Free Access

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial."
-- Luke 11:1-4

One of the disciples said to Jesus, "Lord, teach us to pray."

"Teach us to pray." That's a dangerous request. If one is serious about this, it is a risky thing to ask Jesus. It can be life-altering. "Lord, teach us to live! Teach us to align our priorities with your priorities." This is risky behavior.

Prayer is not just our turning to God, but it also involves an act of God -- a divine act by which God draws us into the realm of inclusive love. In genuine prayer, you may actually become what you were meant to be from the very beginning, who you were intended to be by God. This is life-altering. It is a risky request, "Lord, teach us to pray."

Prayer is sometimes discovering the world's problems first in yourself. In prayer, you may actually enter into the neighbor's fear and pain. As the Lord's Prayer states, we pray not only to "my God" but "our Father." It is the God of us all that is addressed and answers. This is dangerous territory! What kind of world is this that we ask to enter?

If a child asks for a fish will you give her a poisonous snake instead; if your child asks for nourishing food to eat will you give him a scorpion?
-- Luke 11:11-12 (paraphrased)

Too often we live in a world where we expect to give and receive poisonous snakes and scorpions -- but that is not the way it is to be with you who knows Abba, Father, God through Christ. Prayer is perceiving the world in a whole new way. Prayer is letting God love the world through you.

"Lord, teach us to pray." This is a dangerous request, because you shouldn't pray unless you are willing to become the answer. Prayer is dialogue with the living God. It is being open, vulnerable; it is deep confession; it is the readiness to be surprised by the profound love of God, surprised by resurrection. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done" -- do we really mean that?

"Lord Jesus, teach us to pray."

The first draft of this sermon began to sound like a lecture on the nature of the healing, surprising, centering nature of prayer, but it is summertime, and lectures are more wintry in nature. So instead, I will tell you a summer story, a true story.

Lord, teach us to pray.

Our Father, holy is your name. Your kingdom come. We want your will to be done. And forgive us our sins, and may we forgive others.
-- Luke 11:2-4 (paraphrased)

Sidney was playing the piano when I arrived at his apartment. It was early summer -- still June but hot and muggy and only June. Sidney Pitts was the organist and choir director at the church I once served in New Jersey almost twenty years ago. Our agenda was to plan music for the summer worship services. It was hot and muggy, and we were both tired of a long winter of meetings, and our schedule was clear, so Sidney threw three or four nectarines in a clear plastic bread bag. We got in his old Toyota Cressida and drove up the Garden State Parkway and over the humpback Perth Amboy Bridge to the turnpike and then over Outerbridge Crossing to Staten Island and into the alien territory of New Yorkers. New Yorkers talk funny, and are often abrupt and rude; too often they are not "New Jersey Nice." It started to rain.

We drove past the Staten Island landfill with its infamous mountains of garbage being pushed about by bulldozers, disturbing the huge flock of resident herring gulls, who would then circle around and swoop down to fight over bits of trash. The smell of refuse in the humidity was overwhelming, as was the waste of resources represented there; all the greed buried in the now-poisoned earth by smoke-belching bulldozers. Even the gulls were corrupted, fighting over scraps of plastic that would eventually kill them. Our boastfulness, our desire to acquire, our alienation from the web of nature, from the good earth, what future does this hold? If your children want clean air and water and safe food, do you give them a scorpion? It appeared that way that day.

Like a giant cross on the skyline off to our right in the distance as seen from the height of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, was the rusted iron framework of the parachute-drop, and our destination, Coney Island.

It was a hot, June day and we really didn't want to plan summer worship services, and in one's freedom, sometimes, you just want to poke your head through the bubble wall of evil. So we went into alien territory. And also there was the pitiful truth that Sidney was a roller coaster addict. He had been patterned in youth by a careless father who loved dusty county fairs. Now Sidney's craving for speed and the fall was a serious addiction. He had flown on some of the great coasters of North America but never yet on the near-mythic "Cyclone" of Coney Island. I could only understand from a distance the inner, visceral, and mental demands of the severe addiction that was eating away at Sidney's soul. So I agreed that our weekly planning meeting that week could be held in Coney Island, with a slightly different agenda. You see, friendship often drags along accomplices even to places where people and things appear alien, radically different, and where the earth is so transformed by cement and garbage that one questions one's own origin and future. But that is precisely where the Cyclone lives -- Coney Island.

We exited off the Belt Parkway and took West 17th Street straight toward Surf Avenue and the boardwalk. Tucked between Gravesend Bay and Coney Island, we should have traversed the lively birthing ground of a salt marsh. But there were no muskrats or snowy egrets, and no sweet sea and eel-grass smells. Rather, the pathway was graffiti-marked cement walls, abandoned storefronts, burned-out cars, blowing newspapers of yesterday's news in other places, crushed beer cans, rolling wine bottles, and an incredible amount of shattered glass shards, like mirrors reflecting the weak attempt of sunlight struggling through the clouds and urban haze. Even as one closed in on the sea, homeless men slept in doorways, and hairless, nervous dogs nosed throughout the gutter litter.

The empty boardwalk heading south was wide but worn. Nail heads rose a quarter inch above the splintered wood. Bike tires and bare feet, and I wondered what else, held no hope on this walkway.

Signs of past glory still littered the scene. There were large wooden columns painted to look like Italian marble though now you could see their pine grain heart. How much of our life together is just deception? We walked past the giant towering iron and steel structure of the parachute ride that had been moved here soon after the 1939-1940 World's Fair -- a World's Fair just a decade away from the holocaust to come. The parachute ride stood, now a rusted remnant looking like the struts of an old wind-blown umbrella. Cables blew in the wind. Near its base was the cracked cement interwoven roadways of a kiddie car ride winding, weaving through four-foot weeds. It looked like something "after the bomb." Behind a fence were the carcasses of old "wild mouse" cars, their painted rodent faces and wide eyes streaked now with a veneer of soot and tears of splashed dry mud. A snarling German shepherd whose eyes seemed to remember caribou kills on Pleistocene tundra bared its teeth at us through a gap in a high wooden fence that was spray painted with the words, "White Power." What hope does even prayer have in such a place that we have made for ourselves?

As we walked north, ahead of us stood another fence and more weeds but behind them, and soaring above them, stood the smooth, clean lines of a fabulous roller coaster. Sidney's walk became a run. But as we approached the glorious wooden serpent, our expectation shifted into disappointment. The wooden support beams were streaked gray and split with age and darkened with moisture where they reached down to touch the sandy earth. Maybe that was the mistake: to come down from the heavens and touch this human world of decay. Does God now question the decision to send Jesus to us and to crucifixion? The rails were rusted, weeds dominating the lower runs. Its little train of cars sat before us, the rounded, low red image of speed, but now in a tight row, frozen, silent, impotent, the stuffing pushing out through cracks in the red leather seats.

It was the "Thunderbolt," the Cyclone's once-worthy but now apparently defeated competition. There were tears in Sidney's eyes. We were on Bowery, between 15th and 16th Streets. Our pilgrimage for amusement and meaning was becoming a nightmare.

We walked on and entered a part of the boardwalk that still offered some animation, though just barely. The giant Ferris wheel, the "Wonder Wheel," slowly, reluctantly, began to turn, lifting its massive caged seats in rotation with a groan. But it was empty. Newspaper pages blew by with their front page stories of drug-related murders, famine, and nations at war. An empty red, oval-shaped, fiberglass car crashed out of a pair of swinging doors. Above the exit door was the painted image of three or four screaming people in flames. Over the main gate to this "Fun House" (is that what this earth is -- just a fun house -- something for our pleasure -- at the expense of others?) was a massive portrait of a devil, painted for cash by Soho artists in need of rent money; a devil and the words, "All ye who enter here: Abandon All Hope."

I looked out to where the waves were meeting the beach, the sea struggling to cleanse itself, and thought that there was no need to pay a dollar to ride an open car into the devil's mouth. One can walk there, even with a friend, and abandon all hope.

Finally, we reached our intended destination. Standing on firm-footed, newly painted, white support frames was the Cyclone -- The Cyclone, towering and winding and higher than expectations. Sidney was breathing heavily. The coaster was waiting for customers -- waiting for us. At last, things seemed right. The rest of the world may be in decay, hungry, homeless, and polluted, but we were going to get the thrill that we wanted, that we deserved!

The track arched its back eight times and the downside of the first arch was the wicked fall of fame. Infamous -- from above and below on the first fall it appears as though the cars and lives plunge straight into the sand. And they do, as the tracks twist slightly south during the drop to give the added sensation that the cars have disengaged from the track. The hole at the foot of the first drop was added, according to tradition, when a competitor built a coaster slightly higher than the Cyclone. But the Cyclone would be second to none -- only first. That's our desire after all, to go only "for the gold"; anything else is a loser.

They dug a hole and became number 1 again, with the added illusion for the rider of actually crashing into the earth, entering a sand tomb, being swallowed in a moment of darkness, before being yanked out and up again for another fall.

There was no waiting line when we bought tickets from a silent figure behind bars. And no line to get on the cars. As some of you know, for the full effect before you actually get in the car of a roller coaster, there should be a long line of nervous, bragging people, a fifteen minute wait at least. This is an important psychological trapping of the great old coasters that was denied us that afternoon. A long line giving you time to think about the destiny of chance, and our freedom of choice, and the thrill and threat of a technology that claims to be able to keep speeding cars on flimsy tracks pieced together by human hands and minds that may have been tired or angry or intoxicated or in pain when they nailed the framework together that will support our lives. "Father, forgive us...."

We walked too fast past the psychological props that were present -- the white wooden signs with red lettering that lined the wall of the walkway to the waiting cars, signs that read,

* Heart Patients and Pregnant Women should Exit Immediately;
* Remove your eyeglasses;
* Remove pens and pencils from your pockets
* Remove wigs; and
* The Management is Not Responsible for your Injury or Death.

A metal "safety bar," which mocked its name, sort of a slippery chrome tube was snapped too loosely across my lap. You could easily be sucked out of that car in seconds, it seemed. And then the head-snapping start, the cog gear engaging, and the click-click-click-click-click as the little open train made its slow ascent up the old shaking timber frame. (I mean this was the real thing, not those slick steel and hydraulic coasters in new theme parks, and their promise to county commissioners to be fail-safe, and their computers pacing Swiss-made metal precision on rubber tires.) The Cyclone was the real thing. The foundation we shared shuddered and creaked and moaned ... "Even though you are young, you are mortal," it whispered. As we reached the very top, in that momentary pause, that for some of us seems like forever, before the fall, Sidney was in ecstasy and yelled out to the dark sky, "This is it! This is it!" For me it was a time of prayer, but in this prayer for safety, was I really open to God's complete answer?

The drop was as terrible as I had feared it would be.

As we stood by the exit gate, Sidney appeared to be sad. "It was a good ride," he said, "a fine coaster," but not the "ultimate thrill" that he longed for, not the ultimate fulfillment. "What could that be?" he said to himself, "to own a roller coaster? To be famous and ride a roller coaster? Maybe jumping off a roller coaster?" What would do it? What to hope for next? What to live for?

Well, Sidney stayed with the Cyclone. A purist must re-ride a coaster from different locations on the train, front, back, middle, for an objective evaluation. I walked a few blocks north along the boardwalk and past the boccie courts, to the New York City Aquarium. Beluga whales are more my speed, and if you walk to the roof and have patience, these small white whales with built-in smiles will come up to the top of their tank and complain to you about their confinement and squeak out their remembrances of the open sea.

Later that afternoon, Sidney and I walked back toward the car, back through this alien territory of Coney Island, when it began to happen. I believe God opened our eyes, answered prayer: "Thy kingdom come." People began to arrive, spilling with laughter from elevated trains that were spray-painted with Hispanic poetry of force and a certain dignity. It was a mixture of people from every race and place and experience, which could have been perceived as threatening and different, alien; driving us to even a deeper loneliness. Super urbanized and socially, emotionally, linguistically, and culturally different from Sidney and me and yet, at that moment, so much the same. What hope, if any, do they and I share -- what future, what purpose? They celebrated life as they walked by me. They, too, smiled and laughed and teased and appreciated the ocean breeze. An old gray man limped past coming from the beach, with his pant legs wet and his feet sandy; he carried a full bucket of surf clams freshly dug at low tide, certainly more than he could ever eat alone. Not alone! These were clams to be diced for one of his favorite recipes from the old country. Tonight it was going to be, I am sure, chilled wine and white clam sauce for his linguine shared with a whole family; he had a big bucket full of clams. Let's invite the daughter's family over from Queens with all the kids and get a couple of loaves of garlic bread. It was to be a family celebration; you could just tell.

Heading toward the beach was a noisy group of interracial children, all wearing the same bright yellow T-shirt of some local day care center; they were smiling and kidding and holding hands that were ready to dig in the beach sand. Maybe, if their teachers were in a good mood, they would be allowed to get their feet a little wet after piling all their sneakers in a big red, white, and blue pile. They were so joyful together.

Hispanic teenagers glided by on the boards together to the sound of their oversized boom boxes, together on a clearing, "Welcome to summer" Friday afternoon. And the humidity finally seemed to lift as if the ceiling of things was raised and there was breathing room.

Food stands were now open for business around the Astroland Arcade, and they reflected clearly the parade of people, of us: Our past and positive pride; potato knish, kosher pizza, and southern barbecued ribs. "Real lamb" was promised on the blackened shish kebab. There were Spanish meat pies, moussaka, and fresh mussels in a Tabasco marinara sauce to be eaten in a celebration with friends who understand you and respect you.

The "All Beef" hot dogs at Nathan's were, to my taste at that awakened moment, excellent! My hot dog was handed to me by a young dark-skinned woman with Asian eyes who seemed to be a mix of all of us, and her smile was haunting. That concession counter was only a temporary stage in the process of her living, her being, and she knew that well.

We were a mixed and motley group but shared more than just an unconscious yet common desire to face death together on the Cyclone and re-emerge with our personhood intact.

We need forgiveness. I need forgiveness. "Father forgive us our sins, as we should forgive others."

We are the same community; we plunge into the sand together in this place, from wherever we come from -- Brooklyn, Jamaica, Newark, the old country, St. Paul, or Duluth.

Jesus defended and lived our right to care, to affection, to acceptance, not to be abused or neglected but defended, including the good earth. He was called where we are to nurture, to respect, to protect the sacredness of all these others from any forces that tear body, mind, or soul asunder. For when minds and bodies and cities decay, a part of us all decays. Any attempt to marginalize or belittle or mistreat, any bigotry, any prejudice, any inflicted pain and suffering is an affront to us all, and to God called "Abba" Father, the loving parent of us all.

As Sidney and I walked back to the parking lot before a fast-approaching thunderstorm, once again we walked through the area of most disrepair and decay, back through the graveyard of past joy, through the weeds and rust, the area of the park we had thought was long and forever dead, where before there seemed to be a despair feared to be too thick for hope.

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done."

We heard a rattling sound, and a click, click, click, click, and we saw the movement of open cars on the old wooden arches that loomed ahead. Gifts of life were being offered even here. Even now. Once again. The old Thunderbolt roller coaster was alive. An old carny with a straw hat and cigar was beckoning us toward the red coaster cars, which were losing their stuffing but not their heart.

Other people appeared, laughing, sharing joy among themselves that spilled over to us, and together we entered and filled all the car seats, and, like a phoenix, we rose together above the ashes and rubble of decay and difference, transcending together both loneliness and chaos.

During that slow ascent, pinned to the back of our seat as the cars nosed toward the heavens, a teenage boy in the seat directly ahead turned his head with a laugh to look around at Sidney and me. We laughed back. Sisters and brothers in front and in back of us, in my history now and my future. They were a part of my responsibility now, and me of theirs; finally together in intended unity, glimpse of thy kingdom come; our final reunion with a loving, living, eternal God. As we reached the arched peak, there together we shared for a moment a view of an endless ocean. Above us and before us actual lightning bolts slashed the sky of Coney Island. There were grand claps of thunder. But no fear! And we fell together, yet, of course, rose again, united in the time-stopping and space-connecting speed of it all.

Sidney and I walked back to the car through the weeds and litter that bordered the parking lot, but it was all different now. What can we do about hatred, disharmony, and separation? We are called into servanthood in our world. Love centers unity and responsibility.

"Your kingdom come, your will be done, dear Father God."

We drove over the high arch of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge heading for the Parkway, and north and south, and the beginning and the end, alpha and omega, seemed united. We were reunited....

"Lord, Jesus, teach us to pray." Amen.

Sermon originally delivered August 13, 1978
Resurrection Lutheran Church
Hamilton Square, New Jersey

Sermon revised and delivered July 26, 1998
First Lutheran Church
Duluth, Minnesota