Where Heaven Touched Earth...

I’ve always suspected The Lord’s Prayer was real and probably even relevant.  But to be honest with you the words of that prayer have spilled off my lips so many times, in so many contexts, over so many years that they have become rote to me.  The words of the Lord’s Prayer have become so commonplace, oftentimes I don’t even hear them as I speak them.  Then comes the fear:  I think I may have been daydreaming, what did I just pray?  I’m just waiting for the time when one of our dear homebound members, for whom this prayer is powerful, stops me dead in my tracks to ask me what I just prayed.  So here’s the scoop:  I haven’t always given much thought about the Lord’s Prayer and the communal relationship it embodies.  That was until today.

 At noontime, seven of us gathered in prayer, holding hands, lifting up the latest victim of a Rochester homicide.  Jit Mongar, a 38 year old Nepalese refugee and sole bread winner for his seven children was robbed at gunpoint and murdered in the parking lot of Lake Food Market on Sunday night.

“Our Father in heaven.  Holy be your name.  Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

This prayer of holiness offered on the very ground that had been desecrated by the spilling of blood just three days ago.  “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done – especially here O Lord at 785 Lake Avenue.  Please God, bring healing to these precious children whose dad will never be coming home again.  Please God, murder can’t be your will, especially on the day of Resurrection. We need your holiness.  We need your peace.  We need for heaven to touch the earth.”

And it did.  Heaven bent down to touch the earth today in the words of a little girl who walked by our ecumenical prayer circle with her mother.  “Look Mommy, those people are praying”.  That’s all she said.  That’s all she needed to say.  In years to come, she may or may not remember that a father of seven was murdered on that spot, but she will remember that in her neighborhood, victimized by poverty and violence, some people stood around in a circle, holding hands in prayer.

Thank you God.  Your Kingdom came near today, but not as I imagined it.  It may have come near in the prayers we offered, maybe not.  But I know for sure heaven touched the earth today in the curiosity of a little girl who proclaimed words of hope on that Rochester killing field, “Look Mommy, those people are praying…”

“Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  I think I may have seen that today not only in prayers spoken but in prayer proclaimed.

Amen.  Come Lord Jesus…

Peace and Love,

Pastor Doug