When we pray 'thy kingdom come'

 Luke 11:2-4

            When we pray “Thy kingdom come,” it may well be one of a hundred religious things we say that we don’t really mean. After all, we have so much life to live here, so much to see and do; not to mention the lives of others we care about—our children and grandchildren. Kate and I have talked a lot about life and our future in the past few months and not once have we said, “You know, now would be a good time for God’s kingdom to come.” And, yet, that’s what we pray every time we say the Lord’s Prayer. Thy Kingdom Come—Thy will be done.

            For most of us, we live our lives in these distinct spheres: The religious sphere where we say “Thy Kingdom Come” and the sphere of the rest of our lives where we try to imagine the best life now. I believe that too often we misunderstand the right place of these spheres in our lives. We treat the religious sphere like the glue that will hold us together when things get hard. I get why we do that. Life here is good. Friends and family are good. We hope for a good life filled with few moments of sadness. Things like Covid-19 might challenge us to see how good things are, but underneath it all, our preoccupation with this pandemic is about the fact that we have a sense of what life should be like for us, and what should not be.

            However, the metaphor is wrong. Our lives are not held together by the glue of God’s kingdom. Rather, God’s kingdom shatters the life that we know. It upends the tyrants; it lowers the powerful; it makes the rich poor and the poor rich. Yet, we live on in a world where the opposite is true—where billionaires add billions while the poor struggle to survive in a damaged economy. Martin Luther famously called this the Two Kingdoms. A Christian must live in both the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God, and as such, we are always torn in two directions at once. Love God; love people. It’s simple but infinitely challenging.

            So, when we pray “Thy Kingdom Come,” part of what we are saying is that we yearn for a better world. We don’t want the world where children die of hunger every day. And we don’t want the world where disease runs rampant even when it’s not a global pandemic. We don’t want the world of cancer and Alzheimer’s. We don’t want that world. But we also don’t want the world where our neighbors down the street are suffering either, and this is where it gets personal. When we pray “Thy Kingdom Come,” it is a reminder that we-ourselves must be willing to make God’s kingdom manifest—if only in a small way—for those around us who cannot see it or do not know it.

            And what is this kingdom of God we are charged with demonstrating?

            Well, the first shall be last, and the poor shall be rich, and the humble shall be exalted, and the meek shall rule. Basically, God’s kingdom looks nothing like our world, but we are called and sent to fix that. We won’t totally do that, but just because the world is a more messed-up place than we can handle doesn’t mean we are excused from the job.

            When we pray “Thy Kingdom Come,” we are proclaiming both that God’s eternal kingdom is what we ultimately need and also that we are committed to making it real. So, today, I have a few suggestions—straight from scripture—as to how we can do that:

            We love on the “other.” In the Bible, we are commanded to care for foreigners and widows and the sick, basically the most vulnerable of all sorts. Jesus met with the social outcast at the well, dined with the least popular—even those who stole from his people. After Easter, the early church picked up this charge and was committed to sharing everything for the sake of the most in need. That charge has not dissipated, even if Christians have ignored it.

            Then, once we have loved on the “other,” we figure out how to love ourselves—not in some self-helpy kind of way, though that might be after the same thing. Rather, we love God by understanding that God chooses us, saves us, loves us. If God can do that, then so can we. Loving ourselves is not the same as thinking highly of ourselves or having pride in ourselves or anything like that. Loving ourselves is in fact loving the God of whom we are a reflection. It is a humble activity, not to be boasted about.

            Finally, once we have loved on others and loved ourselves, then we can give it all away. We can live boldly. We can take chances. Because, after all, what do we have to lose? Love risks all things, dares all things, and gives itself away for the sake of others. It does not ask whether the recipient is deserving, because we know nobody is, but instead it simply gives and gives and gives.

            When we pray “Thy Kingdom Come,” it means all this. What it does not mean is that God is going to do things while we sit on our hands and check off the religious box that makes us feel better about ourselves.

            As I stand up here today humbly, understanding that this is in many ways a tough day, I pray “thy kingdom come” with renewed attention on what it means for my daily life and yours as well. When I pray “thy kingdom come” today, I hear it as an urgent reminder that nothing stays the same and it is time to get to work. I hear it as a reminder not to get complacent—that we are called to be more than we so often are. I hear it as a word that cuts through the pandemic malaise that seems to make so many of us numb.

            “Thy Kingdom Come” because we long for a better world. And thy kingdom come because we are the ones who can make it better in the meantime. And thy kingdom come because we need to love better. And thy kingdom come because God loves us and we need help to see it.

            Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.