Sermon: The Lord’s Prayer: “Your Kingdom Come”
Living Like You Mean It
March 24th, 2019 Rev. Betsy Perkins
First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
Scripture passage: Luke 11:1-11
The hymn we just sang, says that the “Sweet hour of prayer… bids me at my Father’s throne make all my wants and wishes known.” I remember a time when I was young and I made my wants and wishes known – not at my Father’s throne, but on my mother’s lap. I really, really wanted a pixie haircut. I didn’t know what it was, but it sounded so cute. So my mom arranged for me to get a haircut the next time we went to the big city of Madras where there was a beauty parlor. When the day came, I got into the chair so excited. But I quickly realized that a pixie haircut was much more than I had bargained for. The lady was cutting off lots and lots of my long hair! I burst into tears the moment we walked out of the beauty parlor and I think I cried for a whole week. Have you ever asked for something or wished for something but then realized it wasn’t quite what you thought it was? It required more of you than you bargained for?
I wonder if Greg has ever had a young child beg to raise a county fair pig, not realizing all that it required. Did you then have to teach the child what it looked like to live like she meant it when she said she really, really wanted to have a pig? How to put in the time and effort and resources it requires?
As I’ve dug into this next phrase of the Lord’s Prayer, I’ve begun to wonder if that isn’t what happens sometimes when we ask for God’s Kingdom to come. I wonder if God’s Kingdom isn’t always what we thought it would be. Not that it’s bad. A pixie haircut and a hog are wonderful things, just a little more than we might have expected. In the same way, God’s Kingdom is a wonderful thing! A glorious thing! But I wonder if at times it can be more than we bargained for. We need to learn what it is and what it means to live like we really mean it when we pray, “May Your Kingdom come.”
What is God’s Kingdom? What does it look like? (So we know what we are asking for!)
One of the best descriptions I’ve heard for the Kingdom of God is that place/time where God is in charge. Those who have entered God’s Kingdom are operating under God’s ways of doing things, under God’s rules. The signs of God in charge are the kinds of signs that Jesus showed: people healed from illness and restored to wholeness; evil being thwarted and thrown out; someone being shown compassion or receiving forgiveness; loving an enemy, caring for a neighbor; expressions of beauty and creativity; peace entering in; trust in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. These are signs of God’s kingdom, of God’s ways being put into effect. In God’s kingdom hunger is satisfied, tears are dried and smiles return, pain is relieved and healing comes. In God’s kingdom it is God who is honored and praised.
By contrast, what do we see in places where God is not yet in charge, where an individual or a group grasps for the control and the power, where they want their own will to be carried out, or where evil is holding sway? One sign is how the poor are treated. When God laid out the Law for the ancient people of Israel, a people who claimed that God would be their King, God commanded again and again that the poor should be cared for, not taken advantage of. At the harvest, grain was to be left for the poor to gather (Lev.19:10). The poor should not be denied justice, God said (Ex.23:6). Jesus also made this a clear priority in his mission, announcing, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me and anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. (Lk.4:18) So when the poor are being cheated, mistreated or neglected, God ways are not being followed and God’s Kingdom is not there because people are not behaving as they would if God was in charge. Remember when Jesus saw people being cheated in the Temple courtyards, he became upset and chased the cheaters away, declaring, “Stop turning my Father’s house into a den of thieves.” (Lk.19:46; Jn.2:16)
God’s kingdom is a place of love and peace, so when someone kills and terrorizes a community to advance the superiority of one racial group, such as in the mosques in New Zealand, or in a synagogue in Pittsburg, or in Charlottesville, VA or in the most recent shooting in Utrecht, Holland, then God is not in charge of those actions. When a group of people try to advance a political agenda to expand their own influence, such as in Syria or Yemen or Venezuela, then they are not participating in the coming of God’s kingdom, for God to be in charge, but that they themselves might be in charge. When a person’s thoughts and energy are consumed by pornography or drugs or material things, by anger and distain, then God is not in charge. It could be as simple as when we speak an unkind word, or treat someone disrespectfully, or hold a grudge, then God is not in charge and God’s kingdom has not yet fully come.
What does it mean for God’s kingdom to ‘come’? God has promised that there will be a day when His kingdom will arrive in full; when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, is King. God is preparing for that Day, when He will reign over all the earth. As Christians, we long for that Day to come, for Jesus to return. So we make that request to God, “Thy kingdom come. Bring that Day!” “Lord, complete Your victory over the powers that cause suffering and sadness and compete to be in charge of creation.”
But there seems to be more to it than just that. The verb ‘come’ that Jesus uses in this prayer is not in the future tense, not just looking toward something that is going to happen at some point in the future. The verb ‘come’ is written in something called the imperfect tense, which is used for actions that are in process, that are already unfolding. The coming of God’s Kingdom is already happening and is ongoing.
The gospels tell us that Jesus went around preaching and announcing the Kingdom of God. When he sent out the disciples in pairs, Jesus instructed them to heal the sick and then say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”(Lk.10:9) Right after his teaching about prayer, in Luke 11, Jesus frees a man from a demon that is keeping the man from speaking, and then tells his disciples, “If you throw out demons by the power of God, then God’s Kingdom has already overtaken you.”(Lk.11:20) Or as the Message puts it, “then God’s kingdom is here for sure!” Jesus even said, “The Kingdom of God is in your midst” (Lk.17:20) Praying “May your kingdom come,” is a wish for Jesus’ return, AND it is a request to God that God would come and be in charge right here, right now.
Is Jesus/God the only one who makes His kingdom come, or do we have a role?
I was reminded this week that God IS the one who is making His Kingdom come. I mean I was literally reminded, by Will Swierenga. He rightly pointed out that God will usher in God’s rule with or without me; there is nothing I can do to stop it, nor is there anything I do that will make it happen. Praying, “Thy Kingdom come” then, is an acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty. It’s a recognition of what God has already done to inaugurate His kingdom through Jesus and what God will do to bring what God has started to completion. By praying, “May Your kingdom come,” we are accepting our proper role in creation, which is that God is in charge. Praying, “Your kingdom come,” is asking God to be in charge of me and my life. It is asking that God’s will be done rather than my will, as Matthew’s version of the Lord’s prayer goes on to add. It is asking that the goals and mission of God’s kingdom be mine, too.
And yet, in one of those astounding paradoxes of our Christian faith, we discover that God invites us to participate in what God is doing in ‘Kingdom come’. Isn’t that amazing?! Jesus includes this petition in the Lord’s Prayer, both as a statement of faith for us, but also as an actual request to God.
When God’s people were in Egypt and they were suffering under an oppressive government, a Pharaoh that demanded they work harder and harder, for less and less, so that he himself could have more and more, who ordered that their children be killed and that they be contained in their ghetto, the people cried out to God in prayer for relief to come, for God to come and save them. From out of the burning bush, God told Moses that it was a result of these prayers, these cries, that God was sending Moses to participate in the rescue God was in the process of bringing.
We are invited to be intercessors on behalf of God’s kingdom coming. NT Wright describes an intercessor as someone through whose prayers God’s love is poured out into the world. He goes on, “There is a battle on, a fight with the powers of darkness, and those who have glimpsed the light are called to struggle in prayer – for peace, for reconciliation, for wisdom, for a thousand things for the world and the church, perhaps a hundred or two for one’s one family, friends and neighbors, and perhaps a dozen or two for oneself.”
All these things that we long for and pray for, for ourselves and for the world, like peace, reconciliation, wisdom, healing, are signs of God’s kingdom! Jesus was asked by John’s disciples for assurance that he was indeed the Messiah and that it was indeed true, as Jesus was preaching, that the Kingdom of God was at hand, that it was near. Jesus said to them – look around, people are being healed, the blind now see, the oppressed are being set free… these are the signs of God’s kingdom coming!
God invites us to participate in His kingdom’s coming through prayer, and then, if we truly mean it, we will also go out to live as if God’s priorities are our priorities. Jesus invited his disciples to prepare the way for him to many of the towns and villages he would visit. He invited them to work alongside him in the healing, in calling others to follow and teaching them, in announcing God’s ways and God’s rule.
What does it look like to live like we mean it when we pray, “Thy Kingdom come”? To truly act like we want God’s ways, God’s rule, God’s will to be done right here and right now! It means that if we pray, “Bring your justice, God,” we can’t add: but only if it doesn’t pinch my standard of living, or prevent me from buying cheap shoes because the factory isn’t paying their workers a living wage…” It means that if we pray, “Bring the day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that you are Lord,” we don’t add: but only if I don’t have to step outside my comfort zone to share my faith with someone.” The prayer does not go, “Thy Kingdom come, but only if…”
When we pray, “May God’s kingdom come” and then live like we mean it, we don’t allow fear or laziness or apathy to stop us from doing what God asks of us to participate in establishing God’s justice, in bringing God’s healing and wholeness, in offering God’s forgiveness, in sharing God’s love, in being merciful and compassionate and generous, in the name of Jesus, as God’s kingdom comes.
Jesus told a bunch of religious folks this story: There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first son and said, “Son, I need you to work on the farm today.” That son told his Dad, “Sorry, I won’t do it.” But later he thought better of it and did the work. Later the man told his other son the same thing, “Son, I need you to work on the farm today.” That son told his Dad, “Yes, sir. I’d be glad to.” But he didn’t follow through and didn’t do the work. Jesus asked, “Which of the two children did what his father asked?” Then Jesus explained, the ones who actually change their lives to live in God’s ways are the ones who are entering into the Kingdom of God. (Mt.21)
Would you pray after me: Father God, be in charge in my life today /teach me to live like I truly mean it / when I say, may your kingdom come./ Amen.
Closing Song: “Have Thine Own Way” # 584 , verses 1 and 4
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