I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!

It seems no one speaks honestly anymore. Everywhere I look, it's just people selling, selling, selling. They try to sell me their ideas. They try to peddle themselves. They try to get me to buy more stuff I don't need. I think sometimes the only use people have for words is to finagle the other guy into doing what they want.

So empty is our talk, so unclean our lips that even the name of God has become little more among us than a meaningless expression of surprise, "Omigod!" It doesn't even shock us anymore, probably because Americans have grown deaf to blasphemy.

Meanwhile, we grope around in this gray mist, trying to find each other, looking for something true to set our hopes on. But whenever we think we see some break in the clouds, some lightening of the gloom, it turns out to be just another puff of words, another eddy in the mist. And then the clouds close in again.

Ah, dear God, cleanse our speech, convert our tongues, reverse this Babel!

Jesus answers, "When you pray, say . . . 'Hallowed be your name.' "

Now maybe you hear this and wonder how a prayer can help us talk straight to each other, or how the holiness of God's name connects with the purity of our lips. Think it through with me. What happens when God's name and prayer go away from our lives? What is bound to happen to our speech when we lose the heart to pray? What will happen to our concern for truth if the one who governs truth is nothing in our mouths but an empty word?

When God's name loses its meaning, there is no prayer possible. When God's name goes away, then every name, every noun, every verb, every word ever uttered is nothing but sounding brass and a clanging cymbal. When God is removed from our vocabulary, we can think of no one in all the universe to whom we must account for our words. There is simply no human power capable of dividing light from darkness, truth from lies. When God is gone, all we say is doomed to be either meaningless or manipulative.

Speech can only become strong again and clear and truthful when each sentence is spoken by someone who knows he stands before the throne of God even when he turns to speak to his neighbor. "Pray without ceasing," says Paul. For us to become aware of God in this way, we must know who he is and learn to speak his name.

But how can I, a sinner, speak your holy name, dear God?