Episode 80: The Lord's Prayer, Part Three--Rediscovering the"H" Word

Sometimes religious folks sound like they are saying God has some sort of allergy to our mess-ups, or that God has a weak stomach when it comes to hanging around a sinful humanity.  The word "holy" can be used to sound like God can't stand to be in the presence of the riff-raff, the scoundrels, the failures, the sell-outs, and the mess-ups... you know, all of us.  But the God we actually meet in the Scriptures doesn't run away screaming from our checkered pasts like a little kid fleeing from a spider.  And the God shown to us in Jesus actually makes a point of inviting himself over to the houses and into the lives of the people collectively called "sinners and tax collectors."  So whatever it means to call God "holy," it certainly isn't a weak-kneed anxiety that makes God squirm.  In fact, the same Jesus who teaches us to pray "May Your name be holy," in what we call The Lord's Prayer, also teaches that being "holy" or "perfect" as God is "holy" and "perfect" has a lot more to do with whether we dare to love as recklessly and widely as God does.  Join pastors Erica and Steve for the next conversation in their series exploring the words we call "The Lord's Prayer," and digging into the H-word, "holy."