Now we're going to look at a deeply significant thing about Jesus telling us to address God as "Our Father" in our prayers. We just looked at what an amazing privilege it is to be able to consider the creator of the universe our intimate father. But now let's look at the way Jesus says to address him.
Notice that Jesus doesn't tell us to pray My Father. When I was a new Christian and I started to learn to spend time with God every day in prayer, it occurred to me that I ought to pray this prayer. After all, Jesus does tell us to pray it. But I thought I would change the words around a little bit. Because I was trying to cultivate a personal relationship with God. You've heard that right? I want Jesus as my personal savior. I want an intimate Jesus.
There are several popular songs about a personal Jesus by artists ranging from Johnny Cash to Depeche Mode. There's a song from the 70s by a country artist named Tom T. Hall that declares:
Me and Jesus got our own thing going.
Me and Jesus got it all worked out.
Me and Jesus got our own thing going.
We don't need anybody to tell us what it's all about.
I think the gist of the song is that we don't need religion and the Church to be "spiritual." I thought of that song as I was participating in a class on Christian community at the seminary and I did a Youtube search and I was amazed to find that this song was actually performed as worship in a number of churches! That is amazing because it is completely antithetical to the Biblical idea of church. It goes against everything that Jesus and the apostles taught about our relationship with God and each other. And it goes against everything we know from the Bible about the relationship of the people of God with God himself as revealed in the Old Testament.
So anyway there I was trying to cultivate this relationship with a personal God. And I decided to say "My Father, who art in heaven." Well, since then I've stopped trying to say the prayer in King James Version-ese. But the point is that I thought I needed to rewrite the prayer so that it could be just between me and God.
I don't know if you've ever experienced this but sometimes when I'm in meditation and prayer I get really clear messages from God. At first that wasn't true but as time passes I have more and more come to be able to hear God speaking to me in my prayers. And I'm pretty sure that this was one of the first times that God really made it loud and clear to me that I was making a big mistake. God did not want me to lift up my voice to him on my own behalf only. God does not want to hear my own selfish prayers for myself. God told me that day in no uncertain terms that he does not want me to rewrite the prayer from "us" to "me"; from "Our Father" to "My Father." Jesus told us to pray the way he said it for a reason.
And that reason is because we are not individually saved. I wouldn't be surprised if you guys were getting just sick of hearing me repeat this verse from Paul's letter to the Galatians, but he writes, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2:20 ESV). I can only think of myself as a disciple, as a follower of Jesus, as a Christian, in terms of having the life of Christ. The life in me is the life of Christ. And Christ is not some faraway theological abstraction. Christ is the Church.
Not what we probably traditionally think of as the church. Not as the building or the doctrines or even necessarily the congregation. Christ is not Rock Presbyterian Church or the Korean American Presbyterian Church. Christ is not a congregation or a denomination or contained in any human structure of church government or doctrine. Christ is the union of all believers everywhere throughout time. And Christ is visibly present on the earth right now. Christ is physically present wherever we see self-sacrificing love leading to the building of God's kingdom of righteousness, justice, and love.
Paul uses the metaphor of the body throughout his writings. In Romans chapter 12 and in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 he tells the local congregation that they are each members of the body. As body parts are members. It’s not like being a member of a social club or a political party, but like the hand is a member of the body; or the foot is a member, or the eyes, nose… everything; all members of the body. The member can't live apart from the body, and the body isn't whole without all of its members. If you cut off your hand, it will die, and the body will be maimed. Each one of you is that that important to the body of Christ on earth. No one is superfluous. No one is useless or unimportant. Each one of us has our part to play.
And Paul writes to the Ephesians about the roles of the different members of the body:
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature and the fullness of Christ. (Eph. 4:11-13 ESV)
What is Paul saying here? That we ALL TOGETHER will grow up into the image of Christ. Not that we each individually will do that, but that we all together will do that. All of us together are intended to be one.
In John's gospel chapter 17 Jesus is praying for his disciples before his crucifixion. Notice that he’s not just praying for those gathered together with him in the upper room but for all who will come after and that includes us. And this is what he prays: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us." (John 17:20-21 ESV).
“That they may all be one.” All of us together are one. We cannot be in relationship with God by ourselves. There is no spiritual life apart from Christ, and Christ is literally the fellowship of all of the believers.
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