Hallowed be thy name.

Matthew 6.9, Luke 11.2.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus told us to ask our Father to ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου/ayiasthíto to ónoma su, “sanctify” or “make holy” or “hallowify” (to coin a word) “the name of yours.” The Book of Common Prayer and KJV went with “Hallowed be thy name,” which means the same thing, but Christians commonly misinterpret it to mean “I sanctify your name,” or “I praise your name.” We think this is praise and worship on our part. It’s not. It’s a request for our Father to make his own name holy. For him to act.

Part of our presumption comes from a way-too-common Christian misbelief that our prayers aren’t really about asking God to do anything. Because, the attitude is, God doesn’t actually answer prayer. He sits on his heavenly arse, watches us humans stumble around, reminds us to read our bibles, but he isn’t gonna intervene in human affairs till the End Times—if they even happen in our lifetime. Besides, he’s pre-planned everything he’s gonna do, so all our after-the-fact prayers won’t change a whiff of it. So what’s the point of prayer then? Changing us—changing our attitudes about God by reciting various truths about him, like we do with our worship music, until these ideas finally sink in and transform us.

(As if this even works with worship music. Just look at all the Christian jerks who sing and listen to plenty of worship songs, but who are just awful to other people. But lemme stop here before I rant futher.)

Thanks to this mindset, Christians imagine “Hallowed be thy name” is just another reminder to think of God as holy, and his name as holy. To not take it in vain. To glorify and worship him, and tell other people how awesome and mighty he is. And because we so often misdefine holy as good, to also remember God is good. Or because we so often misdefine holy as solemn, to remember to treat God formally.

We really do botch the meaning of what Jesus is trying to teach us in this prayer, don’t we? It’s why Christians can recite the Lord’s Prayer the world over, sometimes every single day, and still not behave any more like Jesus than before.

So to remind you: Holy describes something that‘s distinctly used for divine purposes, and therefore not like anyone nor anything else. It’s unique. It’s weird. Good-weird, not weird for weirdness’ sake; not twisted, not evil-weird. When we pray for God to make his name holy, we want him to not be like any other higher power, any other mighty thing, any other force in the cosmos, any other god. We want him to stand out. ’Cause he’s not like anything or anyone else. He’s infinitely better.

Now. Does recognizing the Lord’s Prayer is about actually asking God for stuff, and that it’s not merely about changing our own attitudes, mean our attitudes don’t need to change? Of course not. If we want God to make his name holy, part of that means we need to make his name holy too. Stop treating God as if he’s just anyone else. He’s not.

And no, I absolutely do not mean we should treat him more formally, more solemnly, with more ritual and ceremony and gravitas and all that crap we do to suck up to insecure authority figures. God’s uniqueness is reflected by two things about him: He’s almighty, of course. But more importantly, more relevantly to us, his character: He’s infinitely good. Infinitely gracious. He infinitely loves us. Has infinite patience with us. He’s infinitely kind. Infinitely faithful. He’s not like anyone else because, unlike everyone else, he’ll never, ever fail us.

So don’t put him on the same level!

When God sanctifies his name.

The LORD told Ezekiel he’s not gonna sit around and wait for people to sanctify his name; certainly not the sucky people who typically call upon his name. He’s gonna do it himself.

Ezekiel 36.16-23 NLT

16Then this further message came to me from the LORD: 17“Son of man, when the people of Israel were living in their own land, they defiled it by the evil way they lived. To me their conduct was as unclean as a woman’s menstrual cloth. 18They polluted the land with murder and the worship of idols, so I poured out my fury on them. 19I scattered them to many lands to punish them for the evil way they had lived. 20But when they were scattered among the nations, they brought shame on my holy name. For the nations said, ‘These are the people of the LORD, but he couldn’t keep them safe in his own land!’ 21Then I was concerned for my holy name, on which my people brought shame among the nations.

22“Therefore, give the people of Israel this message from the Sovereign LORD: I am bringing you back, but not because you deserve it. I am doing it to protect my holy name, on which you brought shame while you were scattered among the nations. 23I will show how holy my great name is—the name on which you brought shame among the nations. And when I reveal my holiness through you before their very eyes, says the Sovereign LORD, then the nations will know that I am the LORD. 24For I will gather you up from all the nations and bring you home again to your land.”

Despite swearing they would, Israel hadn’t followed the LORD, so the LORD expelled them from his land by letting the neo-Babylonian Empire conquer and scatter them. And everywhere they went, they told these gentiles they were the LORD’s chosen people—even though they absolutely didn’t act like the LORD’s chosen people, which was the entire reason the LORD expelled them. They weren’t holy. They were nasty.

So what do you figure this does to the LORD’s reputation, when he’s known as the God of a nasty people? How holy does it make his name sound?

The people of the United States love to imagine we’re a Christian nation. So how Christian do we sound when we murder one another, our cops murder our citizens, we break treaties with our allies and let them be murdered, we torture our enemies and imprison them forever without trial, we regularly pay lip service to Jesus but ignore his orders to love one another and help the needy and cure the sick, and demonstrate we trust money far more than we do him?

In the context of Ezekiel, praying “Sanctify your name” carries a whole lot more weight on it than passively expecting God to make his name famous. Apparently we have to live like we’re actually his kids, and show through our ways and deeds we actually do follow Jesus. Being all talk isn’t gonna cut it with him.

God’s holy. He doesn’t act like pagan gods, which aren’t far different from the people who made ’em up. God’s actually good. He keeps his promises, cares for his kids, and stands out from everyone else by the way he follows through on what he says. (Not what we imagine he says; not what we wish he said, and psyche ourselves into thinking he said; what he actually says.) He expects his followers to truly follow, and be holy like he is.

When we’re not, but declare ourselves Christian all the same, we’ve done the same thing the ancient Israelis did. We wound his name. Or as the KJV has it, profaned his name. “The LORD” doesn’t mean anything to pagans who aren’t impressed by his people, who are really no different than they. “Jesus” is irrelevant when his people aren’t reverent.

So if we’re gonna ask God to sanctify his name, it means we have to sanctify it too. We gotta be holy, and not be the embarrassment to our Lord we so often are. He expects better of us. Let’s do better.