First United Church of Christ (Bremen, IN)

The Lord's Prayer takes a turn  toward the ordinary with the third petition. We go from hallowing God's name and seeking to align heaven and earth to basic needs-- daily bread. However, within this basic request is an opportunity to live more fully aligned to our humanity, to creation as a whole and to God.

We want to believe that heaven operates differently than earth, that there's a kingdom in which love and not war rules.  But what does it mean to pray for it's coming? What can we expect when it shows up? 

The first petition may not strike as a petition. It sounds more like flattery. But it is a petition. And it is first for a reason. It's top priority. 

The relationship between fathers and their children is always complicated (as are relationships between mothers and their children). The key to overcoming our limited understandings what it means to address prayer to the "Father in heaven" is in that little pronoun "our." 

This is part I of what will be a six part series on the Lord's Prayer.

What started as a crowd of thousands dwindles down to Jesus and the twelve disciples. Jesus asks, "Are you going to leave as well?" Peter's answer is hardly a rallying cry. But, when confronted by our delusions, when having to abandon our fantasies, it is the answer we all must give. 

At this point in his discussion with the crowds, Jesus takes what had been a rather compelling metaphor and dials it way up. "Eat my flesh." "Drink my blood." Is it possible that he has reasons for putting it like this apart from his desire to alienate the crowd?

The debate instigated by Jesus' feeding of the five thousand continues.  The crowd, initially eager to make Jesus king, suddenly grows skeptical.  Why does Jesus seem so uninterested in proving himself to them?  The reason is vital for our own understanding of how we reconcile the eternal and the ordinary. 

Jesus can be annoying. Sometimes he seems almost determined to make believing impossible. Almost as if that's his whole point. Almost.

Jesus asks his disciples to feed the crowds in order to test them. Can they connect what is happening in that moment to the larger story God is telling? Can we?

Why do we draw dividing lines and build walls of hostility between ourselves and others?  More importantly, how can the gospel help us overcome that tendency?