Sermon on Sunday, September 26
Today is the second Sunday in our sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer. Last week we looked at the opening to that prayer, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” and today we will spend some time with, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Once again, a hope I have in presenting this series is that we will find ourselves praying the Lord’s Prayer with intentionality—that each time we begin the prayer together, we’ll find ourselves open to new connections and possibilities in our faith.
I can remember that from an early age, it always struck me as strange that we prayed to God, “Thy will be done.” “If it’s God’s will,” I thought, “and God has the power to make it happen, then what do I think I’m accomplishing by praying for it?”
“Thy will be done, God. Just wanted to let you know that I approve of your will being done. I know that you were going to do your will—not trying to stop you here! Just saying, God, that if you feel like doing something, I for one think you should just go ahead and do it. ”
“Thy will be done, God! Go ahead and do whatever it is you were planning on doing!” Sounds sort of like a child saying to a parent in the candy aisle at the supermarket, “Mom, when it comes to buying or not buying me a treat, I just want you to know that I approve in advance of your decision.”
This hits on a big question for us in prayer, which is, “Just what do we think we’re accomplishing when we pray?” Is God somewhere waiting for us to pray so that action can finally be taken? Does God have a will to act in this world that is somehow reliant on our giving it permission? “Ok, God, thy will be done—go ahead.” Surely not. Whatever God’s will is, it’s God’s will, and I highly doubt that you and I are the final say in enabling or disabling that will through our prayers. So then the question: what are we really doing when we pray to God, “Thy will be done”?
I shared this story with the Sunday school class last week after worship. A friend of mine a few years back was suffering from a terrible sinus infection, and she asked me to pray for her. We were actually standing in a parking lot outside the mall in Rockford, IL. I was in college at the time, and I felt a little self-conscious praying right there and then, but I did. We bowed our heads and I mumbled out some sort of prayer, and at one point I prayed, “God, if it’s your will, please heal Danielle,” and at that moment she hit me! She stopped the prayer right there and smacked me in the arm and said, “What do you mean, ‘God, if it’s your will’? Of course it’s God’s will! God doesn’t want me to be sick! Let’s pray again.” So we bowed our heads again, and this time, I tried to be more sure of what God wanted.
If I’d been a little more astute at the time, I might have reminded my friend that Jesus began a prayer once with “God, if it’s your will…” He was in the garden just hours before his arrest, and he knew what was coming. Betrayal, crucifixion, death. And in a prayer that reveals just how human Jesus was, he prayed to God, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.”
“God, if it’s your will, make this go away.” I for one appreciate the element of uncertainty in that prayer, because I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. Life crumbles apart and the only prayer we can think to pray is, “God, if you are God, can’t you just snap your fingers and change all this? The car wreck, the foreclosure, the cancer diagnosis… Hit the reset button, God, and make it all better.”
It’s hard not to look at the whole world and wonder. The AIDS pandemic, debilitating poverty, horrific wars, millions struggling without access to fresh water… The list goes on and on. It’s hard not to wonder, “God, do you even have a will for this world? And if you do, God, we can only assume that it doesn’t include these awful things, right? That your will is not for a world where thousands die each day from starvation and preventable disease? That your will is not for a world torn apart by violence?”
That’s the prayer we pray when we say to God, “Thy kingdom come,” though, isn’t it? “God, the kingdoms of this world are failing. Kingdoms of division and power—they’re not working too well here. Kingdoms where the gap between rich and poor widens at an alarming rate, kingdoms where two percent of the people own half the world’s wealth, kingdoms where children make up the fastest growing homeless population… These kingdoms have failed, God. Thy kingdom come.”
“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.” These aren’t prayers that give God “permission” to act; they’re prayers that confess just how broken and needy this world is.
Another story from my college days. For a couple years during my spring break, I went with some other students from the University of Illinois to volunteer in an impoverished neighborhood on Chicago’s west side. One of the highlights of those trips was being invited for dinner into families’ homes. These were families being served by the Chicago Urban Project. Living day to day, they struggled to make ends meet.
I’ll never forget my time with one of those families. Two kids, their mother, and their grandmother, all living in a tiny apartment in the Austin neighborhood. Another student and I joined them for a delicious supper of ham and pea soup, corn bread, collard greens… It was an amazing meal and their hospitality was so warm and gracious. The interesting thing about this apartment was that there were boxes here and there, full of things. “Are you getting ready to move?” we asked. “Oh, we’re always thinking about moving.” And then the young daughter pointed to the clock on the wall in their dining room. Just a basic wall clock, but this one was different. Someone had taped a little sign above the number twelve, and it read, “Nebraska time.”
“We’re hoping to move someday,” the mom said. “Get out of here and go to Scottsbluff, Nebraska.” The family knew someone who lived out there, and Scottsbluff had come to represent a new start for them. Now the funny thing is that Nebraska is in the same time zone as Chicago. But that clock wasn’t about keeping track of another time zone, it was about keeping hope alive for another reality. A place where the kids were safe walking to school—where gangs didn’t rule the streets—where the playgrounds weren’t littered with broken glass.
“Nebraska time” is a “thy kingdom come” prayer—a prayer that refuses to believe that the kingdoms around us are final—a courageous prayer that, in the midst of a broken world, says, “God, this cannot possibly be your will!” “Thy kingdom come thy will be done” is not a wish that God would wave a magic wand and make all the bad things go away; rather it’s a statement of faith that brokenness is not the final reality in this world.
“Thy kingdom come” is an active prayer. And a question for you to consider the next time you pray the Lord’s Prayer is this: If I’m willing to pray for God’s kingdom, am I also willing to work for it? Right? If I’m willing to pray for God’s kingdom come, am I also willing to commit myself to its coming.
Alan Redpath once said that “before we can pray, ‘Lord, Thy Kingdom come,’ we must be willing to pray, ‘My Kingdom go.’”
Think for a moment about your own “my kingdom”—the one you’d have to let go of if God’s kingdom were to become more real for you.
In my kingdom, I get to love my friends, and while I don’t hate my enemies, I don’t choose to spend time with them. In God’s kingdom, I’m called to love everyone—everyone.
In my kingdom, it’s often every man and woman for himself or herself. In God’s kingdom, every man is my brother, every woman my sister.
In my kingdom, I get to pretend that the money I have is mine to save or spend. In God’s kingdom, I come to realize that everything belongs to God, and so the money currently in my possession is to be spent and shared responsibly.
Thy kingdom come, my kingdom go. And so the Lord’s Prayer is more than a prayer—it’s a call to action—a commitment we make to God’s kingdom, not someday, but now.
The prophet Micah said it best, perhaps, when he asked, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” When we do that—when we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God, we say goodbye to the kingdoms of our own making and we invite God’s kingdom to be a more present reality in our day to day lives.
This week, friends, may the prayer “thy kingdom come” be one that takes you from moment to moment. Begin when you wake up, before your feet even hit the floor, and pray, “God, your kingdom come.” When you greet members of your family and friends and strangers, whisper to yourself, “God, may your kingdom be made known in me in this conversation.” When you work, when you play, when you express warmth and sympathy, let your prayer be, “thy kingdom come.” Pray that God’s kingdom would be made known in your life and in the world around you. Especially when you dream about your own life. When you imagine your days to come and summon hope about your future, make it your earnest prayer: God, may your kingdom come in me.
God’s kingdom come in us, friends, today, this week, and in all our days ahead. Amen.
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