a kingdom built of seeds

Hallowed be thy name.

The sacred name that’s been used by the apparent faithful throughout history to justify the persecution and killing of those who are different from and other than; the faithful who hold the supposed truth and dispense it by the sword (literally or figuratively). Look no further than our own scriptures. God-ordained wholesale slaughter. But the landscape is vast. Conquests. Crusades. Stake-burnings. Witch-hunts. Today, fear-mongering and fear of the other. White Christian Nationalism. Xenophobia, homophobia, racism, injustice and oppression of all kinds, with our God there to back it up. Use God’s name for your cause against anything and anyone you disagree with. “God is on our side.” On whose? Yours, or everyone’s? God does despise evil. He must despise most the evil done in his name. “God hates gays” a sign reads. “Build the wall” reads another. “Keep illegal immigrants out, they’re ruining our country” shout angry crowds. “Immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country” says a famous politician many conservative evangelicals support, even love. Or was that Hitler in Nazi Germany?

Be very hesitant to speak for God. And even more hesitant to say, so simplistically and confidently, that God’s obvious and apparent truth validates your own beliefs.

How is the name kept hallowed when the “faithful” are the first to speak for God, the first to have God speak for them? How has noise become so sacred? The “remnant” rejoices at the persecution they bring upon themselves from thoughtless, unloving, untruthful words they ascribe to God.

Perhaps we could do to be more like the Jews of that time. YHWH. A name too sacred to be written in its fullness, to be spoken carelessly, to be taken in vain. To say “Father” is not to diminish the name, but to broaden it. Does a father love only half his children? A fraction? The “faithful remnant”? Oh but it’s everyone. “Jesus loves the little children.” But only when they’re little children? Only before they grow up to become different or other, or wrong? Gay. Liberal. Atheist. Socialist. Muslim. Or the worst of the worst. Terrorist. Rapist. Pedophile. Murderer. I can hardly write the words, not knowing if I actually believe God loves even them.

God’s name can be tossed into the mix to affirm almost any political or social stance, nearly any worldview or belief—liberal or conservative, capitalist or communist, or otherwise.

Be hesitant to speak for God. Be more hesitant still to have God speak for you.

A good father draws out the best in us. A good father receives reverence not by force, but love. We do not speak lightly of those we highly esteem. But to speak flippantly of God, or to bring God flippantly to our defense, is standard fare.

I am guilty. We all are.

To keep God’s name hallowed, to speak of him reverently, is to speak of him slowly, thoughtfully, to measure our words and say only what is necessary; all of this with fear and trembling. “…be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger…” must apply most of all to the divine. I recoil to recall how careless I have been with the name of the God I still love. No, not mainly the stray curse that has escaped my lips. No. For how recklessly I have dared to speak for God, how easily I have assumed God speaks for me.

Teach us to hallow your name.

(Subscribe or check back in for more upcoming content, and please share if you feel inclined. Feel free to reach out if you have any comments or feedback.)