Connection

                  This week's gospel text includes the Lord's prayer, and during my sermon prep I found myself wondering what Luther had to say about it. So, I opened a copy of Luther's Works that contained some of his sermons and read his sermon on the Lord's prayer. What was surprising to me is that, outside of a few minor tweaks to modernize the language, you could have torn the pages of sermon out of the book it was in and placed it in the pulpit ready to be preached on Sunday with no issue. The same exploration of the deeper meaning of the text we repeat every Sunday still speaks to the needs of Christians sitting in pews some 500 years later. Which is maybe one of the most beautiful things about the Lord’s Prayer. It is one of the most static pieces of the Christian faith. Yes, the language and translation it’s being spoken in might change, but it’s still the Lord’s Prayer. It’s still being prayed by the faithful the same way it was in the beginning. When a Pastor in Baltimore speaks it over the coffin of a recently deceased today they are doing so in the same way as one who did so hundreds of years ago in Rome. When a family sits down around the dinner table prays it they are connected to a family sitting down and saying the same words a thousand years ago. And when someone today prays it in grief and pain and despair because they have no other words to pray they are connected with every person across time and space reaching for the same words when they go through that same experience. It’s amazing how one simple prayer holds and instructs us all no matter where, when or who we are.

Amen,

Pastor Corey