Our Father…

AM Psalm 88 • PM Psalm 91, 92
2 Kings 9:17-37 • 1 Cor. 7:1-9 • Matt. 6:7-15

In chapter 6 of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus gives his followers a model for how to pray. With the words, “Our Father who art in heaven….,” he begins what has become the central prayer of all Christendom. Every Sunday, this prayer rises to heaven, as Christians all over the world recite it in unison in their own particular languages.

I’m writing this reflection on the morning of September 11, 2021, twenty years after Lisa Jefferson, a supervisor at the Verizon Airfone center in Oakbrook, Illinois, stepped out of her office to see what the commotion was about. An operator was taking a call that so traumatized her that she was speechless. Ms. Jefferson lifted the operator out of her seat, put on the headset, and calmly took over that momentous call from a passenger on United Flight 93, while notifying the FBI, airline security, and Verizon operations personnel.

On the line was Todd Beamer, one of the four men who would lead a group of the forty-four passengers in an attempt to overtake the hijackers, ultimately bringing the plane down in an empty field in rural Pennsylvania, rather than on the intended target, probably the White House or the Capitol. Ms. Jefferson said they conversed “like old friends” during their thirteen-minute conversation. “I know we’re not going to make it out of here,” Beamer told Ms. Jefferson, his voice calm, as chaos developed on the plane.

Through the background screams and commotion, Beamer talked about his family and asked her to tell them he loved them. At one point, when he thought he’d lost contact, Ms. Jefferson assured him, “I’m still here, Todd. I’ll be here as long as you’re here.” Then he asked her to say the Lord’s Prayer with him, and as they recited those familiar words, the passengers around them began joining in. After that, he put the phone down and joined the other passengers as they stormed the cockpit.

When our children were growing up, we attended a church where parishioners joined hands when reciting the Lord’s Prayer. We kept the habit, just the four of us, when we started attending St. Paul’s. Then when our number dwindled to only two, John and I continued the custom, feeling that by joining hands, we were somehow touching not only each other and God but our children in their distant places as well.

Each time we Christians speak those words, either in private or communal prayer, we become links in a spiritual chain that leads back to Jesus, as we speak directly to his Father, and, as he reminds us, ours.

Written by Kay DuVal

Until they can join fellow worshipers in person during the Lord’s Prayer, Kay and John will continue to link hands and hearts in spirit each Sunday with St. Paul’s parishioners.