Matthew 6:7-15

As a child, my family moved often, four states in five years, and we worshipped in nearly as many Episcopal parishes as I attended grade schools.  However, as I grew, I began to understand and follow the liturgy, and notice different ways of praying, of singing, of preaching and being present in worship.  This became truer when I was old enough to serve on the altar, prayers began to take on meaning. More than knowing that certain words and phrases was the indicator of when to sit, stand, kneel, walk, or ring bells, I noticed things like no matter what, we always said the Lord’s Prayer. 

Despite all the variations of the Lord’s Prayer that different congregations used—in New Hampshire, “thy will be done”; Rhode Island said “trespasses,” and in Pennsylvania, we chanted— despite all the differences, we were always invited to pray as Jesus taught us in every public gathering of prayer.   Whenever we as Episcopalians gather to pray, the prayer Jesus taught the disciples is included. Throughout my life, this has stuck with me, and it has connected me with The Episcopal Church even when my spiritual journey took me far from the pews I grew up in.  I always knew that if I was muttering “Our Father” as I was falling asleep or looking for direction, somewhere someone else was saying the same thing and having the same experience. I was never alone in faith or fear. 

As an interim priest, one of the unexpected blessings has been the opportunity to share that knowledge with the congregations where I have served.  Most recently, I shared with the children at Grace Church in Haddonfield the awareness of the common practice of praying the Lord’s Prayer.  It felt important to do as some of them were baptized or started coming to worship regularly during my time there.  Children sometimes conflate clergy with the Divine, and it felt crucial to teach them that when we don’t see someone any longer we may miss them, but we need only to say the words that Jesus taught his friends and remember that we are all part of a great community of saints, the living and the dead.  

Learning to pray as Jesus instructs helps us to remember we are all children, always, to God. That nothing we can do can separate us from the love that God the Father has for each of us, and that no matter when or where we find ourselves praying, we are not alone.  This seems especially fitting as we journey through the Lenten season.  Some of us are wandering in a spiritual wilderness. Previous ways of being have been shaken, and faith may be in question as the changes and chances of life impact how we live and move and have our being.  It is important to remember that even when we are lost in the wilderness, doubting, questioning, longing for clarity and certainty, we are never truly alone. God is with us, and we, as the body of Christ the Church, pray together with one another even if we do not hear one another’s voices.  So we seek deliverance from evil and temptation and ask Our Father to show us the way through prayer and action. 

Let us pray in the words our savior taught his friends, and remember, we are not left to our own devices, nor are we ever truly alone on earth as in Heaven. 

Amen.

Meditation by the Reverend Kimberly Reinholz
Interim Priest, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Salem
Diocese of New Jersey