Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

As many of you have heard me say previously, the prayer that we pray very frequently pray – in fact, we’ll pray it again today later in the service – the prayer that we call “The Lord’s Prayer” is probably misnamed. Although I realize that I am trying to change 2,000 years of Christian history and tradition, The Lord’s Prayer should probably more properly be called “The Disciples’ Prayer” because you remember its origins. The disciples came to Jesus. They asked Him to teach them how to pray. What came out of Jesus’ mouth as an answer to that request was the prayer – really not meant to become a mantra but really meant to be a model – that we today call “The Lord’s Prayer.” That prayer is probably not really Jesus’ own heartfelt prayer. No, to see and to know what was on Jesus’ heart, what occupied His personal prayer time with His Father, we have to turn to John, chapter 17, a portion of which serves as our Gospel today. There we find what I believe should more correctly be called “The Lord’s Prayer.”

From the real “Lord’s Prayer” [John 17:11-19] come these three selected phrases:

“Holy Father, protect them by the power of Your Name, the Name You gave me so that they may be one and We are one.”

“My prayer is not that You take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.”

“As You have sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.”

A few years ago, a seminary professor retired after a distinguished 40-year career of teaching future pastors the Christian graces of love and forgiveness and forbearance. Occupying himself in his retirement years, the professor poured a new concrete driveway to his house. When he finished that huge task, we went in to rest and get a glass of ice tea. You can tell he wasn’t a retired Lutheran professor because if he were, he would have grabbed a beer. Returning later to view his proud achievement, he discovered that the neighborhood children had discovered his new concrete driveway and were occupied putting their footprints into the wet cement. The angry profession chased the kids down in a rage and beat the tar out of the ones he could catch. Hearing the commotion, the professor’s wife rushed into the yard, saw the angry professor thrashing the kids. She began to reprimand him. “What a shame,” she said. “For forty years you have taught love, forgiveness and forbearance. Now look at you. You’ve lost your testimony. To which he replied, “That was all in the abstract. This is in the concrete.”

Pun set aside, I see a lot of Christians who operate that same way. There’s a great divide between the abstract and the concrete. They gather in their churches week after week and sing songs like “They’ll Know We are Christian by our Love,” but often as soon as their shiny shoes step over the church threshold at the end of the service, all bets are off. They climb behind the wheel of a lethal weapon, forgetting that they have a fish symbol affixed to their trunk and forgetting that they have a sticker advertising the name of their church plastered on their bumper. They weave in and out of traffic. They blow their horn. They gesture with their hands. They may even roll down their window and yell a few words.

Things tend to deteriorate from there. On the way home from church, they stop at their favorite restaurant or store and make comments – either to themselves or to others – about the hourly workers who wait on them, commenting negatively on their broken English, wondering if they’re legal and even wondering if they’re responsible for the Swine Flu.

When they arrive home, they find the neighbor’s kid’s toys scattered all over their newly manicured lawn and hastily push and throw all the toys back towards the neighbor’s house, making sure to be a little less than careful, hoping that a little damage results to the toys. And then, as the final test of their Christianity, as they step onto their porch with the brand new, bright green artificial turf rubber cemented to their old concrete porch, they notice after the fact that the neighbor’s dog has left them a little present right out of their line of sight but right in the line of their step. Their shiny church shoes are shiny no more.

If all this didn’t have such a sad ring of truth to it, this would all be funny! In fact, it would be downright hilarious.

Jesus knew what He was praying about! “Holy Father, protect them by the power of Your Name, the Name You gave me so that they may be one and We are one ... My prayer is not that You take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one ... As You have sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.”

My friends, you and I, as residents of the Los Angeles basin in 2009, have a challenge not only at the front and side doors of our church, but everywhere we go. We have the challenge to make our Lord Jesus’ seemingly abstract teaching concrete. We have the challenge to not lose our testimony when we leave this place. And it is a challenge. It’s obviously a challenge because Jesus prayed for you and for me. As He faced the ultimate battle of His life, where He would fight for His own life and well as for our lives, Jesus wasn’t thinking about Himself. He was thinking about – and praying for – you and me that we would be protected from the evil one, that we would be a refreshing aroma in the stench of this world, that we would go from this place empowered and equipped by His Spirit to go and to make disciples, to go and to let our Light shine, to go and to bring back with us those who will be in Heaven alongside us, those from every race and every tribe, every language and every color [Revelation 7:9-17], those who find their unity alongside us, joining their praises with ours to Jesus Christ Who came to earth, Who lived His life, Who suffered, died, rose and ascended for His Children, the most diverse family on the entire earth, diverse yet united by Him. United in Him. United with Him.

That is the Lord’s Prayer! As we pray in “The Disciples’ Prayer,” may His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven!

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena