Matthew 6:5-13

Getting God’s Number

Sermon preached May 2, 2021

God’s Phone Number

About 20 years ago Hollywood published God’s phone number. It happened during the movie
Bruce Almighty. In the movie a TV newsmen played by Jim Carrey is endowed by God with
divine powers allowing him to perform such amazing feats as parting a bowl of tomato soup like
the Red Sea. And God's phone number repeatedly shows up on Carrey’s pager whenever the Lord
tries to summon him.

Usually, movies and TV shows use the telephone exchange 555 that’s never used for homes and
businesses. But Bruce almighty used a real 7 digit number valid in many parts of the country.
Many of the people who saw the movie remembered the number and called it, prefixing their
own area codes, in order to communicate with God .

A woman in Pinellas Park, Florida, threatened to sue the movie studio because of the 20 calls per
hour clogging her cell phone. In Sanford, North Carolina, the listing belonged to a church whose
minister was actually named Bruce. He was not amused. A Denver radio network, which also had
the number, received dozens of calls a day. “God, I really need to talk to you,” one said a
message. “I...cheated on my husband (and I don’t know what to do)...”

Universe pictures apologized and said they didn’t realize it was a real number in other area
codes.

We don’t exactly have God’s phone number, but God in Jesus Christ has given us this amazing
prayer.

What the Lord’s Prayer is

God never commands anything he doesn’t give us the tools to do - so we get the Lord’s Prayer.
And the more you study and sit with and pray this prayer, the more amazing it is - dare I say,
divinely inspired.

It’s a model for prayer and an actual prayer.

Dale Bruner says you can use it like a handrail (when feeling weak and wobbly in faith)

John Calvin says the Lord’s Prayer helps us when our ideas run out.

It’s an individual prayer and corporate prayer.

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It’s short, compact - you could type it as a text message - but covers everything!
And it tells us a whole lot about who God is and how God loves and cares for us.

This prayer reveals who God is

Every once in a while I get asked a big question. A really big question. It goes like this: “Do
Christians, Jews and Muslims all believe in the same God?”

It’s a good question. But my answer doesn’t satisfy the questioners. I say something like, “I really
don’t know. I’m not sure that a lot of us Christians all believe in the same God.” What I mean is:

Some church folk believe in a god who is the great moral enforcer in the sky. A God who
rewards you if you’re a good girl or boy and if your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds
by just a gram or two, this god lets you into heaven.

Some church folk believe in a god who is impossibly distant. Who wound up the universe
but then wandered off to pursue other interests and who is utterly disinterested in you and
me and the world this god created.

Some church folk believe in a personal god who is something like a personal concierge,
who exists to bless you and your comfortable materialistic lifestyle - but the idea that this
god cares passionately and personally for the poor, cares passionately and personally
about injustice and calls us to do something - is a no-go.

In an interview in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago the actor and atheist Ricky Gervais
said, “(the) next time someone tells me they believe in God, I'll say ‘Oh which one? Zeus?
Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?...’ If they say ‘Just God. I only
believe in the one God,’ I'll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don't believe in
2,870 gods, and they don't believe in 2,869.”1

So what, which God do you believe in?

Well, Christians believe - and this is a big part of what makes a Christian, Christian, is that Jesus
Christ reveals God to us by the Son of God becoming one of us - we learn who God is, what God
is like, supremely through what Jesus did and taught. And in the Lord’s prayer we get a
monumental important teaching about who God is and what God is like. And the imperative is to
know this God, love this God, as Jesus reveals God to us.

Jesus reveals God to be our heavenly Father.

One of the things that startled people about Jesus was how he called God “My Father in heaven.”
Up to Jesus’ time, it was exceedingly rare to refer to God as “Father.” There are a few prayers
from Jesus' time that do so; and there are a few references in the Old Testament, like Psalm

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103:13: “As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him.” But when Jesus
called God his “Father,” it got people's attention. Nobody talked to God like that! By calling
God by the name “Father,” Jesus was making a claim about himself -that he had a special,
intimate relationship with God as God's son.

But with the first two words in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus gives us the same right to call God
“Father.” Jesus invites us into an intimate relationship with God - which is what God wants for
us - to draw us into the divine dance of love that is the Trinity.

Let’s unpack this.

The Treasure of calling God “Father”

Let's think for a minute about the importance of names. Our names are central to our identity, to
who we are. I've always wondered what it would be like to have a very common name - like
John Smith. I knew a John Smith in college - never could understand why his parents didn't try
for something a little more unusual - like Apollo Smith - something with a little more flair.

But can you imagine not having a name? You remember the song, “Secret Agent Man,” don't
you? “They've given me a number, and taken away my name.”

Until Jesus, God didn't really have a personal name. “God” is not really a name, but a generic
term referring to deity. So over to the story of Moses and the Burning Bush. During Moses'
conversation with God, he tried to wheedle God's name out of him by asking, “Well, if the
Egyptians ask me who sent me, what am I supposed to say?” And God wouldn't tell him - he
replied, “I am who I am.” Now that's not a name - that's a puzzle! But God did not reveal his
name because it was thought that if you had the name of the deity, you could sort of twist his
arm, and get more out of him when you prayed. And God wasn’t indulging that.

The writers of the Hebrew Bible used the first four letters of “I am who I am,” writing them as
what we transliterate as YHWH. When reading the Old Testament, Jews substitute the word
“Adonai”" meaning Lord. But that's also more a title, and less a name.

But Jesus gave us the name of God. And what a treasure it is. “Father.” There is no way you and
I can appreciate how earth-shaking this was to a people who believed that it was blasphemy to try
and pronounce the name of God. Jesus comes along and says, call God, “Father” just as I do.

And notice what kind of name "Father" is. It is not a formal title. Like Lord. Or the Almighty. It
is an intimate name.

You know how lovers give each other special pet names, don't you? Snoogy-woogy lips.
And so on. This is an intimate name - in the Aramaic language Jesus spoke the word is
“Abba,” which translates best as “Daddy.” A child's name. Daddy.

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What this tells us is that we pray to a God, who as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, has the heart of a
father. And this Father is no imperfect human one, as I and all fathers are, fathers who
sometimes don't pay attention when we should, or are too preoccupied to notice our children's
needs; no, this is our Father in heaven, a God of perfect love, who misses nothing, who knows
our needs even before we ask.

But there’s another dimension to this, too.

If you are a parent, or if you have a child in your care, on your heart - you know how
ferociously you love them. When a parents looks at a newborn child - often your heart
fills up with a love you did not know was possible and you know like the children’s book
says, “I’ll love you forever.”

When you have children in your life - you want to give them good gifts - when you get to
be grandparents and have a little more money it’s even more fun.

When you have children in your life, in your heart, you know that you would even give
your own life to protect hem.

All of that is contained in the name, “Father.” Not only tenderness but strength and authority -
the God of all creation, of earth and sea and sky - if your heavenly Father and works for your
good in all things. And “though this world with devils filled/should threaten to undo us” God the
Father in “grace will lead us home.’ Dale Bruner put it like this - “the “Our” in “Our Father”
means belonging, mercy, home. It is a possessive pronoun meaning that God the Father is ours
and we are his. In the “our” is contained the joy of the whole gospel.”

The name “Father” can bring us healing

Ok, quiz time. Who knows what the root word behind “salvation” means? Salvus - healing - like
salve, right? Well, the gift of knowing God as “Father” is part of the healing of salvation God
wants for us.

Feminist theology has a lot to say about the problem many women have calling God “Father,”
because of the bad experiences they have had with their own fathers. And that’s not just a
feminist concern. Martin Luther had the same problem. He grew up with a harsh, distant father,
and for years, Luther would choke on the words “Our Father,” when he tried to pray the Lord’s
Prayer.

And then there are those of us whose fathers did not or could not tell us they loved us and that
left a wound, a hole in us that we spend our whole lives trying to fill.

John Killinger writes of a woman he knew when he lived in Paris who had left home at an
early age because you felt her father did not love her. In her thirties, she started suffering

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 from depression and an inability to find any joy in life. She traveled back to the States
and had a tearful reunion with her father who told her that he loved her and always had,
but had trouble expressing his emotions. But the woman later said, “Still, I will never be
the woman I might have been if I had only grown up with this assurance. I am already
marked for life.”2

If this at all fits you - do not reject the privilege of calling God “Father.” Because to know God as
our heavenly Father can help us, heal us. You are loved. You do have someone who is watching
out for you. You do have someone who is cheering you on. You do have someone who wants the
best for you. You do have someone who is besotted with you - who thinks you’re marvelous.

How do you get this into your heart and head? Well, you pray the Lord’s Prayer - by yourself -
you pray daily - calling on God your heavenly Father - we pray this prayer together, every week.
And drop by drop, like water eroding stone, the reality that God is your perfect heavenly Father
penetrates our hearts and minds and we can embrace the this amazing truth.

Closing

The writer Tim Hansel tells of a time he and his son Zack were climbing around in some cliffs
out in state park. Suddenly Hansel heard a voice from above him yell, “Hey Dad! Catch me!”

Hansel turned around to see Zack joyfully jumping off a rock straight at him, having jumped first
and yelled to his dad second. Hansel said he felt like an instant circus act, catching his son.

They both fell to the ground in a heap. With the wind knocked out of him Hansel finally
managed to gasp out, “Zack! Can you give me one good reason why you did that? Zack replied,
“Sure! Because you’re my dad!”3

Endnotes

1.Ricky Gervais, “Why I’m an Atheist,” in The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 11, 2020.

2. I can’t locate the original source.

3. Dynamic Preaching, Jan-Feb-March 2000, p. 50.