Hallowed be your name….
— Matthew 6:9
Following the Call—Chap. 31: God’s Name
Taking God’s name in vain. For God’s sake. Like a bomb ticking. Your turn.
The Lord’s Prayer is like a bomb ticking in church, waiting to explode and demolish our temples to false gods. It may have slipped past you, but any time you make a statement like “Holy be your name,” you have made a revolutionary claim that promises to land you in the middle of conflict, maybe even war.
— William H. Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas
Taking God’s Name in Vain
The first petition in the Lord’s Prayer has to do with God’s name being hallowed, or sanctified. This is in the passive voice, which suggests that it is we who make God’s name holy, not God. God’s name, his reputation and authority, is honored to the extent that we his people honor it. The opposite is true as well. We can dishonor God’s name by taking it in vain. What does this mean? Consider the following selection from Clarence Jordan:
Now the words in vain mean “empty and meaningless, of no account, of no seriousness.” We keep sailing under the same old banner, living the same old life, having the same old attitudes, walking in the same old way. The name has meant nothing to us. It doesn’t change us. You don’t take the name of the Lord in vain with your lips. You take it in vain with your life….
God is interested in his name. He’s interested in it because the only way he has of making himself know is through the people who bear his name. You can see him in the lightning and hear him in the thunder; you can watch the might waves roll. But God cannot really make himself known unless he has some flesh—human flesh—through which to make himself known. If God ever comes to our churches, it’ll be because he comes riding in on our hearts, not banging in the door and sitting there in the temple waiting for us to get there. We bear his name and this is the only way he has of making himself known to the people.
In other words, the word God is a rather undefined word for most people. We have to experience it. And I think others who know him and who bear the name translate it for us not through the way they talk, nor through the way they pray, nor even through the way they preach, but through the way they live. If we see something different in them, if we see something genuinely holy in them, then they are communicating to us and defining in a very real sense the meaning of the word God to us….
What do people associate with God as they look upon our own lives, our life together in the church community? What is it that distinguishes us? What sets us apart? What makes us different is that we are flying under a different banner, living a different life, committed to a different set of values. Are we distinguishable people today? If not, it could be that the name is meaning little or nothing to us. It could be we are taking the name in vain. (The Substance of Faith)
For God’s Sake
Clarence Jordan leaves us with an important question: What sets us apart; what makes us distinguishable? What do people associate with God as they look upon our lives? Personal piety is important, perhaps praising God’s name is too, but what Jesus has in mind in this petition is probably more along the lines of what the prophet Ezekiel prophesied in Ezekiel chapters 36-39. In these chapters, God promises to renew his people and gather them back into their own land. Why? Not for Israel’s sake, but for the sake of his holy name.
It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name….. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations…. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord when I show myself holy through you before their eyes.
God promises to sanctify his people and gather them into a radically new community. This is good news, not only for Israel but also for the nations. As would happen later at Pentecost (Acts 2-4), God’s purpose is to give his people “a new heart and put a new spirit” in them so that they might “follow his decrees and keep his commands.” Why? So that the nations would come to know who God really is and be drawn to him.
This vision of a gathered, united people is at the heart of this petition: “Hallowed be your name.” It is also at the heart of what Jesus prays for in John 17, that his disciples would be truly united in their love for one another and for God. Only in this way will the world recognize Jesus—the name above all names!
To pray that God’s name is hallowed, therefore, is to live with great expectation. We are asking God to do a new work in our hearts and in our midst so that the world might discover and encounter the one and only true God.
Like a Bomb Ticking
As hope-filled as this petition is, it is also a dangerous prayer. As William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas argue, this prayer is revolutionary! It lands us in a conflict. How so?
To “hallow” means to be set apart from the ordinary, from the world as it is; God must take us from one social reality, the land of idolatries, and transplant us into another domain. God “explodes” and shatters our typical ways of being and leads us out of “Egypt,” out from the normalizing patterns of one social order, in which man’s name is exalted, and into a new existence in which God’s name is honored.
When this happens a clash invariably occurs. On the one hand, the world thinks it strange that we no longer indulge in what wars against the soul (1 Pet. 4:4). It even resents us for it (John 15:18-19). On the other hand, the world’s attention is strangely drawn to the very light that initially repels it (2 Cor. 2:15-16). It takes note and sees what it does not have. A light is born inside people, which gives rise to praise of God (1 Pet. 2:12).
Which of these reactions will gain the upper hand? Doesn’t the answer to this question depend a great deal on us? “Hallowed be your name.” And hallowed be our lives as well.
Your Turn
Do our lives honor the Lord’s name today? In what ways do they, and in what ways do they not? Just reply to this email to leave a comment.
David, this is a wonderful insight and so true!!! All the more, he must increase and we must decrease. Thanks for your input.
Thank you for lifting the name of God above every other name. If people are drawn to us it is a shame but if they are drawn to God through us it is His glory.