This Sunday, October 14th, in response to requests from a number of you, we’re going to take a four week detour from the Lectionary to explore the one piece of scripture that almost all of us can quote: “the Lord’s Prayer.” If you didn’t know this prayer is lifted almost unchanged from the pages of Scripture, here’s your first discovery!! You can find it in Matthew 6:9-13, and again at Luke 2:2-4. Use one of these links to read it in various versions of the Bible in English or French (or Spanish if that’s your mother tongue!): http://bible.oremus.org/ or http://www.biblegateway.com/.
Each of the four weeks will focus on one phrase or short section of this prayer, so that hopefully by the end of the series, none of us will ever be able to quote, or say, or pray this prayer in quite the same way again! Here’s the outline:
- Oct 14th Who are you talking to, Jesus (Our Father in Heaven)
- Oct 21 The Kingdom of God on Earth
- Oct 28 Times of Trial
- Nov 4 Daily Bread, forever, Amen
I’m hoping that the worship services, and sermons will provoke questions, ahas and responses from you, which I invite you to post as a comment here on this page. I’m also hoping that some of you have burning questions or experiences with this prayer that you can share, so that I can use the wisdom of this community to shape my sermons.
For the first sermon on Oct 14th we tackle the opening 2 words! There’s enough in those two words to fill a book or two, but I’ll try to confine myself to a 12 minute sermon. See you Sunday!
![546229_384999778191553_192734606_n[1]](http://cpuc.edublogs.org/files/2013/08/546229_384999778191553_192734606_n1-1jp0atd.jpg)
October 17, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Thank-you Elizabeth for being so brave as to discuss the Lord’s Prayer in 20th century terms. I also had a problem with Father during my feminist years, now, I still am all for equal rights but not so closed minded. Your suggestions of Father, as the Daddy, Papa, I got it. When i say the Lords’ prayer in my minds eye i am seeing God. What i call him (there i go with gender) does not matter now, it is how i feel in my heart that counts, other wise i would properly have a difficult time reading the bible at all. I see Father as an all loving, unconditioned and unrestricted entity that i can communicate with and who communicates with me.