Lenten Vespers 2007   Prayer is Intimacy   Matthew 6:7-14

            Intimacy is not a word used much in church.  No, we can speak of sexuality from now until the cows come home.  In fact sometimes it seems as if that is all we can speak about.  But intimacy- that is a different matter.  From the culture we have picked up a surface intimacy- calling people on first name basis, but that is more informality than intimacy.  And experience shows us that formality and intimacy are not opposites.  Think of those formal dinner dates with someone you love- of getting dressed up, and going to a good restaurant.  If anything, the formality helps to enhance the intimacy.

            Sisters and brothers in Christ- God wants nothing more in all the world than be on intimate terms with you- each one of you- as his own beloved.  For this purpose you have been created.  Indeed, for this all creation has come into being, so that you might be closer to Him who loved you from before the foundation of all things.  And prayer- our conversation with God, His conversation with us, is intimacy.  We see this most clearly in the prayer that is the archetypal prayer for the Church of Christ- the prayer that bears His own name- the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father.

            We see this in two ways.  There is the very term “father” that is used.  It is a term we need to hear through Jesus- a word that should ring and resonate with the term “Abba”, which means “Daddy” a term that children had to stop using at age 10.  Yet Jesus calls us to use the term in prayer, as does Saint Paul.

            I remember a scene from a favorite movie, Breaking Away.  In it, a young man who had been working on developing his own identity over against his family comes home from a bicycle race.  He almost always comes home victorious.

            And this race was the one in which he would go up against the Italian cycling team.  But in the middle of the race, the team that he had been holding as role models, against whom he had been longing to test himself, turn on him and sabotage his bicycle, causing him to have an accident.  He comes into the living room of his house, holding his wrecked bike.  He looks at his parents, and all this young man can say in the face of all his physical and spiritual pain, is “Daddy,” before he breaks down into sobs.  At which point his father embraces him.

            I submit to you that there are times in all our lives, no matter how seemingly successful and well balanced they appear, that all we can do is stand before our Heavenly Father and blurt out “Daddy” before collapsing into sobs.  And our father in heaven embraces as at those times.  And that, sisters and brothers, is intimacy.  As Saint Paul reminds us, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”  How much more intimate can that be than to have the very Spirit of God within us, lifting our hearts to prayer when we ourselves are unable?

            Another way in which the door of intimacy in prayer is opened to us is through the language we use.  Since 1978 most Lutherans in this country have used the LBW (even some LC-MS congregations!).  And we have seen the two choices on offer for the Lord’s Prayer.  There is the one based upon the language of the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible.  And there is the ICET one.  There are not a few people who prefer the later to the former, since the former is so stuffy, stodgy and formal.

            But the truth of the matter is that we have been misled by chronocentric snobbism.  At the time the King James Bible was put together by committee (a sign, indoubtably from God that committees are NOT the invention of the devil!), they did a bold thing.  In Jacobean English there still was a difference between the 2nd person singular/intimate pronoun and the 2nd person plural/formal pronoun.  This distinction is still alive & kicking in most other languages.  I say to you, my people, as your pastor- “Mes freres et soeurs en Christ- Je vous aime.”  But to my wife, I say “Ma chere, la lumiere de mon coeur, je t’aime.”  In Jacobean English, the 2nd person intimate pronouns were thy, thee, thine and thou.  the 2nd person formal were you, your and yours.

            When it came time to translate the texts from Matthew’s Gospel for the Sermon on the Mount, the committee decided to use the intimate form.  We do not speak as to a monarch.  We speak to the beloved as the beloved.

            This is not to say that we must thoughtlessly ape the Jacobeans.  But it is to say that the attitude is one we can carry forward into our prayer life.  We pray in paradox.  We know that when we pray, we pray to the One is above and beyond all.  We pray to the One who creates, redeems and sanctifies.  But he is not our boss.  He is not our master and we his abject slaves.  He is, as he always was, and ever shall be, our loving Father.  And so we can, in times of joy and sorrow; of exultation and of fear; of anger and of contrition, turn to God in prayer.  We can, and will be, held close and loved.  Loved with the intimacy that comes from the the one who is the font and height of Love itself- The Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

AMEN

SDG