Tasting the Gruel of Love

The Abba of the Jesus Creed

Dr. Larry Thorson
March 7, 2010

Matthew 6:9-15

9 "This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,

    10 your kingdom come,
       your will be done,
       on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us today our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'

14 For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Introduction: What is the Jesus Creed?

For those of you who haven't been here for the past few weeks we're learning, studying and memorizing something called the Jesus Creed. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

If you want to be like Jesus and know Jesus personally, this was the creed that shaped everything he did and does. What's amazing is that once you realize how much this creed impacted Jesus, you'll see it coming out in everything he did. Try to say that creed in the morning when you first wake up, over breakfast, over lunch, as you drive around town and as you go to bed at night.

To review, the creed starts with first loving God with our whole being and then as a result of that love action, loving our neighbor as our self. If you're not loving your neighbor, you're not loving God with your whole being. That's important to remember.

The Lord's Prayer as the Jesus Creed Prayed

Last week we looked at how Jesus' prayer that he taught his disciples, what we know now as the Lord's Prayer, is actually the Jesus Creed prayed. The prayer starts with prayer for God “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thine name” and moves to prayer for us and others “give us our daily bread” etc. as the Jesus Creed does. It starts with concern for God and moves to concerns for others. Not the other way around.

Why Jesus Started His Prayers with Abba (Father)

Today I want to point out how the Lord's Prayer begins with the little word “Abba” which is translated “Father.” Of all the hundreds of names for God in the Bible, Jesus always chose to start every prayer of his with the name “Abba” or “Father” except for the prayer he prayed on the cross when he fulfilled a prophecy by praying “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

I like how Scot McKnight says in his book The Jesus Creed that in choosing the term “Abba” or father he chose a term from the home because the home is where a father and a mother are to dwell. It's where we first learn (or are deprived learning) of love. I've heard that in our first six months of living we learn whether we can trust our parents or not depending on how they respond to our needs, whether they pick us up and comfort us or abandon us. It's also where our first understandings of God begins and that understanding is transferred from both parents to God. That's how we're wired, from parent to child. It's something we do instinctively.

The problem is our heart gets rusted shut because of the way our parents loved (or didn't love us). It gets rusted shut by the way our parents viewed (or didn't view) God. What we need then is the oil of Abba's love to penetrate through our rusty heart openings.

The Story of Wesley Nelson

McKnight tells the story of Wesley Nelson who when he was young suddenly realized that his mother had left for a little while and he didn't know where she was. So he started to cry. His father grew tired of the crying and said “Mother is gone. She's tired of your yelling. She's left for good. She'll never come back.” That only caused him to scream louder.

Wesley's mother did return, took him back into her arms and comforted her as she always had done before. But he said that act of love was blotted from his memory. What his father had said made such an impression on him that his brain had to make it come true. He said his emotional ties were broken and his mother's love and care were no longer a memory to her. It caused him in essence to cry for her for fifty years. Wesley's perception of God as a loving Abba was distorted by some cruel words from his father.

If being spiritually formed means we are to love God, that formation can begin only if we are open to receive Abba's unconditional love for us. When it's distorted like Wesley's view of God's love we transfer our love to something else like machines, careers, sports or someone else like a girlfriend or a boyfriend even if that person is harmful for us.

Jesus regularly encountered people who said they loved God but their actions revealed that they had never received God's love themselves. They were people who complained that Jesus was wasting his time with people outside the church, or in those days and setting, outside the synagogue. They looked at these folks as sinful, and thought he should spend more time with the good church people. Can you believe that? But living out the Jesus Creed led Jesus to do what no other religious leader would think of doing, at the expense of his reputation and that is to spend time with outsiders. Living out the Jesus Creed is what caused him to do it.

The Prodigal Son Story as the Jesus Creed in Story Form

In Luke 15:11-32 Jesus told a story about a father with two sons. The younger son wanted his share of the estate early so he could venture off and do what he wanted to do. Surprisingly to me, the father actually cashed in some property and granted him his wish. So the son abandoned the promised land and headed for Vegas or its equivalent of that day.

Eventually all his money ran out and he was reduced to cleaning out the dumpsters behind Circus Circus. That's when he came to his senses and remembered that his own father hired dumpster cleaners and thought maybe he could get on with his dad's company.

With the son returning home the father had two choices and you know those choices: turn his back on his son or welcome him home. If he welcomes him home he might be supporting his son's habit of blowing opportunities because he'll think then that his father will always take him back. He'll also have to deal with his other son who will probably be jealous of his brother getting away with wild living without consequences. This is a dilemma, a rubber meets the road dilemma. What would living the Jesus Creed tell the father to do?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

Let's picture the father seeing his son lumbering down Buena Vista St., wearing dirty, torn clothes carrying an old backpack. His hair is long and dirty. The father is pretty certain the son has blown through at least $50,000, maybe more. That's $50,000 of his hard earned money. You might think he was coming back to talk you out of more money so you get your defenses up. You might look at him and think “he's a mess.” “He's not one of us anymore.” What are you going to do? What would the Jesus Creed tell the father to do?

If you've heard this story before you know what he does, the father ran to meet his son. Why did he run? The father knew that a custom in those days was whenever a son disgraced his father through sinful behaviors, runs away from him, and then later returns, the elders of the city are to take the young man to the village center and break a pot at his feet, a sign that he was banished from the village. By running to his son, scholars think that the father was trying to prevent his son from being banished from the village. That's passion.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart...” The heart represents the seat of our emotions. It's what produces energy. It's what gets us out of bed in the morning. Love for his son is what would give this father energy to run to his son. He could say all that he wanted about how he loved his son, that he would do anything for his son, that his son was the most important person in his life but if there was no passionate energy exerted toward him it would all be revealed as a hollow lie.

Jesus was telling this story to a group of religious leaders who claimed the first part of his creed because every good Jew of that day would claim to love God with all their being. They would do all these ceremonial things to show they were obeying the law but have absolutely no passionate energy, none what's so ever, for anyone else.

You can only love if you've been loved. A lot of people have a hard time loving God or anyone else because they can't remember being loved themselves. They've been criticized. They've been ignored. They've been laughed at. But they've never been loved. Church to many seems like a bunch of boring rules about doing good to others and praying. But it's about a loving relationship with an Abba who won't criticize us needlessly, who won't walk out on us when things get tough, who won't emotionally turn off to us, and who won't die just when we need him the most.

Loving the Lord your God and loving your neighbor starts with allowing God's love to soak into you and oil the rust off the gate to your heart. Today when you think of God, who do you picture? A judgmental person? A lazy, distant dad who never gets involved in your problems even though you know he's there? Someone who is usually absent? Or do you picture Daddy, someone who will always be there for you even when you make stupid decisions?

Regardless of what happened with your physical dad in your life, good or bad, reflect this week on what God did for us on the cross. Reflect on the pain, both emotional and physical, that God experienced gaining forgiveness for us when God could have easily just wiped us out of existence. Reflect on why God would do something like that just to have a relationship with you. Only when you have received that love from God will you be able to live the first part of the Jesus Creed of loving God. Only when you love God with all your being will you be able to love yourself properly or love your neighbor as yourself. It all starts with the Abba of the Jesus Creed. You are loved. Receive that love today.

“Eternal goodness, you want me to gaze into you and see that you love me. You love me freely, and you want me to love and serve my neighbors with the same love, offering them my prayers and my possessions, as far as in me lies. O God, come to my assistance! “

St. Catherine of Siena, The Book of a Thousand Prayers

Ice Breaker Questions

1. Name the most famous person you ever met or saw live.

2. Have the group make a sentence by inviting each person to add a word to the sentence. For example the first person could say “The” and the second person say “tree” or “car” or “cat” or whatever. The next person says whatever direction they want the sentence to go in. If the group is small go just keep going around until someone puts a period on the end.

Recite the Jesus Creed as a Group - 1^st paragraph, page 1

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think Jesus began all his prayers with the informal term “Abba” which means father or daddy? Why might this be significant for understanding the Jesus Creed?

2. Why did Jesus tell the story of the Prodigal Son and how does it relate to the Jesus Creed?

3. What are some ways to allow God's love to oil the gate to your heart? How have you experienced God's love?