When I was in middle school, I loved going with my friends to the county fair. We would eat some of the amazing (and not at all healthy) food, waste a lot of money on the carnival games, watch the horse races and tractor pulls and whatever musical performer they’d been able to get to come to our small town, but my favorite thing of all was going on the rides. My friends and I would get the wristband for unlimited rides and try to fit in as many as we could until they closed them down, one of us had to leave, or one of us vomited in the trash can (and that didn’t always stop us). My favorite ride at the fair was one that looked like a large alien spacecraft and was called the Gravitron. I’m guessing some of you, if you enjoy carnival rides, have been on something similar.

The way the ride worked was that you would walk inside and all along the walls of the mock UFO were what looked a bit like carpeted ironing boards with seatbelts. We would select which ironing board we wanted and would lean back against it and buckle the seatbelt. Once everyone was secured, one of the workers would walk around and make sure the seatbelt was tight enough. Then the worker would step out and the UFO would start to spin around. Slowly at first, then increasing speed until we all felt a bit flattened against the wall. When we reached that point, we’d be allowed to remove our seatbelts and move about. The result was that we could “defy gravity” and “walk on the walls.” It was a weird experience, but it was also very fun and exciting. My friends and I would go on that ride over and over and over.

As I was thinking about gravity this week, I began to think about how the Gravitron worked, from a physics perspective. What I’ve determined is that the centrifugal force created by the centripetal force of the spinning exceeds the gravitational pull of the earth, thus creating the feeling of weightlessness. A similar phenomenon happens with space travel. The force exerted by the propulsion system of the rocket exceeds the gravitational pull of the earth, thus allowing the rocket to break free of the earth’s atmosphere. Gravity is strong, so it takes a significant amount of force to escape it. The gravitational pull of the earth gets less the farther you get from the center of the earth.

This morning, we are looking at Matthew 6 and Jesus’ words about prayer. Jesus begins with a critique of hypocrites, who love to stand around and pray out loud where people can see them. They are trying to look all holy and upright. They want to be praised for their piety. But Jesus tells us not to be like them. He tells us to go into our room, close the door, and pray in secret. He says, “your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Then he criticizes the Gentiles for how they pray. He says, “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.” Jesus says we shouldn’t need to be like them because God already knows what we need before we ask it. So, to sum up, don’t pray in a performative way and don’t pray fluffy, insubstantial prayers. Prayer is not about us. We don’t pray to prove our obedience or to prove our intelligence. We pray in order to connect with God. In prayer we let the gravity of prayer pull us back to the center of our faith… Jesus.

After Jesus has levied these criticisms, he then offers them a better way to pray. He says, “Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, may your name be revered as holy. May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.” We pray the basics of this prayer every Sunday at the end of our morning prayer. Many of us know it by heart. We know it so well that when a different church says trespasses instead of debts, we freak out a little. We know the words, but do we actually live into this prayer? Do we let the truths in this prayer ground us?

I think there are five truths in this prayer in which we can be grounded. First, we can be grounded in God’s holiness. “Our Father in heaven, may your name be revered as holy.” When Moses encountered the burning bush, he took off his sandals to approach the bush because he was on holy ground in the presence of God. And within God’s holiness, Moses found his purpose. Within God’s holiness, we find our purpose. It is within God’s holiness that we are made holy. When we pray, we center ourselves around God’s holiness. We are grounded in the overwhelming sacredness of who God is and of the world God made.

Second, through prayer, we are grounded in God’s will. Jesus continues, “May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” When we come before God in prayer and we open ourselves up to what God wants for us, we discover the places where God’s kingdom is trying to break into our world. We see the places where God’s will is not being done on earth as it is in heaven. And we see God’s heart for the world. As we pray for God’s will to be done, and open our hearts and minds to hear from God, we begin to see our role in living out God’s will in ways that take us into those dark places in the world, where earth looks nothing like heaven, and shows us what needs to be done to help. And if we truly believe the words we pray, then we will be compelled to do whatever we can to make this world a better place.

Third, through prayer, we are grounded in God’s provision. Jesus tells us to pray, saying, “Give us today our daily bread.” This part of the prayer is a reference to the manna in the desert. God’s people were wandering in the desert and had run out of food. Moses prayed about it to God and God provided for them. God sent them manna, which is some sort of bread-like substance that fell from the sky every morning to feed the people. Personally, I’m not sure my first thought when waking up and seeing bread all over the ground would be to pick it up and eat it, but I suppose if I were hungry enough, I’d probably be thrilled for dirty bread. The point however is that God provides. That provision won’t always come through magic sky bread though. Sometimes provision comes from us sharing resources with one another. Sometimes provision comes through soup kitchens and food pantries and sack lunches. Sometimes provision comes from free quarters for laundry or a card in the mail at just the right time. Prayer for God’s provision grounds us in the blessings that are ours and invites us toward generosity.

Fourth, through prayer,  we are grounded in God’s forgiveness. Jesus prayed, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” We humans are pretty good at anger and revenge and grudges, but we are not usually very good at forgiveness. It’s not that we don’t want to forgive and reconcile with people. It’s more than when we forgive, it feels like we are ignoring (maybe even accepting) the injustice of the situation. Forgiveness feels weak and compromising. Yet the whole basis of our faith is God’s mercy and forgiveness toward us in the sending of his Son into our world in order to save it. We are terrible at forgiveness, but forgiveness is at the center of what it means to be a Christian. Without forgiveness, wars would never end, families would be broken down and divided constantly, the church would not survive. Prayer brings us back to that recognition of our own forgiven-ness in Christ and the call to forgive others in the same way.

Finally, through prayer, we are grounded in God’s salvation. The final words of the prayer Jesus prays are: “And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.” This is the prayer of the worried, the troubled, the scared. When chaos and trouble is happening all around us or we are in a very dangerous place, we want nothing more than to be spared, to not have to enter into that place, to be protected and hidden. Jesus knows that desire. Remember the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus prays that this Lord would remove the cup from him. Just would have preferred to not be brought into that time of trial. Unfortunately, many times we can’t avoid being tested and tried. Many times we simply get pulled into them by society, by forces out of our control. It is then that we pray for God to rescue us. Prayer grounds us by giving us hope for a future beyond whatever evil lies before us or has already closed in around us. Prayer grounds us in God’s saving grace and connects us with a broader community of people who may all be facing the same challenges.

Prayer grounds us in God and in the common life of all humanity. We pray, not simply to make us feel good about ourselves, but to remind us of God’s desires for our world and what our role might be in making God’s kingdom more present in our world. Prayer grounds us, by comforting us that God cares about what we care about and by inviting us to care about what God cares about. Prayer grounds us, not in pulling our minds off of the world and up to heaven, but in opening our eyes to the needs of the world around us and helping us reflect on what God may be wanting us to do for God’s people. Prayer grounds us as we truly feel the gravity of all that is weighing our world down, all that is outside of God’s will for us, all that leads to bitterness and anger toward our fellow humans, all the injustice and inhumanity and violence that our world inflicts upon us. But ultimately, prayer grounds us in the truth of God’s great love for us and for this world God has made, in the hope that something better awaits us, and in the peace of God that surpasses all of our understanding but can change the world. Amen.