I have some preaching friends who can sustain long series of teachings. You know who you are. I love you for it. I just don’t have the attention–squirrel!–span to pull it off. I usually start getting bored with a series by week six. I honestly don’t know if series length matters to listeners, but it matters to me. I’d love to hear the thoughts of some non-preacher geeks on this one.
Nevertheless, let’s have some fun by designing the longest series possible using the Lord’s Prayer as our text. I’ll share how I would preach the first line or two and then I’ll leave it up to the rest of you to keep going. Should you choose to engage this exercise, you could end up winning a gift certificate to Amazon. So keep reading.
Here’s my breakdown:
1. Our: I’d talk about the difference between addressing God as a community and as individuals. Why is it important to pray “Our Father” instead of “My Father”?
2. Father: What does it mean to call God “Father”? How is this helpful? How is it harmful? Why don’t we call God “Mother”?
3. In Heaven: What is heaven? Where is it? What does mean to say that God is in it?
4. Hallowed: Have we lost a sense of what it means to “hallow” the things of God? How do we move from shallowness to hallowness? 🙂
5. Be Your Name: What is the name of God? What does it mean to hallow God’s name? Why is it important to mention God’s name in prayer? Or is it?
6. Your Kingdom: What is the Kingdom of God? Where is it? What is it? When is it?
7. Come: Why do we want the Kingdom to come? What would it look like for the Kingdom to come?
8. Your will be done: What is God’s will and are we really prepared to pray for it to be done?
9. On earth as it is in heaven: Unpack the implications of bringing heaven to earth rather than escaping earth and going to heaven.
Ok, I’m tired and beginning to doubt my abilities as a preacher. Your turn.
Here’s the deal: Submit in the comments your breakdown of how you would preach the Lord’s Prayer in the longest series possible. I’ll judge the entries based both on length and on how doable I think your plan is. (Example: If you’re going to preach an entire sermon on the word “in,” give me a few clues as to how you’re going to do it.) The deadline for entry is 3 pm on Feb. 14th. The prize is a $15 gift certificate to Amazon.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
Here are all the ones I could think of (some are more serious than others):
1. “our” — Show the communal aspects of the prayer.
2. “Father” — our relationship to God as Father being primary as opposed to many common conceptions of God (as tyrant, etc…). Emphasize God’s closeness to us.
3. “heaven” — Emphasize God’s otherness and how He is above us. I would talk about how God being in heaven means that He is powerful enough to conquer our human problems.
4. “hallowed” — Talk about God’s mission on earth and how He glorifies His name throughout the earth by the mission of the Church.
5. “name” — A sermon about the names of Jesus (Christ, Savior, etc…) and what they mean for us today.
6. “kingdom” — what is the kingdom. How has it come? How is it still to come?
7. “your will” — Talk about God’s will and how to know what it is.
8. Uses of parallelism in the Bible
9. “on earth as it is in heaven” — how God makes the earth more “heavenly” through the Church
10. “give” — how our blessings come from God and not by our works.
11. “today…daily” — Talk about how God gives us what we need for today but does not necessarily supply us with the needs of tomorrow.
12. “bread” — Talk about how God gives us what we need but not always what we want.
13. Poverty — Making sure that others have there daily bread as well.
14. Does God actually answer this prayer by giving people their daily bread.
15. “forgive” — Why we should forgive and how to reach the point of forgiving those who wrong us. We should forgive like God has forgiven us (look at Parable of the Talents).
16. “sins” — Does God actually forgive people who ask Him? Is this all they must do to be forgiven? It’s been awhile since I’ve heard a good sermon on the sinner’s prayer 🙂
17. “debts” — Since the older versions used “debts” instead of “sins”, you could talk about forgiving monetary debts on personal and international levels.
18. “debts”(2) — I’m sure if we need to be forgiven of debts than God must not want us to have them. It could be time for a debt reduction seminar. I may have to get Dave Ramsey to guest speak for this week.
19. “temptation” — Could do a good sermon on being tempted and cross reference with the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness showing how He used memory verses to scare the Devil away. I then would give each person in the congregation a memory verse to say.
20. This week I would just take the week off and have the members of the congregation who learned their memory verses recite them (I hope everyone realizes I’m kidding with this one).
21. “evil one” — This would be a good time for a good old-fashioned sermon about Satan. I could cover his activity in the world and maybe even deliver up some fire and brimstone.
22. “for thine is the kingdom…” — Although scholars are pretty unanimous that this part wasn’t originally part of the prayer, that won’t stop me from spending a week talking about it.
23. The “Lord’s Prayer” vs. The “Our Father” — Who is right on the name of the prayer? Protestants or Catholics (these are definetly getting sillier).
24. Redaction Criticism — How are Luke and Matthew’s versions different and how did they modify their sources. Did Luke use Matthew or did they both use Q. This might be a good chance to teach the congregation about the synoptic problem (and they didn’t even know there was a problem).
25. Are you actually supposed to say the prayer or is it just an example? Would be a good chance to discuss liturgical traditions in a non-liturgical congregation.
26/27/28. Historical Jesus and the Lord’s Prayer — Did the historical Jesus actually say this? Of course, I would have to spend the first sermon explaining what the historical Jesus is and the second explaining why I’m not a heretic for questioning the New Testament accounts of Jesus and the third sermon analyzing if I think Jesus actually said this (the next sermon may be my last)
29. Since we are studying the Lord’s Prayer it would be appropriate to discuss the other prayers of Jesus as well.
30. Conclusion — Although I have nothing else to say, I certainly couldn’t finish a series without wrapping everything up 🙂
For all you preachers out there, feel free to use any of these but I am not responsible for the outcome. Have a good day 🙂
Matt–Wow. I’m amazed. A strong first entry.
Could you add one about “who art” — biblical references to art in the Bible, or “how does God feel about nudity in cathedrals?” 🙂
And
“Harold be Thy Name.” — are we allowed to address God by his first name, which everyone KNOWS is Harold?
Okay, continue your serious conversation and contest now. 😀
Jeremy–very nice, especially for a non preacher geek.
It occurred to me (while driving somewhere today, no less) that I might clarify. I should have said “nudity all over those fancy painted ceilings in His cathedrals?” for those who might have otherwise imagined people misinterpreting “come as you are” services. I was thinking of “art”, ya know?
Probably no one misunderstood that, but I feel better having set the record straight!
Now you know how preachers feel. Being misunderstood comes with the territory!
Congrats Matt! You win. I’ll send the certificate to you via email. I think I have it from your posted comment. Thanks for playing.
Thanks Wade. I was hoping for a bit more competition but I may just be the biggest “geek” out there (though not a preacher geek). It was fun.