Scripture can be found here...
We are praying. We are praying
together in slow motion, if you will, our core, unifying prayer. And this week,
we pray: Your kingdom come, your will be done.
So let’s talk about kingdoms, a
particularly appropriate subject just a few days prior to the 237th
anniversary of the date on which the original thirteen colonies threw off the
shackles of one particular kingdom. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress
adopted the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. Here, probably the
most famous sentence from the preamble:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
In a few short sentences, it
becomes clear that the king whose rule is being overthrown is guilty of denying
these “unalienable rights”. The longest part of the Declaration is the part
known as the “indictment,” which lays out offense after offense on the part of
the King of England against the people of the now United States.
All of which leads me to this
conclusion: as US citizens, we come well-supplied with a deep suspicion of
“kingdoms,” and with good reason.
Isn’t it odd, then, that as
children, we Americans are regularly plied with the stories of kings and queens
and princes and princesses, and that these stories offer reassurance that
somewhere, even if only in the imaginary castles of our storybooks or animated
Disney films, there are kings who are just, or, at the very least, harmless?
Then we grow up, and we discover
shows like Game of Thrones a fantasy about
medieval-type kingdoms filled with HBO’s usual dose of extreme violence, nudity
and blue language, (so don’t tune in unless you can live with all those). One
central icon of Game of Thrones is
the Iron Throne itself, constructed from the swords of one powerful king’s
defeated enemies. For any watcher of the series, it soon becomes clear that
concepts such as “unalienable” or innate rights for non-royal people don’t even
exist in the world inhabited by these characters.
They don’t exist in most Biblical
kingdoms either. I have shared with you before God’s scathing indictment of the
ways of kings in 1 Samuel 8. God
tells a prophet (this is a paraphrase), “here’s what human kings are good for:
forced labor, taxes, harems, armies, war.”[i]
And the people to whom Jesus is talking this day, on this hillside, when he
teaches them this prayer we are praying together over these many weeks, they
know all too well the ways of kings, whether we are talking about their own
corrupt and murderous king-for-rent Herod Antipas, or Caesar and all his
minions of the brutal occupying Roman Empire.
Which is why it is so stunning to
have Jesus, not only use, but embrace; not only embrace, but proclaim the
concept of kingdom and kingship when it comes to God, every chance he gets. And
here, he says, “Your kingdom come.” Which, of course, is what sets this kingdom
apart from those of the human kings. It’s God who is king now. But even that’s
not quite right. The Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic words translated into the
word “kingdom,” don’t quite mean that. They mean, “reign” or “rule”, or even,
“way of ruling.”
If you’re anything like me, if
you have a deep-seated mistrust of kings and kingdoms and anything that smacks
of people getting stuff just because of who they’re related to, you probably
feel better already. Still, just in case we’re not sure of what God’s “way of
ruling” might be, let’s turn to the thousand times (or so) Jesus mentions “the
kingdom of heaven,” i.e., God’s way of ruling, in Matthew’s gospel.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)
“Blessed are those who are
persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10)
“I tell you, many will come from
east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven…” (Matthew 8:11)
“But if it is by the Spirit of
God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God
has come to you.” (Matthew 12:28)
“The kingdom of heaven is like a
mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field…” (Matthew 13:31)
“The kingdom of heaven is like
yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of
it was leavened.” (Matthew 13:33)
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is
like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value,
he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:45-46)
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is
like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind…”
(Matthew 13:47)
“Therefore every scribe who has
been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who
brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” (Matthew 13:52)
In looking at the God’s kingdom,
the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom we are praying to come—as soon as
possible!—we find something that bears no resemblance to the kingdoms we know, whether
in our storybooks, or TV shows, or 18th century Great Britain, or 1st
century Rome. This is a kingdom best represented not by thrones made of swords,
but a seed. This is a kingdom that has to do, not with armies, but with that
delicious yeast smell while the bread rises, and searching diligently for
something so beautiful it catches your breath. This is a kingdom you will
recognize by the banquets—hey! That’s something like those other kingdoms! Oh,
wait. To get into this banquet, it helps if you’re actually poor and hungry, or
maybe really grieving and in need of consolation. (Sorry, completely different
banquet situation.) This is a kingdom you can identify by the fact that people
are being healed and released from the demons that haunt them, and not slain in
brutal displays of royal power unchecked.
“Your kingdom come,” Jesus has us
pray, but this is a kingdom that is already within us and among us, because
Jesus himself is the sign it has come. So to pray “your kingdom come” is to
pray that our eyes and ears and hands and hearts are ready to take part in Jesus’
work, what someone has called “the great Divine clean-up of the world.” To pray
“Your kingdom come” is to pray, “Help me find and plant that seed.” To pray, “Your
kingdom come” is to pray, “I am ready to share your healing.” To pray, “Your
kingdom come” is to be ready to give all for this priceless treasure of God’s
vision for humanity. To pray, “Your kingdom come” is to yearn to serve and be
served at that banquet. One writer has summarized it like this: “To pray that
God’s kingdom will come is to ask that God’s power to create will prevail over
forces that destroy, and that [God’s] power to redeem will bring release from
bondage.”[ii]
Your kingdom come, your will be
done.
My first instinct about God’s
will was simply to wonder, isn’t God’s will inextricably tied up with God’s
kingdom? By which I mean, if we understand God’s kingdom to be the radical
vision of God preached and lived in the work of Jesus, the ministry of healing,
of table, of justice and care for all God’s most vulnerable… If we understand
all that to be the hallmark of God’s already inaugurated kingdom, isn’t saying
“Your kingdom come, your will be done,” sort of like saying the same thing
twice? And the answer to that is “Yes. But there’s more.”
It is impossible to talk about
God’s will without taking note of the only other place that phrase occurs in
the gospel.
Twenty chapters later, after his
work has led him on a path to Jerusalem where he is spending the Passover with
his friends, Jesus again uses the phrase “Your will be done” in prayer to God.
Only, this time, he is not in the midst of a teaching moment with his
disciples. He is praying in deep anguish, in agony for what he knows he is
about to face: his own death. Here is the passage, beginning at Matthew 26:39:
And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed,
“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want
but what you want.” Then
he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “So,
could you not stay awake with me one hour? Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time
of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again he went away for the second
time and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will
be done.” ~Matthew 26:39-42
I want to be very careful about equating
God’s will with Jesus’ death. I struggle with the notion of an all-powerful God
who sees the only way of salvation for God’s people as being a dreadful, bloody
sacrifice of this Beloved Child Jesus, a God who, in theory, when asked about
it later, could say, “My hands were tied! It was the only thing that would
work!” That to me is a mockery of the power of God, as well as a mockery of the
character of God, whom scripture tells us again and again… are you sick of it
yet?... is kind and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,
ready to relent from punishing. It does not make sense to me.
Here is what does make sense: A
God who is so committed to healing the breach created by the effects of sin,
that this God would accept the life freely given by that Beloved Child… this is
not a substitution; it’s a gift, like the gift made by the man who died last
week because he dove into a shallow creek to save a little kid he didn’t even
know. This gift is given from one who is so utterly in harmony with the will of
God, with God’s kingdom-vision for humanity, that he would not raise a hand in
resistance even when faced with torture and death. “Your will be done…” not in
the sense that God wills Jesus’ death, but in the sense that God wills Jesus’ lifelong
demonstration of God’s vision, the whole thing, even if this is the
consequence.
To pray “Your will be done,” is
to add our prayer to the one who made his life a gift to the world, and to ask
that our own life might be a gift.
Your kingdom come, your will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven.
We are praying. We are praying
together in slow motion, our core, unifying prayer. And we come to the end of
the God-half of the prayer, the parts of the prayer having to do with our
asking God to help us to participate with the “great Divine clean-up of the
world”, just as Jesus participated in it. And we pray that all these things may
be as true, boots on the ground, as they are in God’s clear and gorgeous
vision, that heaven and earth may be indistinguishable, the earth holding a
mirror up to heaven. “Your kingdom come,” we pray. “Your will be done, on earth
as it is in heaven.” May it be so. Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Rolf Jacobson, Podcast:
“Narrative Lectionary 051, Solomon,” October 21, 2012, http://workingpreacher.org.
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