02/11/2025
The Shepherd, the King, and the Rescuer
God has got a long list of names, but some of those names are better than others. There is a small child who thought God’s name was Harold since the Lord’s Prayer includes the phrase “Hallowed be thy name.” When you think of all the scriptures that are most likely to be memorized you would have to include Psalm 23, The Lord’s Prayer, and John 3:16. The danger for us is our tendency to focus on the wrong thing.
We are likely to fall in love with the poetry of the 23rd Psalm and ignore the shepherd that poetry describes.
We focus on the King James English which we use in our version of the Lord’s Prayer and forget the King of Kings whose Kingdom is coming soon.
We focus on being rescued from ‘perishing’ and overlook the one who has gone to such great lengths to rescue us.
If the 6th chapter of Matthew’s gospel teaches us anything, it teaches us that our God loves us with the intimacy and unconditional love of a Father or Mother; that God is not yet done with setting this world in order because God’s kingdom is not yet present here as it is there in heaven; God provides for his children; God gives us what we need to resist temptation and avoid evil; and that God is God and we are lucky enough to reflect his glory in all that we do and say.
The Lord’s Prayer is meant to be prayed, of course. But it is also meant to be a statement of faith in who God is and what God wants for God’s children. Find a copy of Matthew 6:5-15 that is simple and plain and make it a part of your daily quiet time. With each line say, “This, O Lord, I believe.” And when you are done, “and this, O Lord, is how I plan to live out my life.”
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Sunday, we considered Jesus’ disruptive actions in the Temple in light of his frustration with keeping gentiles from worshipping in their designated courtyard. We then reflected on how we still tend to throw up roadblocks to those who don’t normally attend church. I found the following, but didn’t have space for it in the sermon. It’s provocative and worth chewing on for a while.