I remember when we had public prayer in schools. It would always start soon after the late bell. There would be some announcements on the public address system, followed by a scripture reading, the Lord's Prayer, and the Pledge of Allegiance. Sometimes I would look about me, and see kids milling about, fumbling with the homework they were supposed to do last night, or writing notes to friends. It didn't seem right. And I am opposed to it today. I think that the problems we face in the United States have little to do with taking prayer out of the schools. As every kid knows, there is plenty of prayer left in the schools - mostly right as the teacher hands out her tests. The bigger problem is not having prayer in the home.

It seems that, in this country, we want to bless everything that we do with the Lord's Prayer - as if, in doing so, we put God's stamp of approval on what we are doing. We do not live in a Christian nation, and this prayer that Jesus gave us is not for public use - it is the heartfelt cry of God's children for their Heavenly Father. It is a precious gift given to us, His children, so that we might know how to talk to Him. To make it public is like taking the most intimate conversation between two lovers and placing it in the public domain. When we are the ones loved, and God is our gentle lover, that is blasphemy.

The one thing that is unique about Christianity, the one teaching of Jesus that was different from anything that had ever gone before or anything that has gone after, is the way in which he addressed God. To the Jews, it was blasphemous. Others in the ancient world would have thought it absurd. But it is at the very heart of his message. He called God, "Father." Actually, it was more familiar that even that. The aramaic word Jesus uses, "Abba," is the most intimate form of address - something a child might use when talking to their father. It is a little more respectful than the word, "dad;" perhaps the best translation we have of it is an older, more archaic word, "Papa." And, in fact, that is how it was translated in the Latin, and the word we get the designation, "Pope" from - he is the "papa" of the church. But God is our "Papa." That is what Jesus was telling the disciples. "When you pray, say 'Papa' . . ."

We are uncomfortable with that, aren't we? We're still caught up in whether we can even use contemporary English to talk to God. To use such a familiar term when addressing God doesn't seem right to us. God is so high, so holy - how dare we approach Him in such a way? Yet that is exactly the point that Jesus is trying to make - that the high and holy God, ineffable, immutable, beyond all knowing or understanding - this God desires to be our "Papa." He grants us the right to call Him so. In fact, He demands it of His children.

It is scandalous to think of God in this way. It is scandalous to address God in this way. But it is His scandal - the scandal of His great love, desiring the most intimate of relationships with us.

"Remember," Jesus tells us, "when you pray - remember who you are praying to. It is not some God who must be mollified, it is not some great judge in heaven who looks down upon you with furrowed brow; remember, when you ask him for those things that you need, when you ask your hearts desire - that it is Papa that you are going to." You are but a small child to Him, but you are His child. As a parent welcomes a small child to their lap, whispering wonderful and strange secrets back and forth, so he also welcomes you. As a child might pour out the desires of their heart to a loved parent - some will be fanciful, others perhaps, not in the child's best interest - the child does not know, but the parent knows which to grant and which to withhold - so God listens to our hopes, our dreams, our desires, granting what is good for us, and withholding that which would do us harm.

That is the picture that Jesus gives us, as we begin to learn how to pray: a small child, curled up in Papa's lap, whispering in his ear every thought of her heart, every desire, every longing, until they share one heart, one longing; until she is out of words, resting softly in the arms of the One who holds her dreams in His heart. Then, with a sigh, she falls asleep in those greater arms, trusting in them completely to hold her, trusting in his heart to carry her dreams until another day. And that final sigh, that letting go at last, is the sigh of faith.