One thing that has become even clearer to me in 10 years here is that Christianity is essentially about knowing the love of God as father through Jesus Christ There are many people I have met in Cork who simply need to know that God is a Father who loves us and wants us all to know how much he loves us. We may suffer from depression, struggle with anger and other inner turmoil, much of which may go back to unhappy child hood experiences Death or family division may have deprived us of an earthly father’s love We may be people also with inadequate experience of a spiritual family: brought up to see God as someone stern, remote, forbidding, joyless. If people from other places ask what they should pray for Cork I reply, echoing what we have just sung, ‘show us the Father’s love’. So many people easily talk about God whether as a swear word or as some kind of vague supreme being our there somewhere. but not many know the reality of God as our father in heaven. Let me try and unpack some of the deep rich meaning of those words.

Our Father ...As I said last week about Saul’s conversion to the church as well as conversion to Christ Christian faith although deeply personal is not private and exclusive of everyone else. When we come to know God as father he is our father we enter a family relationship both with God as heavenly father and with all other believers as our new brothers and sisters. So there are no ‘I’s ‘me’s ‘my’s in the Lord’s Prayer it is all our and us Give us our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, lead us not into temptation but deliver us.

But this prayer was not taught to all the crowds who heard Jesus speak. It was taught specifically to his disciples, those pledged to follow him. Faith is absolutely necessary as Paul wrote to the Galatians you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus (Gal.3.26) In a general sense God does have a fatherly care for all his creation -- he loves everyone, but not everyone loves God! The story of the human race is the story of people out of relationship with God the Father who need to be restored to him through the sacrifice of his son Jesus and in coming to know God as father to recognise others as their brothers and sisters. It’s good to talk to God on your own, but don’t become a lone ranger a true relationship with God involves a new relationship with others praying with them to our Father in heaven.

What does it mean that God is our Father in heaven? Earthly fathers give their children life and they love them or they should love them and provide for them, (they don’t always). God the heavenly father gives life to his children through the Holy Spirit As Paul writes, it is by the Holy Spirit that we can call out Abba, father and it is by the Spirit that we know he loves us As his children we are free to love him, not slaves to fear him For as his children when we do wrong he will correct us, check us but he will never disown us, reject us That is a crucial difference. If we see ourselves only as God’s slaves we will always be on a treadmill of fear and effort trying to please him, trying to keep the rules and meet the targets and always with that sickening fear that we have not done just enough. But if we see ourselves as God’s children then we are accepted and welcomed and free. Yes, we have a lot to learn and maybe to learn painfully but always with the underlying certainty that God is the heavenly father who knows and cares and will never leave us nor forsake us

Sadly our earthly parents have in some way let us down. Maybe they were too harsh, or too indulgent, or not there for us at all. It is said that G B Shaw’s atheism stemmed from disgust with his father who was more interested in playing cricket than playing with his children. We carry, as our parents carried, the effects of poor parenting with all the good things we want to give our children we will pass on other things that are not so good. but the wonder of who God is that he is the heavenly Father there is no sin or imperfection or deprivation in him. One day in heaven our sin and imperfection and deprivation will vanish and here today we may rejoice to know God as the perfect parent. We can talk with him, learn from him, rest secure in him

Never, ever let the Lord’s Prayer become a bit of rigmarole or ritual that you rhyme off mindlessly, Let it be the cry of your heart to our Father in heaven.

Our loving Father Your son Jesus came to the world that he had made but the world did not know him. He came to his own people, but his own people did not receive him Grant to us in the power of your Spirit to be among those who do receive him who believe in Christ’s name and have the right to become your children children secure in your love, willing to learn and to change free from fear and glad in the fellowship of all those who call you Father through Jesus Christ

NOTES MADE AVAILABLE AFTER SERVICE

I often say my prayers but do I ever pray? And do the wishes of my heart go with the prayers I say? I may as well kneel down and worship gods of stone as offer to the living God a prayer of words alone.

Jesus responded [to his disciples’ requests for a prayer] by teaching them the prayer that is like a signature of his discipleship. James Houston ‘The Transforming Friendship’

Whenever we refuse to worship at the altar of the gods of sex, consumerism, of unfettered individual liberty, we will be reminded that we are strangers, pilgrims with our hearts in an age which is yet to come. But pilgrim people are no ghetto people. We are the beacon lights, calling others to the better way and the better future. So we are called to give a reason for our hope and, as the time is short, we are to give ourselves to prayer. Not to short, confused, perfunctory nods in the direction of the Almighty, but to continuous, thoughtful, concerned prayer which flows from a life committed to God’s values, a life of holiness -- for why else would we need to be self -controlled? Prayer is not the activity of five minutes a day; it is the activity of all of life, flowing into and out of everything we see, do and are. John Graystone in Encounter with God 3/11/94

Shorter Catechism (modern version) 98 What is prayer? Prayer is offering up our desires to God in the name of Christ for things that agree with his will, confessing our sins and thankfully recognising his mercies.

Shorter Catechism (modern version) 99 How does God direct us to pray? The whole word of God, but especially the Lord’s prayer, which Christ taught his disciples, directs our prayers

Shorter Catechism (modern version) 100 What does the beginning of the Lord’s prayer teach us? The beginning of the Lord’s prayer (Our Father in heaven) teaches us to draw near to God with completely holy reverence and confidence, as children to a father who is able and ready to help us. It also teaches that we should pray with and for others.