experience of God within that has radically transformed my life (and still a work in progress), I find myself at times barely able to contain my enthusiasm. I am impelled by Love to shout the love of God from the mountaintops. This is when music comes in really handy, giving me an outlet for expression. What’s your expression? Songs? Art? Writing? Poetry? Graciousness toward others? Something else?
Yet I also feel compelled as well, as if being beckoned by a call to move forward. In my experience, this is often related to me waking up to reality. When I have been asleep, I didn’t do much at all concerning racism, extreme poverty, LGBTQ rights, etc. When I was roused by reality, however, I sensed a call to do something. Often the rousing was from relationships. Getting to know people who suffered the negative impact of racism or hatred based on their sexual orientation changed my vision, I saw differently. I then acted differently. I don’t think I am alone. I think God woos us through these experiences, hoping we will awaken from our stupor and notice where shalom is absent and care enough to do something to usher it in. God invites us to join God in the work God is already doing, right here and now.
The God we know and seek is holy. The God we know and seek is transcendent, set apart, yet is also immanent, closer than our next breath. God is the Breath we breathe. God, being intimately, intricately present everywhere in everything is within you. Part of you. This means we all have holiness within us, waiting to be realized, acted upon, called upon, and leaned into. God is holy, and so, therefore, are you. As we declare God to be holy, may we choose to be holy ourselves, that the world may find healing and hope through our every word and action. The Holy One is within you. Be Holy as God is Holy.