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            Christian fundamentalists, Christian liberals, and non-believers alike tend to overlook the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was a radical. He was a spiritual radical and a political radical. In biblical terms we say he was a prophet. The prophets were not reformers with an agenda - of the left or the right – but the radical voice of God landing in the midst of our world like a spiritual hand grenade. God’s Word can be comfort or judgment. The only people entitled to hear the word of God’s comfort are the destitute of the world; and ourselves when, and only when, we face our own moments of spiritual or material destitution. At all other times, it’s judgment. Whenever we respond to God’s Word by being astounded, confounded, appalled, defensive, angry, or indignant – we are probably hearing it clearly. The historian and Catholic theologian Gary Wills says that the Jesus of the Gospels is opposed to “just about every form of religion we know,” and that Jesus’ “radical egalitarian” agenda goes far beyond the political goals of the liberal left, the moderate center, or the fundamentalist right. This morning I’d like to dwell on Jesus’ spiritual radicalism, and then, on Palm Sunday, talk about Jesus’ political radicalism. And I’d like to use the Lord’s Prayer to do this.

            In Christianity we say that God is both radically “other” (transcendent) and radically “near” (immanent). Markus Borg says that Jesus was a mystic revolutionary. I believe that the radical nearness of God is embodied in the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer where Jesus says, “Our Father.” God’s radical otherness is then immediately shown by the phrase that follows: “who art in Heaven.” Abba is an Aramaic word for father. Aramaic was Jesus’ everyday language. Scholars tell us that the word Abba connotes a father as immediate, involved, connected, and infinitely loving with his children. Jesus used Abba to show this kind of God. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus compares earthly fathers to the heavenly father. He asks what father among you doesn’t have at least a basic sense of compassion for his child – what father would give his child a snake instead of a fish, or a stone instead of bread? And you are very imperfect fathers. “How much more does God love you” becomes Jesus’ refrain. How much more with God! Jesus’ use of Abba indicates the radical intimacy of God. This would have been shocking to the ears of a first century Jew. Religious folk easily saw God as high, lifted up, and remote, but less easily as near at hand. We need to remember that for most of the history of the world kings ruled at a distance. If you were a peasant, you were expected to pay your regular tribute, or maybe conscripted into the army from time to time, but for the most part you were left alone to your labors. The common folk were kept on a firm leash, so to speak, but it was a long one. A ruler who was afar off most of the time could be tolerated. As the rabbi prays in Fiddler on the Roof, “O God, bless and keep the Czar far away from here.” So Jesus’ assertion that God is very close at hand was radical, both for Jews and others.

            Jesus’ use of Abba, Father, could be interpreted to mean a God who is accessible, cuddly, gentle, and warm. Perhaps more like “Daddy” or “Papa.” And Jesus is right. To be alone in misfortune is heartbreaking. When my father died many years ago, my circumstances were that he was in Ohio and I was working in Washington D.C. I was not with him. And, as it turned out, when I got word of his death I was alone, was actually stranded and really felt desolated. Some things are very hard to go through alone. God is so close and engaged that God will not let us be alone, even when we say that is what we want – because we rarely mean it.

            A favorite scripture from Isaiah has God say “I love you. I call you by name.” At first glimpse that is truly comforting. To know us by our individual names, and to call us by name, indicates a God who is deeply aware, engaged, involved in every aspect of our being – spiritual, physical, psychological, economic, social, political. But, at the same time, such a God is involved with us as both comforter and judge. When we are told that God knows us and calls us by name, perhaps we too easily assume it is a comforting God who addresses us. I can think of no greater comfort than when, in the midst of some personal suffering, someone quietly and gently touches me and says my name. But, I can think of no greater terror than when, say, I am so upset with myself, so determined to hide my shameful face for something I’ve done, than to hear my name called out. After Adam and Eve sinned and hid themselves, God walked in the garden in the cool of the day, and called out, “Adam, where art thou?” When God calls my name, whether in judgment or in tenderness, part of my fear is that I will hear the truth. That’s frightening. It’s like when you sit in your doctor’s waiting room. “Mr. Todhunter? The doctor will see you now.” Now I’ll be told the truth about that little spot on my face.

            The Book of Revelation suggests that the problem many Christians have is that we are luke-warm. Sure, we want to be close to God, but not all that close. We want to be close to God when we need God, but at other times, we are happy to carve out our own little realms of existence where our rules apply. We prefer to keep God in the middle distance – not too close, not too far. Even the expression “Jesus is my friend” can be a loaded one. Everybody wants and needs friends,  people we can turn to in times of crisis. But how many of our friends can we depend on to be brutally frank and honest with us? I think when Jesus used the term Abba, Father, he was using the readiest image he had at hand, and applied it to a God he knew to be shockingly, amazingly, close, connected, engaged, and insistent on being taken seriously. A God you can’t hide from – a God who calls out your name, either in tenderness or in wrath, but always in truth. The mystic in Jesus knew he was talking about a God who was closer to us than we can even conceive of – closer than the thoughts of our minds or the feelings of our hearts. A God as close as our very breath itself.

            “Our Father.” Does that phrase really work in that way for us today? For you? I heard a man who had a father he never knew, a dad who was an addict and a drug dealer, say that praying to a heavenly father was true comfort, for in that prayer he met a father he never knew. I’ve heard another person, a woman, who says that she cannot pray to God as Father, for the father who was present in her life was brutally abusive. Her understanding of God changed when her image of God changed from father to mother. We can look at history, especially church history, and readily see how patriarchy in the traditional church has led to a male-centered theology and ecclesiology, and how praying to a Father God arguably serves to perpetuate such unjust structures. To say that Jesus, in his time, saw things differently from this and would be appalled at hierarchy and male dominance,  to say that defending male privilege was certainly not in his mind when he prayed to his heavenly father, may be true, but also is of little help to us now.

            When in Matthew, Jesus introduced the Lord’s Prayer he said, “Pray like this.” He did not say, “Pray this prayer.” What does it mean to pray to God like Jesus prayed – but not necessarily use Jesus’ words? We hear many substitutes for Our Father – “Our Mother,” – “Our God” – “Our Father and Mother” – “Holy One”? These and others can be seen as correctives to traditional words that have become unhelpful to many. How do we embrace images of God free of patriarchy, yet powerfully intimate? What do you think?

            Jesus said “Pray like this.” And, of course, the Bible is filled with images of God, of which father is only one: Mother, Christ, spirit, lord, comforter, judge, shalom, God of the mountain, God of thunderstorm, God of the covenant, and many, many more. And, each of us is different, with different histories and hopes, different experiences and needs. Can I rightfully pray as Jesus says “like this” because it seems best for me, and let you pray “like that” because it seems best for you? Must we choose between babble and conformity? How do we find the images and words that work for us as individuals, as well as be in Christian community together? I believe that we live in a time in which it is very important that we learn to bring many names as the hymn suggests? How, together, shall we do that? AMEN.

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