Fremont United Methodist Church:
2/25/18 FUMC
Second Sunday of Lent: “The Lord’s Prayer”
“Your kingdom come;
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven”
I’ve titled this reflection “The Hope of Life.”
There is a scene at the end of The Return of the King that never fails to move me to tears. The wars are over; Mordor has fallen; the brave dead have been honored; and the true king sits on his throne surveying all who contributed to the victory of light over dark. Aragorn speaks: “Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world.' And as the crown is placed on Aragorn’s head, Gandalf speaks these words: 'Now come the days of the King, and may they be blessed while the thrones of the Valar endure!'
Why does that move me so? I think because it is, first, a picture of something that I and most followers of Jesus look forward to--the second coming of Jesus when God’s rule will be made perfect and all will be set right; second, I think, it moves because it is a picture of hope fulfilled. It is the fulfillment of ancient messianic prophecy when, in the words of Dame Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
We live with hope. We hope that all we believe is true; we hope that one day it will all make sense. We have a calligraphy hanging in our dining room that says “Hope is believing in God’s kingdom now; faith is dancing to it.” We hope for this kingdom every Sunday; some of us pray it more, even daily, when we pray:
“Your kingdom come;
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven”
Have you ever wondered what you are praying for when alone or we together we pray, “Let it come the kingdom of thee”? Do I really want it? What dance might we dance? What if I don’t like the music or the words? What if I don’t know how to dance? Proud in our representative democracy, we Americans tend not to like kings—except for the ones we watch on the telly. But we don’t want one here; so in recent years we’ve changed the kingdom language to rule of God or reign of God—both of which amount to the same thing; perhaps it’s a little more generic and not so gendered.
Yet, to understand what we pray for, we have to think about kings and kingdoms. KING DOM—that is, the king’s dominion—it belongs to the king and reflects the king, the king’s character and values. Even though today monarchs are more symbol of power than real power, still they reflect a tradition, a world view, a way of life. But in the days of absolute monarchs, the kingdom was expressly what the king said it was—the place where the will of the king was paramount. And if you didn’t like it, well, in the words of the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland, “Off with their heads!” In Jesus’ day, that reality of that ruthless power radiated from Rome and was in the hands of the Caesars and his minions which, sadly, included the puppet king of Israel and colluding religious leaders. Scholars tell us that Rome was remarkably tolerant of other religions so long as they included Caesar in their pantheon. Which, of course, is the sticking point for Jesus and his followers. While Rome and its minions chanted there is no king but Caesar; Christians said, there is no king except God and God’s son, Jesus.
But this prayer does more than ask for the kingdom, it defines it and explains how it happens: “Let it come the will of thee, as in heaven also on earth.” So, the simple and challenging answer to the original question is that the kingdom we pray for is the kingdom we bring into being when we do the will of the king: the kingdom comes when and where God’s will is done, in the places where we live.
In the gospel reading this morning, Jesus says to Peter: “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” This kingdom is not geographical; it is not national; it is not material; while it is a political statement, it is not the property of political parties. The kingdom is where God’s will is done. Richard Rohr wrote, “Pax Romana creates a false peace by sacrificing others; Pax Christi…works for true peace by sacrificing power, prestige, and possessions.” Whatever governmental philosophy, political party or denominational affiliation we may belong to, God’s kingdom trumps them all.
Jesus announced the kingdom; ever since, followers of Jesus live and work in the kingdom now even as they seek the kingdom yet to come.
So, we must ask, I think, how do we know what we pray for; what do we look for? We affirm Jesus is God; we have been known to sing about King Jesus. The answer lies here; we look to Jesus to define the kingdom you and I live in and are to help bring in. Who was Jesus? How did he live in the world? How did he relate to others? Remember, he said that he and his father were one. What Jesus is God is; God’s kingdom, then, is the Jesus kingdom where followers of Jesus live out kingdom values as defined by King Jesus: Compassionate, healing, self-sacrificing, rule breaking, obediently disobedient, cross carrying, risk taking, death defying, friend of sinners, hanger out with prostitutes, the sick, and the other—the very, very human. If the kingdom reflects the king and if you and I are followers of the king, desiring to please the king, we have our orders.
There is also a threat somewhere in all of this. I remember, years ago a pastor saying to me, “Be careful what you pray for, you may receive it.” We pray Sunday after Sunday for the kingdom to come—it is a personal prayer (let the kingdom come in and through me) and a communal prayer (let the kingdom come in and through us). How does the kingdom come? It comes when we dance, however well or awkwardly, to the tune the Savior plays. It comes as we pray and as we live our prayers. I think we should pray, with St. Richard of Chichester and the cast of Godspell:
Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits thou hast given me,
for all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me.
O most merciful redeemer, friend and brother,
may I know thee more clearly,
love thee more dearly,
and follow thee more nearly, day by day.
Amen.
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