Lord’s Prayer

In worship around our place, we have been praying a contemporary version of the “Lord’s Prayer” from the New Zealand Book of Common Prayer, which interprets it this way:

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven: The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth. With the bread we need for today, feed us. In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us. For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.

What is glorious about this version of the prayer that Jesus taught is how it begins with an expanded list of names by which we might address God. It has been my experience that you can tell an awful lot about a church by how it addresses God. More conservative and traditional churches seem obsessed with calling God “Father,” which, while intimate, is entirely masculine and neglects the feminine imagery of God that is found in the Bible. On the other hand, more progressive churches that have sought to be more gender inclusive have neutered and distanced the divine.

If you went out to dinner last Friday night you probably were seated near couples celebrating Valentine’s Day. If you eavesdropped on their conversations, you likely would have heard the intimate names or nicknames that lovers often have for one another. In fact, the disappearance of those nicknames in a relationship is a sign that the relationship is declining in vitality.

So what are your nicknames and terms of endearment for God? If you are struggling to think of them, perhaps that is a sign of a relationship that needs some renewal. With whom should we be more intimate than the God about whom the Bible says, “The One in whom we live and move and have our being”? (Acts 17:28)

by Michael Piazza
Center for Progressive Renewal