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Summary:

During nearly every worship service, countless Christians around the world say the Lord's Prayer every time they gather together. When they do so, they end with words that aren't found in the best manuscripts we have of the gospels of Matthew and Luke where we find Jesus teaching his disciples to pray this prayer. So, why do we, as Christians end this prayer of our Lord with the words "For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen!" Why? Well, two reasons. (1) It is wide widely agreed that no Jewish rabbi would have ever taught his disciples to end a prayer with a reference to the evil one. So, many think that Jesus would have assumed this kind of doxology by his followers. But the big reason is (2) that it is only this God's kingdom that has at its root the belief is sufficient for today and will supply the needs of today; that he uses his power to forgive us and calls us to follow in his ways; and (3) he will deliver us from evil and lead us into his glory. This is the Kingdom, power and glory that we see in Jesus parable of the Prodigal Son (really, Prodigal Father) and this is the Kingdom, power and glory that we long for.

Transcript:

I want to begin this sermon with a poem by George Herbert. George Herbert was a pastor and poet in the 17th C in England. This is “Love III”

     Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
            Guilty of dust and sin.
      But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
            From my first entrance in,
      Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
            If I lacked any thing.
      A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
            Love said, You shall be he.
      I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
            I cannot look on thee.
      Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
            Who made the eyes but I?
      Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
            Go where it doth deserve.
      And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
            My dear, then I will serve.
      You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
            So I did sit and eat.

A movement. A movement that begins with welcome and an invitation to come close. But the reality of sin and shame and need. Eyes that were made by love and yet marred, scarred, bruised and deformed. There was sweet questioning if you lack anything. The worthiness to be here was the reply. And love keeps imploring to come. And at the end of it all, finally, even after insisting that he just be a servant, Love says, you must sit down and taste. And he does. 

Prayer can be something that is just so rote. Words without any heart. Maybe especially written words where all you have to do is say the right thing and it’s done can be that way. And the Lord wants us to hear the invitation of Love, and invitation into communion. Our requests being made known to God because he welcomes them.

I’ve mentioned that the Lord’s prayer has been prayed by the church these two Millenia. In many many church traditions, just like ours, when the church gathers together in corporate worship, the church prayers the words that our Lord taught us to pray. Just last week I told you how the Didache, the oldest Christian catechism which some date as early as the late 1st C., has for it’s entire teaching on prayer. “Do not pray as the hypocrites, but pray as our Lord commanded us. Pray thus three times a day.” That was it! So, this prayer, in obedience to our Lord, has been at the heart of the Christian life and discipleship. 

And it is a written prayer with specific words that you are to pray. Of course the Bible gives us lots of written prayers (the whole book of Psalms!). Jesus gives us a form of prayer. He wants us to pray in the right way. BUT, he also wants us to pray with the right heart. 

And I think the answer to doing this is to remember that it is Love who is bidding us to come and to pray. 

Now, this may seem like an odd way to end this series, but I want you to see that the answer to having the right heart is found at the beginning and at the end of the Lord’s prayer. The answer is in seeing God as friend and as Father, as Love who bids us welcome! Let’s start at the end and then come back to the beginning. 
 
God as Friend

Now, when I say “the end” of the Lord’s prayer what I mean is the little tag, the little doxology. “For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever Amen!” But I would think that many of you have noticed that those words aren’t Luke and Matthew when Jesus gives his disciples this prayer. It’s just not in our best and earliest manuscripts. When you read it in the KJV, it really shouldn’t be there. And yet we should end our prayers that way. It is not only consistent with prayer we find elsewhere in the Bible, but it is widely widely agreed upon that absolutely no Jewish person - and certainly not a rabbi like Jesus! - would have ended a prayer without a doxology. Jesus would have almost certainly assumed the inclusion of such an ending and so the church, as early as the Didache, included it. 

What does that have to do though with God as our Friend.

Well, In Luke 11 when Jesus gives the Lord’s Prayer he ends it with a parable of a friend. It’s a story that going like this: 

 ⁵ And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, ⁶ for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; ⁷ and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 

 (Kind of comical because that answer would have woken everyone up!)

 ⁸ I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 

 This parable is said to talk about persistence. But you have to understand that it has more to do with social shame. In that world, no one would have refused a friend who was entertaining someone who had arrived on a long journey. If they had, they would have been the laughing stock of the town the next day. Everyone would have heard about it. 

(But that’s not really the point Jesus is making! He is saying that if a friend doesn’t really want to wake up all of his sleeping kids and the dog and all of that but he still get up and he still offers him whatever he needs, well, what about God?)

 ⁹ And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

The Kingdom, the power the glory are his! You can come before him with the daily bread of your need for food or for the odd dynamics of dating in our world, or the difficulty of getting out of bed because the demands of life have so overtaken you with anxiety, or that good governance will be set forth by our government that will lead to human flourishing - you can ask God for all of it! - because he is the friend that is better than a friend! 

 My kids love having friends over, thankfully not in the middle of the night, and when they are able they love to give their friends popsicles and slushees and whatever is in their power to give. My kids have gone over to some of your houses and come back with a new toy. Why? Because so and so just wanted them to have it! 

How much more so our God! Our God who is our perfect friend, Jesus is telling us! Who is the King, who has the power and how has all the glory!! 

He wants to give you good things dear friends. He wants you to know his care and his affection. He wants to give you your daily bread - all that is necessary in this life!, he wants to pardon your sin, to cancel the debt of sin, and to lead you in the way of forgiving others. He want to lead you in paths of righteousness for his names sack and not into temptation or evil. 

The first thing we need to hear is exactly what our Lord said in Luke after teaching this prayer to his disciples, God is the perfect friend who gladly and joyfully meets the needs of his friends when they ask and seek and knock and he can and will do it because the Kingdom, the power and the glory are his!

 God as Father 

The second thing we need to hear though if we are to pray the prayer with the right heart, if we are to hear Love bidding us welcome, is God as Father.  In fact, if we continue on in Luke 11 after Jesus talks about God as perfect friend, he talks about God as the perfect Father. Listen, picking up in verse 11:

 ¹¹ What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; ¹² or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

 God as Father bids you welcome!

Now, our Gospel reading this morning is the Famous Parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15. And I wanted you to hear this parable, not so much to hear about the son but to hear about the Father. The better title is The Parable of the Prodigal Father. What does “prodigal” mean, after all? Well, it comes from the Latin word “prodigus” which mean “lavish”, “extravagant”. So, here are dictionary.com's definitions:

adjective:
wastefully or recklessly extravagant: prodigal expenditure.
Giving or yielding profusely; very generous; lavish (usually followed by of with): prodigal of smiles; prodigal with praise.
lavishly abundant; profuse: nature's prodigal resources.

noun
a person who is wasteful of their money, possessions, etc.: In later years, he was a prodigal of his fortune.

Who’s the Prodigal?

Well, the son asks for his inheritance. He says this: ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ Sounds pretty demanding. And any father would have known what that was saying. The son was saying, “I want you dead and I want your money now!” Well, rather than just scold his son and put him in his place as any sane father would do, the next thing we read is this: And he divided his property between them. What a Prodigal Father?! Profuse, lavish, abundant, wasteful. 

 Who’s the Prodigal?

And the son goes into a far country and wastes all of this money on reckless living. He comes to himself and says, “How many of my father’s servants have more than enough bread?” Not just their daily bread, but more than they need. Servants have more than they need.
 
Who’s the Prodigal? Who’s the lavish one?

And the son practices his speech and decides to go home and hopefully work for his father as a servant. 

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. Older people didn’t run! They would have had to gird up their loins, they would have had to pick up their gown and show their legs and bring all kind of disgrace upon themselves! 

Who’s the Prodigal? Who’s wasteful of their reputation on a son that wanted him dead?

And the father interrupts the son’s speech. Did you notice that? Look at it with me. 

 “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” ’ ²⁰ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. ²¹ And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ ²² But the father...

And he interrupts his to be abundantly lavish his grace upon his son. 

²² But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. ²³ And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. ²⁴ For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate. 

Who’s the Prodigal? Who’s the recklessly extravagant?

And the older brother complains and the Father says, ³¹ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.’

This Father was like a King, but he used his power and his glory in consistently prodigal ways for the lives of his children! Brothers and Sister, children of God, how much more will your father in heaven give you all things! Ask and seek and knock. 

The Lord’s prayer is Love bidding us welcome, Love telling us that the Kingdom and the Power and the glory are God’s, but that he is our perfect loving father who desires you and desires to give you all that is necessary and more! 

Johann Sebastian Bach said, “All music should have no other end and aim than the glory of God and the soul’s refreshment; where this is not remembered there is no real music but only a devilish hub-bub.” “The glory of God and the soul’s refreshment.” That’s not just the purpose of music, but of prayer and life with God. He headed his compositions: “J.J.” “Jesus Juva” which means “Jesus help me.” He ended them “S.D.G.” “Soli Dei glaria” which means “To God alone the praise.”

I want to end with you once more hearing George Herbert’s Poem, “Love”.

     Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
            Guilty of dust and sin.
      But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
            From my first entrance in,
      Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
            If I lacked any thing.
      A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
            Love said, You shall be he.
      I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
            I cannot look on thee.
      Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
            Who made the eyes but I?
      Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
            Go where it doth deserve.
      And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
            My dear, then I will serve.
      You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
            So I did sit and eat.

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