Today in our ongoing series on prayer, we continue by considering the role that forgiveness plays in our spiritual life and practices. Jesus included a line about forgiveness in the prayer he taught his disciples because getting right with each other is essential for our personal and communal well-being. Right relationship involves real honesty with God and with each other. “Pardon” is our focus ...

Welcome back to our series on prayer. Today we continue our intentional encounter with the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples discovering how we are formed by asking for what we need, like our daily bread. Jesus offers us assurance that asking God to act in our lives and in the world is a practice of trust and belief that we are not alone in our need. Our prayer for sustenance is both physical...

Welcome back to our series on prayer. Today we continue our exploration of the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples by dwelling with the phrase, “Hallowed be thy name.” Devotion is time set apart (the meaning of “sacred”) to honor something or someone we love. When Jesus called God’s name “hallowed,” he was drawing us to the sacred nature of the holy. When we pray, we set apart our time and atte...

Welcome back to our series on prayer. Today we begin to unpack the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples by looking closely at the significance of the first line. Abba is the Aramaic name for God that Jesus used. This was a very intimate term — referring to God as family — and was a radical idea in Jesus’ day. Relationship was central to Jesus’ teaching and what he passed on to us is th...

Jesus had a rich prayer life. Whether it was public prayers and blessings or private prayers on the mountain or in the garden, praying was a deeply connecting practice for him. Sometimes prayer can be a bit abstract for us. We may not be sure about incorporating it into our lives. We know it is part of our Christian tradition and we practice it here in our sanctuary. But we may not be as sure abou...