Hallowing His Name

Pedagogy on Prayer

Do you remember who taught you how to pray? My mother taught me at my bedside and every night she lead us in prayer before I went to sleep. It might of been your family, friends or church who taught you how to pray. The pedagogy of prayer once ingrained in our souls resides in us forever. Bowing our heads, closing our eyes, making signs with our bodies symbolizing the cross. It’s an art that shapes who we become.

Jesus' prayer for his disciples

The Lord's prayer in Matthew's gospel account is taught during the teaching on the sermon on the mount in contrast with Luke's gospel where Jesus finished his prayer and the disciples questioned him on how to pray.

Either way, the disciples learn the Lord's prayer which is prayer specifically designed for his disciples. This prayer is given to God’s people.

“The Our Father is primarily a prayer for disciples. Every line is about disciples forgetting their own desires and plans for their lives and desiring only what God wills. In that sense it is a dangerous prayer for anyone who prays it.”

Lohfink, Gerhard. The Our Father (p. 2). Liturgical Press. Kindle Edition.

1. The Our Father is pure petition.

2. The Our Father is a very short prayer.

3. The Our Father gets right to the point.

4. God’s interest come first.

5. God acts through his people.

Matthew 6:9 (ESV)

9 Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Luke 11:2 (ESV)

2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say:

“Father, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

What does it mean to pray to"Our Father in heaven"

In the Old Testament, the people of God never prayed to God as Father. At times he was described as a father, yet personal language is not adopted until Christ teaches the disciples that their God cares for them as a perfect Father.

1. God has become our Father through Christ's redemptive work through spiritual conversion.

2. Christians have a spiritual Father who loves and adores his children.

So why do Christians have the privilege of addressing Him as “Father” in our prayer? John tells us, “He came to his own, but his own did not receive him. But as many as recieved him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God” (John 1:11-12). So we can address God as Father in our prayers because we have become his sons and daughters through adoption. Cyprian writes, “The new man, born again and restored to God by His grace, say ‘Father’ for the first time because he has bow begun to be a son.” Of course, if we are going to address him as Father, it is important that we truly are His children, demonstrated by the way we live. “Whoever is born of God does not commit sin. For his seed remains in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God (1 John 3:9). It is both a privilege and responsibility to address God as “Father.”

In heaven. Although God is said to be “in heaven,” we should not imagine that He physically dwells there as through He resides in one place. Origen writes, “When the Father of saints is said to be in heaven, we are not to suppose that He is circumscribed by some material form and that He literally dwells in heaven. For is that were the case, God would be less than the heavens because they contain Him. Whereas the indescribable might of His Deity demands our belief that all things are contained and held together by Him.”

This prayer means we have a relationship with a personal God who deeply cares for us. Your identity is child of God, through faith in Christ and then you have a Father who you can speak to at anytime.

Luke 12:6–7 ESV

6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. 7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Why God cares about hallowing his name

The background for the phrase “hallowing of the name” is the book of Ezekiel, especially chapters 20 and 36. Ezekiel speaks repeatedly of the holy name of God, and here (in Ezek 36:23) we find the only instance in the Hebrew Bible in which the statement that the divine name will be hallowed has God as the active subject.

In itself the hallowing of the name (Kiddush HaShem) is a theme found throughout the Old Testament and Jewish literature, but its subject is always the human being or the people Israel, and it is primarily about keeping the commandments. Compare, for example, the basic text, Leviticus 22:31-33 (“You shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel”).

The statement that God hallows the divine name, on the other hand, leads us to Ezekiel. We need to examine the text of Ezekiel 36, which is undoubtedly the background to the first petition of the Our Father. It is God who is speaking:

Ezekiel 36:19–28 ESV

19 I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries. In accordance with their ways and their deeds I judged them. 20 But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that people said of them, ‘These are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go out of his land.’ 21 But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came. 22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

This text, which condenses and summarizes the whole book’s expectation of salvation, contains six series of statements:

First series: Israel dwelt in the land God had given it, but it did not live according to the social order God had prescribed. It did not serve the God who had chosen it; it served other gods instead. In this way it despised the land and profaned the name of God. It filled the land with envy, hatred, and rivalry. In this way it spoiled the land and destroyed the beauty that was proper to the land it had been given.

Second series: God could not endure this profanation and contempt for the land; Israel had to be driven from the land and scattered among the nations. Why did God have to drive the people out? Today we reject such an image of God. Must God punish? Must God drive people away? We will get a better idea of what the Bible means if we reformulate these statements consistently in human terms: A society that constantly lives contrary to God’s order of creation destroys itself. That is true in particular of the people of God, with its special calling on behalf of the other peoples. If it persistently acts contrary to its calling, it destroys the ground on which it stands. It destroys its basis. It exiles itself from its land and threatens its own existence.

Third series: Nevertheless, the scattering of Israel among the nations, brought about by Israel itself, did not make things better. They got worse, because that scattering meant that the name of God was profaned even more; now the whole world jeered at this people and its God. The pagan peoples said: what kind of even more; now the whole world jeered at this people and its God. The pagan peoples said: what kind of miserable, powerless god is this Yhwh? He is a god who does not take care of his people. He is a god without a people, a god without a land.

Fourth series: God had to put a stop to this making fun of the divine name. It was unendurable that the name of God should continue to be made a laughingstock among the nations because of Israel’s dispersion. Therefore God would act to hallow the divine name before all the nations. God’s intervention was not something Israel had earned:

It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. (Ezek 36:22)

Fifth series: How did God put an end to that unbearable state of things? How did God hallow the divine name? God did so by gathering the people of God from its dispersion and leading it back into the land. God hallowed God’s name by freeing the Israelites from their idols and giving them a new heart and a new spirit. God removed the hearts of stone from their breasts and gave them hearts of flesh. So it became possible for Israel to live according to God’s social order.

Sixth series: At the moment when Israel lives again, as a renewed people, according to the will of God, the land itself is changed. Grain grows abundantly, the trees are laden with fruit. The wasteland becomes a paradise. The inhospitable cities become beautiful again. When all that happens, the nations will know who God is. Then God’s name will be hallowed by them also, and the nations will give God glory:

Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I, the LORD, have rebuilt the ruined places, and replanted that which was desolate; I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will do it. (Ezek 36:35-36)

The first petition of the Our Father summarizes this whole text complex from Ezekiel in a single phrase. So when we pray “hallowed be your name,” we ask

God to accept the people of God,

assemble that people from its dispersion,

make it again to be one people,

give it a new heart,

fill it with holy Spirit.

In other words: in the first petition of the Our Father we beg that there may once more be a place in the world through which God’s glory and honor may again be made visible—a place because of which God’s name can also be honored by the Gentiles and indeed can be called upon by them.

The Lord's prayer is relational and missional

This prayer given by Jesus was for the purpose of the church accomplishing its mission and sending them out. This model prayer is not a mantra, but the very words we are to pray daily.

Disciples who pray the Lord’s prayer grow spiritual and hollow be his name.