12C Lord's Prayer and long green tube Luke 11:1-13
July 24, 2022, St. Mark's
A disciple asks Jesus, "Teach us to pray."
While visiting patients in the hospital, I often notice a slim green hose that runs from a machine on the wall to each person's nostrils, piping in pure oxygen, making breathing easier. I try not to step on that slim green hose as I move closer to say prayers. The two of us can then look directly at the other, hold hands, and say the Lord's Prayer together. I am continually amazed by the strength with which people pray the Lord's Prayer even when their bodies are weakened. Their eyes suddenly open wide, and even sparkle as this prayer flows vigorously from their lips. It is as if this prayer, like the oxygen, supports each breath./
Soon, Michael will introduce the Lord’s Prayer by saying, “As our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say.” Bold. I need to share several stories of bold people who taught me about the Lord’s Prayer. /
He is a Cursillo friend, dying of cancer, and the first person I visit pastorally. I regularly travel to St. Vincent's to visit him in the early morning on my way to Children's Hospital. I long to be with him, but do not know the words to say. One morning as I leave, I timidly ask, "Shall we pray?" We sit in silence, and then he begins the Lord's Prayer. From then on, each visit is the same. We end by holding hands and praying the Lord's Prayer. We say no other prayers. I go to touch Bruce's hand and bring him a pastoral presence. Instead, I am touched by the hand of God, the Holy Spirit, within Bruce, and learn from him how to be a pastor. Years later, I still think of Bruce Kennedy and even feel his presence when I pray our Lord's Prayer. They are the words to say when it is too painful to say anything else. It is indeed our Lord's Prayer, and our God, through the Holy Spirit, prays it for us and with us./
A disciple asks Jesus, "Teach us to pray."
He is 91 years old, the grandfather of a member of St. Margaret's. He fell and sustained a blood clot on the brain, and is recovering from surgery. I meet this wiry, thin gentleman in surgical intensive care at Baptist Hospital for the first time, as his favorite nurse feeds him. He eats only soft foods, since he has only a few remaining teeth. We talk about his granddaughter, his great-grandchildren, money, and mostly about how he hates being in a nursing home, but misses those familiar surroundings and longs to be back there. He then tells me he is "Church of Christ." He knows I am an Episcopalian. He tells me that those who think their religion is "the one" are significantly in error. Am I listening to a prophet?/ I ask if we may say prayers. We pray the Lord's Prayer. Tears fill his eyes, and he can barely speak. I see longing in his eyes for spiritual food. I experience what Deb Cooper, another deacon, describes in her visits. The Lord's Prayer can bring communion without the sacred elements. As his voice cracks, I feel barriers between the two of us and obstacles between God and us crack and crumble. We walk together through a door that was always open but was obscured by doctrinal differences in our faith groups. My church does not have all the answers; his "Church of Christ" does not have all the answers. But somehow, praying, a prayer central to both our traditions, is a pathway to/and through a door to the living Christ, the Holy Spirit. I stay and pray in sync with his calm, rhythmic breaths until he falls asleep./
The disciples ask Jesus, "Help us learn what we have seen you do."
I visit a nursing home training Community of Hope chaplains. We visit a man we do not know near death from Alzheimer's. He is alone. He does not recognize our presence and does not speak. I turn to the Psalms, place his hand on the Bible, and began reading. Soon his family joins us. We circle around his bed, hold hands, and pray. During the Lord's Prayer, there are a few moments when his eyes open wide, his mouth moves, and his breathing seems present with us. /
“Teach is to pray.”
Linda calls to ask for a visit and prayers. Her prayers are for the return of her voice, which has become swollen and transformed by massive doses of steroids for her autoimmune disease. She is an opera singer. She coached one of our children when he sang in the opera. I stood beside her in St. Mark's choir and followed her lead. But unfortunately, she has lost her major talent and sense of ministry. As I listen to her raspy voice struggle through the Lord’s Prayer, I again follow her lead. I think of other talented and gifted ones I visited and prayed with, who also lost their most prized possession, their sense of identity.
Margaret Metcalf, a renowned speech teacher at several schools, including Catholic High, shared our front row pew at St. Marks many years ago (or, more appropriately, we shared her pew in the east transept). After her retirement, she suffered a devastating stroke. Her meticulous speech became not understandable, but her will to recover was like none I have ever seen. When we first visited, it was evening, and we said Compline. Her words were like another language, but when we came to the Lord's Prayer, she was even more determined. I could understand her first words—Our Father./ Weeks later, at our next visit, as soon as we embraced, she brought out a card for an abbreviated service she had been saying with our priest, and she pointed to the Lord's Prayer. We said it together, and already so many more words were recognizable. Tears flowed from both of us. The Holy Spirit spoke so clearly through her and her heavenly language. I can no longer say this prayer without hearing Mrs. Metcalf.
A disciple asks Jesus, "Teach us to pray."
Another friend I visited in a nursing home had lost most of his material possessions. Yet, Mr. Carstens still survived years of poor health with a rare sense of joy. Like Linda, the opera singer, and Mrs. Metcalf, his speech was changed, this time by surgery for throat cancer. I can still hear his carbonated burp-like sounds as he sang the doxology without restraint when he attended services at St. Mark's. He, too, was a role model of determination to live fully despite tragedy, loss of loved ones, and physical well-being. When I visited, he always greeted me with a holy kiss and a look of love. His voice was distorted, his hair and clothes unkempt, but his eyes emitted a brightness that could illuminate a room. He introduced me as his girlfriend. He showed me the latest travel books piled by his bedside. We said evening prayers—actually, I said evening prayers. But when we came to the Lord's Prayer, his beautiful guttural, earthy speech boomed above my softness. There was God, the Holy Spirit, suffering and loving and giving praise in that nursing home. Each time I left him, I was always moved to ask Mr. Carstens to pray for me. I knew I had visited a Holy Place in the presence of the living God, the Holy Spirit. When he died, Mr. Carstens gave what remained of his body to our medical school for students to learn how to care for others./
I learn from so many others that God surrounds us, loves, and still uses us to minister to others, even when we think we have lost what once was our greatest treasure or personal identity. Our true identity is loving, praising, and serving God as in the words of the Lord's Prayer. We do not require exceptional talent. God calls us to honor the holy, the Holy Spirit, in ourselves, and recognize and honor the sacred, that Spirit in our neighbor./ Today, remember the bold people you have boldly said the Lord’s Prayer with./
In this long green season of the Holy Spirit, the words of the prayer Jesus taught the disciples are like the very air we breathe. This prayer, we say daily, weekly, becomes so ingrained in our hearts and minds that it is as wonderfully automatic as the motion of the diaphragm, pushing our lungs to inhale and exhale. But the Holy Spirit so often seems particularly to breathe into us when we say the Lord's Prayer together. The Holy Spirit is like that thin green hose carrying oxygen into our nostrils to sustain life. The Holy Spirit gives us the words, the desire, and persistence to speak with God. This Lord's Prayer is the mantra,/the oxygen of the Holy Spirit.
Stephanie Frey, "On God's case," Christian Century, July 15, 2004. p. 17.
Joanna Seibert https://www.joannaseibert.com/