Hallowed Be Thy Name

The Lections, The ACNA, Abraham, Lot, Prayer, and, as usual, Jesus

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Apparently this last week was replete with excitement for very online members of the Anglican Church in North America. I was out in the wilderness, and so missed it in real time, but to recap for those who, like me, were busy being real people, in no particular order, there is the wreckage of the trial of Bishop Ruch, a many years endeavor which has run into the ground with the resignation of the prosecutor and a subsequent letter claiming that something nefarious is going on. Then a church in the MidAtlantic made known its dissatisfaction with its bishop. And then, the cherry on top, is the news that a famous Southern Baptist seminary professor has joined the ACNA and will be teaching at Trinity this fall. This, predictably, hotted up the theological commentariat on X and YouTube.

It seemed, reading Dr. Barrett’s Anglican confession, a little embarrassing, frankly, to be held up as “really good” at accountability and hierarchical structures at such a time as this. Professor Barrett couldn’t possibly have known what was going to go down the week of his big move. His post sounds like he is in the grip of a honeymoon, which, I hope, lasts longer than the next tribunal communication.

It wasn’t much comfort to me, truth be told—which, of course, is an unnecessary qualification since I’m not in the habit of lying—to hear that, according to Professor Barrett, the SBC is an ecclesiastical mess. I have no way of judging the truth of that claim. Having watched a little of the sausage being made at the founding of the ACNA, it felt very precarious, fraught, and full of potential failure. It still feels like that. In the words of Dr. James White, the ACNA is a “mixed bag.” At least with a box of chocolates, you know there will only be two—at most—filled with coconut and one dark one to avoid. In my denomination, you may get something unctuous filled with nougat, or you may bite down on something filled with something you know not what, something you wished it hadn’t been thrown into the “bag.” If the SBC is anything like we are, no one has any reason to boast.

Indeed, one might want to ask oneself, no matter what ecclesiastical tradition in which one is most comfortable, what is to be gained by becoming a Christian at all. Its not as if there aren’t thirty or forty Diarmaid MacCullochs out there to mock and deride the essentials of theology and practice. It doesn’t help matters when we publicly embarrass ourselves. I often wonder what Saint Paul would say about the ACNA, if he happened, like CS Lewis Merlin, to rise up from his slumber to rampage through our modern assumptions. Would we get a friendly letter or an angry one?

Let’s not even think of that. Instead, let us trot over to the lections to contemplate what has already been said by God in his own Book. Today the theme is Prayer. What is it for? How should you do it? What can you hope to accomplish by trying it out?

In the Old Testament, we find Abraham recovering from the dinner of his lifetime. Observing three strangers from a far off, having the gumption to see that they were not just ordinary travelers but delivering the promise of his heart, as the stacks of pots and bowls and spoons are washed and dried, he does the hospitable thing and goes with his guests part way along their journey. In some corners of the world this short walk is called “giving the road.” You don’t just wave at your new friends as they get in their car, rushing back to the fire place to recover from the icy blast that hit you when you opened your front door. No, in the dusky relief of a hot, arid day, comfortable in the aftermath of your dinner, there is more conversation to be had.

Thus the writer takes up his pen and continues with the narrative. “Then the LORD,” for that is Abraham’s visitor, said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”

A lot of Modern Scholars greatly desire “the outcry” and “the sin” to be about how the people of Sodom weren’t properly hospitable when the angels visit Lot. They shouldn’t, you know, have wanted to take those angels by force and sexually violate them. That wasn’t very hospitable. Of course, if the angels—or anybody really—would consent to those kinds of “relations” there would be no problem, for God only wants us to be happy, if indeed there is a God.

There’s just one teensy little problem with the progressive take on this particular account from the ancient past and that is that our Lord’s half-brother, Jude, with words breathed out by the Holy Spirit clarifies everything: “…just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but it is possible to accept that inhospitality is a terrible sin, and that inhospitality laced with sexual assault and homosexual lust brings down fire from Heaven. Besides, the only record we have of this moment is in the Bible, the breezy and clear style of which is engaging and accessible. And the Bible puts the account in this order, where first God observes the hue and cry about the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, and then he sends his destroying angels who are threatened by the very sin those two cities are so famous for.

Lot, of course, has been flirting with the brimstone the whole time he’s been there. Apparently, according to Peter, his righteous soul has been tormenting him, but he’s been able to ease off the discomfort because of the amazing produce in the market. It’s all organic. The variety is God-tiered.*

Anyway, the LORD is going to see if the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah are as bad as he has been hearing, which is a little bit of humor thrown in for good effect, for obviously, just as in the account of the Tower of Babble, that time when he bothered himself to “come down” to see their “great big beautiful tower,” the LORD is entering into the affairs of Abraham and Lot and the residents of those two cities for judgment and for mercy, for truth and for life.

And something in his manner invites Abraham to draw near. There’s no question that the city is full up with wickedness. But is it all bad? Is there anything worth saving? And by “thing,” of course, what we are talking about is the people. Abraham bargains with God. Fifty? Forty-five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ok, how about Ten? What if there are ten whole good people in Sodom? At that point, the reader begins to try to number the members of Lot’s family. It comes up to a solid Four, not Ten, so that is a bit disconcerting.

Somewhere in the Psalms, the writer, struck to the core of his being with the depraved condition of humanity, levels an indictment so sweeping it almost can’t be comprehended. There are people—fools— who say that there is no God. He goes on, “They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,” deeds far worse than not being suitably hospitable even according to ancient expectations, “there is none who does good.” And then, pondering this strange moment when the LORD stood with Abraham on the escarpment looking over the cities of the plane, “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand who seek after God.” Sparing you the suspense of wondering if there are any, he repeats himself, perhaps more forcefully than before: “They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”

Abraham is not deluded about the mental and spiritual acuity of his nephew. Lot means well, of course. He’s trying hard. But the fact that, given the choice of where to move when their flocks had become too great for them to dwell together, he, Lot, looked down on the plane and thought it looked pretty nice. If Abraham was an ancient version of John MacArthur or Hulk Hogan—goodness, a lot of people died this week—he would have absorbed Ozzy Osbourne’s deep thoughts about Jesus and shook his head. That, I imagine, is Abraham’s measure of his own kin. It’s how we measure up each other when we’re wondering who is going to go to heaven and who might not be scraping by.

What I’m trying to say is that Genesis 18 is the account of Abraham interceding with God for his nephew Lot, who is in the wrong place at very much the wrong time. The just wrath of God is about to fall on Lot’s adopted town. It’s going to go up in smoke and there he is, in the middle of it.

And this is essentially what prayer is all about. There you are, just trying to get through life, a sensible person who has instructed your Cara Sposa to bake bread before she went to bed so that there would be some in the morning, contentedly tucking yourself under the coverlet with all your offspring, never imagining that any person will come along and try to wake you up. And then, just when your eyes are growing heavy, your awful neighbor comes along and bangs incessantly on your door demanding bread.

Oh! Did you think I meant you, particularly? No, you’re the person banging on the door because you planned badly or not at all. You are Lot in the plain of Shinar. You are breadless, senseless, confused, and desperate.

And so you “undertake to speak” which is a marvelous expression. It would be easier not to, because to talk out loud is to admit a humiliating kind of vulnerability. I think most of us—especially if you’re reading this on a phone, or listening to it, perhaps drinking some steaming cup of oolong as you contemplate your wardrobe for church and wonder where you should go for lunch afterwards—are at a horrible disadvantage. None of us in the Modern World have experienced the pangs of hunger after a long journey in a land with no 24 hour grocery establishments. Though I live in a town not entirely unlike Sodom, depending on where I go and when, what I click on and why, I have my French flour delivered by Amazon and I make my bread in an old, but sturdy kitchen aid mixer. There is exactly zero chance that I will be woken up by the person who lives next to me needing bread because she had a visitor and didn’t have any food in the house.

And yet, I am just as desperate as anyone. I may have bread, but I lack the ability to stop eating it. I may have clothes, but none of them fit nicely. I may have stuff, but I am drowning in noise. I cannot stave off death. I cannot make other people happy. I cannot get my house clean. I cannot interest my neighbors in Jesus. I am helpless.

And a lot of times, as I am saying the Lord’s prayer, it seems to me that I am the good one, and that God is being bad. I need bread, but I am convinced, as I examine my circumstances and expectations, that he is giving me a stone. I am knocking and knocking, and he is not answering. I wanted an egg, but that stupid advertisement on YouTube showed up again about how if you eat eggs you are going to get fat and die of being fat.

Abraham, so famous for his unusual faith, sparred with the LORD. How could he not, filled as he was with the wonder of all the LORD had promised him. And so much later, Jesus, looking around at his beleaguered disciples, desiring them to wake up and get a clue, shakes his head. The overweening sense of personal goodness, of me being good and God being suspect is the first thing to go, as the mouth swallows that astonishing truth, “Hallowed be thy name.”

For there was one Man who, in his goodness, came all the way down into the very heart of our corruption and ruin. There are no righteous people as far as the eye can see, and yet, for those who knock and knock and seek and seek and ask and ask, he himself is the answer.

If God is good, and you are not getting what you want, you are probably dissipating yourself in Shinar or on your phone. You don’t even know what—or rather Who—is good. You need to stand there, on the road, and undertake to ask the Lord about himself and his goodness. You need to labor away in asking for what you want. You need to ask to the point of desperation, not because he is unkind and unwilling to listen, but because until you feel desperate enough to accept what God is giving, which is himself, you won’t even be able to recognize him.

So anyway, go to church!

*According to Grok, “God-tiered” is slang for really great.