We've been in a series for the past few weeks called This Is My Body, and it's a series looking at our bodies and its scripture and trying to understand how to think about our bodies.
One of the biggest questions in our society right now is what does it mean to be a human being and what role do our bodies play in our humanness?
And so we're thinking about that and we're looking at scripture to help guide us in that conversation.
And so for those who are Christians who are here, we are essentially trying to help you build a theology of embodiment.
So that you can think biblically and live faithfully in this culture where so many of the issues that we wrestle with have to do with the meaning that we attach to our bodies.
And if you're here and you're not a Christian or if you're listening, joining online and you're not a Christian, the hope is this is one of the ways that we make it evident that the gospel is the best news there is for every aspect of our lives, including and especially our physical bodies.
It may sound weird to say that there is good news for your body, but the gospel is that.
It is good news for your body, and I hope that becomes clearer this morning.
Two weeks ago, we talked about our bodies as being gifts from God, handmade gifts.
And then last week, we talked about our bodies being made in the image of God and what that means.
And this morning, what we're going to do is we're going to focus on the nature of our embodiment, how we think about our embodiment.
And we're going to do that looking at Genesis chapter 2, verses 4 through 6.
So first, we're going to spend a little time looking at the most common view of embodiment that you see in our culture, the most common view of embodiment.
And then we're going to look at Scripture and we're going to see what the gospel has to say about our embodiment, how the gospel transforms our view of embodiment.
So let's pray, and then we will get started.
And before I pray, I just want to let the guys in the sound, there's a hissing coming from this monitor.
I don't know if there's anything you can do about that.
But let's pray.
Lord, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for being a God who dwells in our midst.
And we thank you for the fact that you speak to us in ways that only you can.
This is a room full of people, and we each need probably something a bit different from you.
And you're the kind of God who's able, through the same word, to speak to each of us in the ways that we in particular need to hear.
Lord, that you can apply your word specifically to us.
And so I pray that you would do that, Lord.
I pray that we would all be able to sit under your word and hear what we need to hear from you this morning.
I pray this in your son's holy name.
Amen.
So first of all, a little bit about the common view of embodiment that you might come across in our culture.
A friend of mine, Ann Snyder, wrote this recently in Comment Magazine.
She writes,
In other words, a trend that she observes for centuries now in our society has been the gradual displacement of our bodies.
Now, this has been happening for a very long time.
It's not a new idea.
In fact, there are numerous ancient philosophies and religions that hold a very low view of the physical body.
Plato famously said that the body is a tomb.
That our self, our soul, is trapped in this tomb until hopefully it might be liberated.
The early Gnostic religions held much the same view.
The body is a prison.
Many Eastern religions also say this.
The Bhagavad Gita teaches,
As you put on fresh new clothes and take off those you've worn,
you'll replace your body with a fresh one, newly born.
So you can take off your body like an article of clothing and replace it with a new one.
And then the rise of rationalism during the Enlightenment further solidified this dualism in the Western imagination.
By dualism, I mean the separation of body and spirit or body and mind.
And coming out of the Enlightenment, we see this kind of heightened focus on the mind
and this disregarding of the body as though the body exists merely to serve the mind.
So we see this trend continuing.
And then, not surprisingly, technology has followed along and in many ways exacerbated this.
And often what we see in culture is this interplay between technology and philosophy,
sort of shaping culture.
So inventions such as the telephone, the automobile, the printing press, air travel,
they all radically changed the world.
They're all amazing.
We're not saying these are bad things.
But how did they change the world?
By giving us ways to overcome the limitations of our bodies.
And now that's very significant.
The Internet has done the same thing on steroids.
Our social lives, our work, our entertainment are more and more disembodied as everything goes online.
Now, there is a material infrastructure to the Internet.
It's just not something that we see.
It's giant server data centers in a giant warehouse somewhere.
And miles and miles and miles of cable.
Now, we don't see that.
What we see is a disembodied virtual reality as everything goes online.
Mark Zuckerberg has recently announced his vision for the future of the Internet,
which is actually a virtual world, the metaverse.
Facebook's going all in on this being humanity's future.
And, of course, all of this is exacerbated greatly by COVID.
You know, COVID comes along and all of a sudden other people's bodies are dangerous.
Our bodies are dangerous to one another.
Your physical presence is a threat.
And so we now live in a world where safety means physical isolation.
And we've sort of been pushed headlong into this semi-virtual disembodied way of life
that I think has become the new normal.
A kind of combination of at-home Zoom and public in-person,
but probably a combination that is here to stay.
And the more our bodies are displaced, right?
So these trends are all showing this kind of displacement of the body, as Ann Snyder wrote.
The more our bodies are displaced, the more open we become to our bodies being replaced.
Right?
If our bodies are secondary, if they don't matter, if they're ancillary to our lives,
what do they really matter and why not then replace them or upgrade them
or do away with them if we don't like them?
So think about movies like Freaky Friday or Avatar or The Change-Up, right?
There are dozens and dozens and dozens of movies with the same premise.
They're all films where people exchange one body for another.
My family and I recently watched the movie Soul,
which I have to say I greatly enjoyed.
I mean, it's a wonderful, delightful movie on many levels.
But the premise of the movie Soul is that before we are born,
we all exist as spirits who must at some point descend to Earth to inhabit a physical body.
And so you have all of these sort of proto-souls living in the great before,
sort of waiting to be ready to go down to Earth and inhabit a physical body.
I actually think if you polled many Christians in our country,
they would probably say, yeah, I think that's probably how it works.
You're up there hanging out with God, and then at some point God says,
okay, let's get you in a body, right?
And so this movie is, of course, takes this turn that for a lot of comedic effect
where two spirits end up in the wrong bodies, right?
You have a female spirit in a man's body, and a man's spirit ends up in a cat's body.
And it's a funny film, and in many ways it sort of makes light of the metaphysics.
But I want you to see that underneath this and films like it,
there is a very powerful metaphysical claim being made.
And that is that your real self, your true self, exists apart from your body.
But it's separate.
And if that's the case, then it's entirely possible to end up in the wrong body.
I've heard many people describe their body as kind of luck of the draw.
And I say that this is a metaphysical claim, it's a metaphysical belief,
because, of course, we can't prove any of this with science.
When we begin to try to articulate the relationship between yourself and your body,
we are on the plane of religion.
We're on the plane of metaphysics and ontology.
These are what we would call unfalsifiable claims.
There's no way to scientifically back it, so it's a faith-based belief.
Nevertheless, that is the way many people in our culture imagine things to be,
including, I think, many Christians.
So the most common view of our embodiment is this.
It's to see our bodies as containers.
At best, they contain us.
At worst, they confine us.
They're cages.
They're tombs, as Plato said.
And as a result of this view of the body as a container,
there's a lot of confusion in our culture when it comes to our bodies,
because we live in a culture where instinctively we know that our bodies are probably important,
and yet at the same time we are bombarded with messages that tell us that they're not really that important.
And so we live in a culture that at the same time celebrates and idealizes the human body
and denigrates and displaces the human body.
We live in a culture where, on the one hand, we pour time and energy into making sure our bodies are healthy and attractive,
and we promote body positivity.
We promote greater and greater acceptance of your body regardless of what it looks like
or what standards of beauty it might appeal to.
And yet, on the other hand, right alongside that, we feel more and more disconnected from our bodies,
and we increasingly see them as obstacles to be overcome or problems to be solved.
We live in a culture where people who struggle to accept their bodies receive very mixed messages.
Some people struggle with body dysmorphia,
and a lot of times, along with that, eating disorders like anorexia.
That means seeing your body as being ugly or overweight even when it's not.
It's perceiving that something is wrong with your body even if it's not.
Some people also struggle with gender dysphoria,
which is seeing your body as being the wrong sex.
Right now, these are distinct struggles.
They're distinct struggles, and yet they have a lot in common.
Both involve the way we perceive our body,
perceiving your body as in some way being wrong.
Actually, both tend to occur together.
The need for treatment for body dysmorphia and anorexia
is four times greater among the transgender population
than it is in the general population.
They both cause tremendous suffering.
Often, it's a kind of suffering that people feel a lot of shame attached to.
They feel like they can't talk about it with most people in their lives.
It's a quiet, hidden, isolated form of suffering.
And in both cases, it can lead to self-inflicted harm or death.
So these are very serious struggles, very serious issues.
However, if you're a person who struggles in both of these ways,
and you go to a therapist, you're going to be told two different things.
In the case of your body dysmorphia,
treatment is going to involve bringing your feelings in line with your body.
In the case of gender dysphoria,
treatment is going to involve bringing your body in line with your feelings.
And so it creates an enormous amount of confusion.
There are even many medical professionals
who are very confused as to how to treat these conditions.
As distinct as they are, they're very much related.
So there's a lot of confusion.
And when people are really suffering and struggling,
the last thing you want among people who are trying to help is confusion.
So what does the gospel have to say about our bodies?
And how does the gospel offer hope in some of the ways that we've laid out?
Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 says,
Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,
and the man became a living creature.
Sam Alberry wrote a wonderful book on embodiment,
and he says of this passage,
God didn't create a soul named Adam
and then look around for a container to put him in
like a piece of Tupperware.
Right?
Which is, I think, what we often think.
Right?
That God, we're hanging out with God,
and God says, let's get to it.
Here's your body.
You know, enjoy your physical life.
But what we need to understand here in Scripture
is there was no Adam that existed before his body.
Adam is matter and spirit combined as one.
God starts with matter and then breathes his spirit into it.
And this is something very important
when it comes to our own understanding of our nature.
We do not merely have a body.
We are a body.
There is no you, there is no me that exists apart from your body.
We are our bodies.
Now, we are more than our bodies,
but we are not other than our bodies.
And so when the Bible uses the word soul,
because people say,
well, doesn't the Bible talk a lot about your soul?
What we need to understand is
if we read that in a dualistic way,
we're really seeing it through the lens of our own culture.
The Bible uses the word soul in a much more holistic way.
And very often,
by far the most common usage of the word soul in the Bible
is referring to the whole person.
Not just the non-physical part of you.
God's vision for creation from the very beginning
was to see matter and spirit joined together.
The heavens and the earth joined together.
God and his people in his world joined together.
That was God's vision when he created all of this.
The reason that matter and spirit are separate now,
the reason that there is a sense of alienation
between matter and spirit is because of sin.
It's because of brokenness.
When Adam and Eve sinned,
as we said a few weeks ago,
what was the very first symptom
that things were not as they should be?
They felt shame over their physical bodies.
The very first sign that all is not well in the garden
is that Adam and Eve are alienated from their own physical bodies.
And then, right then,
they begin to use technology
to try to compensate for that alienation
in the form of fig leaves.
And ever since,
human beings have been using technology
to cover or alter
or even transform
physical bodies we have
into bodies we think we want.
So shame over our bodies is a symptom of the fall.
Disembodiment.
By that, I mean all of the ways
that we feel disconnected
from our own physicality
is a symptom of the fall.
Feeling trapped in the wrong body
or feeling that there is something
profoundly wrong with your body
is a symptom of the fall.
And this is why the gospel
is such good news for our bodies.
Jesus Christ shows us
what human beings were created to be.
This is the season of Advent
and we are often asking during this season,
what does it mean that Jesus came?
What does it mean that the word
became flesh?
One of the things that we've said
it means every week
is that Jesus shows us
what a human being
should be.
And when we look at the essence of Jesus,
Jesus is fully God
and fully man,
fully flesh.
It is not as though there is some
part of him that is God
existing within a kind of fleshly shell.
Right?
Many of the heresies in the early church
concerned the nature of Jesus
and a lot of them tried to say,
well, he only looked like a human
or there was a spirit
but the spirit just put on the body
but then it took the body off again
and various sort of versions of that.
Those were considered heresies
from the very beginning.
What we see in scripture
is that Jesus is fully God
and fully man.
Every cell, right?
Every nucleus,
every proton, right?
Fully God, fully man.
And what we see in Jesus
is the perfect merging
of spirit and matter.
And after his death and resurrection,
he still has a physical body.
And in John chapter 20,
our gospel reading for this morning,
when Jesus appears to his disciples
after his resurrection,
they note and they see his physicality.
And then he breathes on them
and they receive the Holy Spirit.
You say, well, that's a really weird way
to do that.
He could have just laid hands.
Breathing feels kind of
like a boundary violation.
But this is a deliberate allusion
to Genesis chapter 2, verse 7,
our Old Testament reading.
There's a deliberate look back.
Jesus is saying,
do you remember that time
when I first created human beings?
And I took matter
and I breathed my spirit into matter
and that matter became a living thing.
Well, I've come back
and I'm now breathing my spirit
into you once more.
And it's a way of saying
to his disciples and to us,
I have come to,
just as I came to create humanity,
I have now come back
to recreate humanity.
This is a new creation
and it's the inauguration
of a new humanity.
And he's bringing us back
to the first time
that God breathes spirit into matter.
And this is a way of saying
that Jesus came to restore
our humanity,
including our bodies.
And Paul picks up on that theme
in 1 Corinthians 15,
where he says,
just like Jesus was physically raised,
one day we will all be physically raised.
And your body will be a glorified body,
but it will be a physical body.
And you say,
well, what about when we die?
And all that the Bible says
about when you die,
you go to heaven.
And what about that?
Well, the truth is,
that is called
a kind of intermediate state.
And it's not good.
Right?
For a time when we die
until Jesus comes again
and everyone is raised,
for a time,
spirit and matter
must be separate.
But the Bible doesn't see
that as a good thing.
It's a necessary thing
because of the fall.
But that's why the Bible
says almost nothing about that.
If you want to know
what the Bible says
about life after death,
it always points
to the hope
of the physical resurrection
because that's God's plan
for dealing with death.
The intermediate state,
we know almost nothing about.
The Bible says
almost nothing about it.
And it's an aspect
of the fallen world.
It's not part of God's plan
for new creation.
And so we need to understand
that all of the hope
in Scripture
points to our resurrection
where our body and spirit
will be one again.
And by the way,
all of salvation history
aims in that same direction.
From the time God created
the heavens and the earth,
the goal was that one day
matter and spirit
would be one,
God and his people
would be one,
Jesus and his bride,
the church,
would be one,
the heavens and the earth
would be one.
And that is the vision
that Jesus enacts
when he comes to earth
to give his life
to make all of this possible.
So then we think about that
and we think,
okay, well,
what does that mean
for how we think
about our embodiment?
And I would say this,
the most popular view
is to see our embodiment
as a form of confinement.
But a gospel-centered view
of embodiment
sees it not as confinement
but as a calling.
Embodiment for the Christian
is a calling.
It's a calling
that we live into.
And you say,
what does that mean?
That's kind of a weird thing to say.
I have to point to
Neve Colbrook
for inspiration here.
She's a Christian
who has struggled for years
with an eating disorder.
And one of the core features
of an eating disorder,
and those of you who have
or are struggling with this,
hopefully this resonates with you.
One of the core features
of an eating disorder,
as I have been told,
is extreme ambivalence
about your embodiment.
Just extreme difficulty
being in your own body.
And so Neve wrote an essay
about her recovery
where she says
that through her relationship
with Jesus,
she has come to realize
that,
and I'm quoting her here,
embodiment is not just a given,
it is also a calling.
There is a difference
between living with our bodies
and really inhabiting them.
And that really captures it
in a nutshell.
If the fall disconnects us
from our bodies
and alienates us
from our bodies,
the gospel seeks to reconcile us
to our bodies,
to move us toward greater
and greater love
and acceptance
of our bodies
so that we don't just
put up with them
or tolerate them,
we inhabit them.
Fully.
Right?
And I think that really needs
to shape how we,
as a church,
view embodiment.
You know,
you don't often think of
inhabiting your body
as an aspect of following Jesus,
but if what we have just seen
is true,
then it very much is a part
of what it means
to follow Jesus.
Jesus intends to restore your body,
and he gave it to you
as a gift
and it bears his image.
Therefore,
as disciples,
we're called to inhabit fully
these bodies
that we've been given.
So what does that look like
practically
for a church like ours
to embrace embodiment
as a calling
and view it as a part
of our life of discipleship?
And I want to give you
four ways
that I think this plays out
in our community.
Number one,
this means that we cultivate
a culture
of healthy,
appropriate touch
in our community.
Now,
I know just even saying that
is probably a bit creepy
for some of you.
You know,
and I'm an introvert,
and you know,
I'm very affectionate,
but I,
you know,
like most people,
I'm like,
I'm okay if we're not
touching each other.
You know what I mean?
But this comes straight
from Sam Albury,
I know this sounds odd
to very many people,
but this is evidence
that I think this is
actually pretty important.
Right?
If me saying that we need
a healthy culture of touch
strikes us as odd,
it's probably a sign
that we don't have
a healthy culture
of touch.
And you know,
he says that many people
associate touch
with being sensual
rather than familial.
And I think that's
very much the case.
As one person put it
that he quotes,
in our culture,
we are sex-obsessed
but touch-deprived.
And I also think
that that's very true.
And there are some people
who,
because they live alone
or for various other reasons,
are forced to go months
or even years
without ever really having
any physical contact
with another human being.
And I think that's another
kind of quiet,
unspoken form of suffering
that is excruciating
and can happen
right under our noses
and we're not even aware
that it's happening.
There are people probably
in this room
who may have gone years
without any real
physical contact,
familial,
loving physical contact
with any other human being.
That is debilitating.
It's dehumanizing.
And so I think
that churches
should be places
where you can find a remedy.
That churches should provide
a kind of remedy for this
by being places
where healthy,
appropriate,
familial touch
is encouraged.
You know,
the Bible talks about
Christians greeting
one another
with a holy kiss.
That is a cultural reference.
I don't want anybody
trying to kiss me.
No offense,
I love you all.
That's not culturally appropriate.
The principle behind that
is you should greet
one another
in a physical,
familial,
appropriate way.
So a hug,
a handshake,
a fist bump.
I know that COVID
makes this
more complicated,
but my hope is that
our fear
of our own physicality
would not permanently
do away
with what I think
is a very valuable thing
that happens here,
which is the casual interactions
of hands on shoulders,
hugs where appropriate,
handshakes,
ways of acknowledging
our physicality
as a family
when we come together.
And I know everybody's
not comfortable with that,
so part of this means
navigating and negotiating
what people are comfortable with.
And I recognize
that this is sort of
awkward ground
for most of us,
but I think naming that
as a value
is very important
if we seek to be a church
that embraces
the calling of embodiment.
Number two,
I think it means
we take a gospel-centered
approach to those
who are suffering
in their embodiment.
I mean,
I know right now
that there are people
in our midst
who suffer because
of body dysmorphia
and eating disorders.
I know that there are
people in our midst
who struggle and suffer
because of gender dysphoria.
I know that there are
people in our midst
who struggle and suffer
because of chronic pain
or chronic illness.
I know that we have people
who, because of trauma,
feel completely alienated
from their bodies.
The church needs to be a place
where people who are suffering
in these ways
are loved and cared for
with no fear of shame
or rejection.
I would love for the church,
our church,
to be a place
where a person
might be able to talk
and share these things
with their immediate community
in the church
with confidence
that they're going to be
embraced and loved
and understood.
I would love for that
to be true of us
and where,
through the gradual,
gentle grace of Christ
and the ongoing ministry
of the Holy Spirit,
people move toward
greater and greater acceptance
and love for their bodies.
Right?
That that is always the goal,
to embrace the calling
of embodiment
and inhabit the bodies
that God has given us.
Number three,
I think that it means
worship has to involve
our whole body
and not just our mind.
And this is something,
this is one of the reasons
that I love
the Anglican tradition,
but I think that,
I think that there's
a whole lot more
that we could do
to embrace this,
right?
Including,
you know,
raising our hands
when we worship,
right?
Responding physically
when we feel the spirit
moving.
the value of the liturgy
and the sacraments
is that they give us
ways to worship
that are embodied
and physical.
You know,
we process,
we kneel,
we bow,
we cross ourselves,
we raise our hands,
some of us do,
we pray,
we confess,
we sing aloud,
we physically receive
and eat the elements
at the table,
right?
We jokingly refer to these
as liturgical calisthenics,
but they're more than that,
right?
These are ways
of involving your body
and when you involve
your body,
you are making
theology physical.
Another way the Bible
might say it is,
you're making words
into flesh.
Engaging our bodies
is a recognition
of our human nature.
We're not just brains
on a stick.
We have bodies,
we are our bodies,
all of our bodies
are meant to be brought
into God's presence
and utilized for his
worship and glory.
And then number four,
I think it means
we adopt practices
in our lives
outside of Sunday worship
that re-embody us.
If we live in a culture
and use technology
that disembodies us,
and by the way,
that's unavoidable.
That's unavoidable,
right?
A lot of this technology
is very mixed
and brings a lot of benefits
as well as challenges,
but most of us now
couldn't do our jobs
if we didn't live
in this culture
and use this technology.
So it's here to stay
and it's continuing
to move in that direction.
So for most of us,
if that is the case,
it simply means
that we need to be
much more intentional
about bringing balance
into our lives
through re-embodying practices
that help us
to re-inhabit
the bodies
that we feel
disconnected from.
You know,
years ago,
I came across
the philosopher
Albert Borgman
and he makes
this distinction.
He was writing,
I think,
back in the 80s,
but he makes
this distinction
between devices
and what he calls
focal things
or focal practices.
And I love,
I think it's very helpful,
it's even more true today.
He says,
here's the difference.
Devices are passive.
They give us something
without asking anything
from us in return.
So they minimize
the involvement
of our bodies
and they are designed
with the assumption
that minimal involvement
equals greater satisfaction.
What I find,
so think of like
scrolling for an hour
on Instagram.
Right?
That is a device
that is designed
to make it as easy
as possible
for you to consume
without any cost.
Right?
And what that,
it makes it profoundly easy
to just veg out,
space out,
lose track of time
and become completely
forgetful of our bodies.
You know,
if you scroll
for an hour on Instagram,
you're not aware
of that time passing
and you become
completely forgetful
about the existence
of your body.
You sort of space out.
That's disembodying.
And he says,
focal things
or focal practices
ask something of you.
They cost something.
They make you work for it.
And the joy
and satisfaction
actually comes
from using your body
to build skills
and capabilities
and produce something tangible.
So think about
baking bread,
for instance.
Baking bread
is profoundly embodying.
I think there's a,
not a surprise
that during COVID
there was a big uptick
in people who started baking.
It's because people
felt so disconnected
in their virtual world
that they needed something
to get them back
in their own bodies.
So people started doing
things like baking.
So device versus
focal thing
or focal practice,
this would be the difference
between listening
to the radio
or listening to streaming
music on Spotify
and playing
a musical instrument.
Right?
One engages you.
One uses your body.
This is one of the reasons
that I love to cook.
I love to fish.
I love to go biking
with my boys.
You know,
I don't love to cook
because I'm necessarily
the best cook out there
or I,
the 99% of the reasons
I love to cook
is because most of what I do
is in my brain.
It's disembodied
and it's something
that gets me out of my head
and into my body
where I'm using my senses
to create something tangible.
So for me,
cooking is a profoundly
spiritual act.
And I think if we take
the calling to embodiment
seriously in our community,
it means we begin
to recognize
all of these things
as spiritual behaviors
and spiritual practices.
We have prayer.
We have reading scripture.
We have worship.
We have the sacraments.
We have solitude.
We have fasting.
We have all of these things
that we do.
But we also have
walking and hiking
and biking
and climbing
and playing musical instruments.
And, you know,
this year,
one of the things
my family's doing
for Advent
is we are putting
a puzzle together.
And I know that sounds
like a very simple thing.
I think it's a great
Advent activity
because you have
this kind of unclear image
that is gradually
becoming clearer.
You know,
it's a kind of great metaphor
for the weighting
of the Christian life.
But for us,
it gets our kids,
it gets us off our devices,
it gets us at the same table,
and it gets us using our bodies,
and it gets us working together.
And it's been awesome.
All of these,
I think,
we see as spiritual practices
that help us
inhabit fully
the bodies
that God has given us.
So during this Advent season,
whether you go for a run
or paint
or bike
or bake some bread
or whatever it might be,
I hope you recognize that
as a spiritual practice
that is reconnecting you
to your body,
which is a good thing.
Because the truth is,
as we said,
you are your body.
You are your body.
So in a way,
becoming reconnected
with your body
is really a way
to become reconnected
with yourself.
Let's pray.
Lord,
we thank you
for your word,
and we thank you
for our bodies,
and we thank you
for your body
that was broken
so that ours
might be healed
and restored.
And we pray
that in a little while
when we come to your table
to receive your body
and your blood,
that in our receiving
of your body,
our bodies
might be made more whole,
that we might be healed
of our alienation
and our disembodied,
that we might experience
our bodies
the way you do,
Lord,
as being intimately
and spiritually
connected to your body.
And I pray
that in your body
we would find
the wholeness
that we see.
And we pray this
in your son's name
and for your glory.
Amen.