Reimagining ‘Our Father’

Sunday, March 16, 2025

Scriptures: Matthew 6:9-10

• Sermon Summary

  Summary: In the second week of our series, How to Pray, Jeremy examines the first two lines of The Lord’s Prayer,
  “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

  Prayerful adjectives: Jeremy shares a practice he uses when he prays, a habit of addressing God with an particular adjective or attribute of God to help focus his awareness while he prays. This practice of centering your thoughts on one of God’s positive attributes at the start of your prayer can transform the experience of the prayer that follows. Examples include, Loving God, Gracious God, and God of the discouraged, among others.

  Parental figures: Jeremy addresses the first word of The Lord’s Prayer, “father.” He shared that the paternal language of father is not meant to be understood as gendered language but as an invitation into a reimagining of what family could be. Ultimately, God as our parent is an invitation to experience God’s divine love as familial and intimate, rather than patriarchal or authoritarian.

  Our shared reality: Jeremy brings our attention to Jesus’ use of the word “our” in the open line of The Lord’s Prayer which compels us to expand our vision for who our family members are. By addressing God as “our father” we effectively answer “yes” to the question posed by Cain in Genesis, “am I my brother’s keeper?”

  Newborn desires: The opening lines to The Lord’s Prayer help us conjure new narratives about ourselves and about the world from the one who designed us. When Jesus prays, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done,” he is not demanding divine intervention but inviting transformation within us. This perspective shifts prayer away from passively waiting for God to act to actively aligning ourselves with God’s vision for us and the world.

• Discussion Guide

  Community is shaped by the conversations we share. These questions and reflections are a tool to help you meaningfully engage with the themes of this week's teaching.

  Connect: If you’re willing, feel free to share how you normally open your prayers.
  Were you raised with this way of starting prayer? Did you borrow it from someone else? Or was it something you crafted over time?

  Share: how your understanding of God as father has shaped your understanding of prayer.
  Consider this quote from Jeremy,

  “Talking about God as Father or pater or abba or Dad,
  or even mother or mom or parent;
  all of this language isn’t about taking away our agency, as if we were toddlers again.
  It’s about allowing ourselves it sink in to everything that family should be, made holy.

  And so, when I pray,
  part of what this reminds me of,
  and what this helps to centres me in,
  is my complete safety in coming to God in prayer.
  That here, in prayer, I have no one to impress, no one to persuade,
  no one that needs to know just how smart or eloquent or convincing I can be.
  I am, in that moment when I approach God,
  already, actually fully and completely known,
  in a way that even my parents (who have always loved me) might struggle to know me.”

  How does approaching a God who does not need to be impressed or persuaded in prayer,
  but who already sees the best in you, change the way you think about the role of prayer?

  Reflect: on the idea of God as “our Father.”
  In what ways does seeing God as belonging to all of us—not just yourself or your immediate community
  —challenge the way you think about your connection to others, especially those you struggle to love?
  Feel free to use Jeremy’s words to guide your reflection,

  “See, sometimes it can be hard to believe that God is your father.
  But, I think it’s actually a much bigger thing to believe that God is our Father.

  Because when we pray to our God that means that we are now—by extension
  —implicating ourselves as each other’s keepers.
  Which I think is what God has always wanted.
  Which is just such a beautiful set up for what comes next,
  “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

  Engage: with the idea of prayer as a formative and ultimately creative practice that sculpts us from within so that we can engage in God’s burgeoning kingdom.

  If God's will is something that is born in us through prayer rather than imposed upon us,
  how does that change the way you pray for, or engage with, the world?

  Does the “ourness” of The Lord’s Prayer change your understanding of inclusion or justice in any way?

  Take away: What takeaways do you have from the message or from today’s conversation?
  
  Benediction based on the sermon
  As prayer has been for thousands of years,
  a place where we are invited to describe the best version of ourselves,
  in front of the one who fashioned our very selves.

  Might we see that the one who is going to believe the best about us,
  and the one who is ever going to help us believe the best about ourselves,

  is the one who put everything good in us to begin with.

  Might prayer be where we come to believe
  that we are the person God believes we are.

  And that we might start to see the world as it really is;
  good and in need of being celebrated,
  and broken and in need for repair.

  Might we play our part, as our neighbours keeper,
  in closing the gap between what is in heaven,
  and what could be here on earth.
  Amen.

• Service Songs & Prayers

  CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 116

  MUSIC Curated by Rebecca Santos
  Cody Carnes - Firm Foundation
  Brandon Lake - Gratitude
  Mission House - I Don't Have Much
  Brooke Ligertwood - Holy Song

  COMMUNITY PRAYER
  Written by Alexandra Chubachi

  That first song we sang today has the words “I've got joy in chaos, I’ve got peace that makes no sense” and that really feels like that could be my whole prayer this morning. There are parts of this present timeline that feel like a lot. And yet…we have the capacity to hold both. Joy and chaos. Peace amidst nonsense. I want to pray for that now.

  God, we come to you with all of ourselves and we trust that you hold us with care.

  For those in this community who are feeling worried and anxious, whether about the state of the world or the persistent thoughts in their own minds, I pray your peace over them.

  May their minds rest, even for a moment, and trust that you are in control.

  For those in this community who are working so hard: running their businesses, caring for aging parents, getting their kids to school and activities, moving through the world with chronic pain, maintaining relationships, all while trying to stay connected to themselves and to You,I pray your peace over them. May they be surprised by a quiet moment, and know how You delight in them.

  For those in this community who are feeling disconnected: perhaps they have been attending Commons for a while and don’t feel like they’ve found their place. Perhaps they feel distant from their own bodies, or they and their partner are on different tracks, like ships passing in the night.

  I pray your peace over them.

  May the feel your deep love, grounding them in this moment.

  Amidst all these things, miraculously, we also find joy.

  God, we thank you you for the people who are around us. People who teach us, trust us, work with us, challenge us.

  We thank you for your creation. For the singing birds, the warm sun, the rocky mountains, the blood moon.

  We thank you for Grace. That you always welcome us back to the table, that we always have another chance, for ourselves, and to extend to others.

  What gifts. Amen.

  SERIES BUMPER
  How To Pray Series