Like many colleges and universities, especially on the East coast, Boston University, where I went to seminary, was originally founded in order to train clergy. They were known as the School of the Prophets, and at some point, the passage we heard from Isaiah this morning, or at least the first 2 verses, became the unofficial scripture passage of the school. And so in one of the stained glass windows, which is in the stairway between the first floor of the theology building and the library on the second floor, it says “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news.” But, at some point, someone edited the window by taping up a piece of paper that added the words, “to the poor.” The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because I have been anointed to preach good news to the poor.
That is the proclamation that Isaiah makes, and then it is also the proclamation that Jesus makes, because when he gives his first sermon in Luke, which happens immediately after the temptation story, when Jesus is offered all the kingdoms of the world if he will worship Satan, which he refuses, this is the passage that Jesus reads when he picks up the scroll from Isaiah. And I should also note this is the only time that Jesus quotes directly from scripture with it in front of him, it is the only time he gives what we would consider a regular sermon, and he doesn’t do it again because he learns his lesson as the people rise up against him because he says “today this passage has been fulfilled in your hearing” and so they attempt to kill him, but he escapes. I don’t think it is just coincidental that this is the message that Jesus reads, and we should pay special attention to what it means, because it is also in Luke that Jesus says just a few verses later, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God… for I was sent for this purpose.”
And so as we continue in our series on the Lord’s Prayer we
move onto the petition “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven.” And so if we are to understand what we are asking for in that
petition, what we are asking God to do, or to help us do, we need to understand
first what God’s kingdom is, what it looks like and what it means to ask for
it, followed by trying to understand God’s will for our lives and the world.
But, first a quick recap, because as we covered last week, the first part of
the prayer is directly tied to this part of the prayer. And so we pray “Our
father,” which is a reminder that this is a communal prayer and that God isn’t
ours, but that we are God’s, and God seeks to be in relationship with us. The
father of us, which is the literal translation, is a very personal, intimate
God. And yet, God is also in heaven, because God needs to reside in a location,
and it also reminds us that God is also transcendent, for God is the creator
and so is above creation. And then finally, we seek to hallow God’s name, to
make God’s name holy, and we do that by how we live in the world so that we are
bringing glory to God’s name. And we also had to remember that father is not a
name, but an understanding of God’s nature for names are also about character,
which leads directly then into today’s petition.
Now some of the problems we have in understanding the depths
of this prayer is that first we live in
21st century America, not first century Palestine, and few, if any, of us have
ever lived under a king. And I say that because as I said last week one of the
most common requests I get about preaching is to talk about prayer, and a close
follow-up of what not to talk about is politics. And yet, as the Lord’s Prayer
shows us, that’s impossible because most of the titles that we attribute to
Jesus are political titles, even if we don’t see them as such anymore, and more
importantly we pray for God’s Kingdom to come, and so that means that the
kingdoms of this world, the politicians of this world, are not who we
supporting or pledging our allegiance to. In fact, what we are saying is that
we want to turn those things upside down and reject the status quo. And the truth
is, power will always resist threats to it with violence. It was true in Jesus’
time and it’s true in our own day. Why was Jesus killed? He was a threat to the
Romans. What was the charge placed over the cross? King of the Jews. And what
is one of the things he is questioned about during his trial? About the kingdom
that he proclaims. And so to help understand this even more, we also have to
know that while we talk about the Roman Empire, that is not how they referred
to themselves. Instead, they were known as the kingdom of Rome. And so to make
a proclamation that we desire another kingdom, another ruler than the one we
are under is inherently a political statement, and I hope that you might begin
to see the radicality of this claim and what it means to pray this prayer with
intentionality and integrity, and what it meant for those who first heard it
and what it means for us now.
We are saying that the ways of the world are not God’ ways,
and the kingdoms of the world do not represent or fulfill God’s will for the
world, that there is always something lacking in those systems as we see time
and time again. But the other piece is to understand that while when we think
of a kingdom as a geographic location in land and boundaries in time and space, that is not what
this term means. You might here some people refer to this is a kindom, rather
than a kingdom, to try and emphasize some of that as well as to make reference
to the relational aspects. And while I can sympathize with the idea, I do find
that term a little cumbersome. And a better way to understand this, which is
also found in the original Greek, is that rather than being translated as
Kingdom of God, it can also be translated as reign of God, and I think that’s
better for several reasons. One is that it removed the geographical boundaries,
and boundaries in space and time that we are calling for God’s reign in all
times and in all places. And secondly to call for God’s reign to come has
eschatological claims to it as well, and eschatology as some have heard me say
before is one of those $60,000 words I have to use to justify my seminary
education, and that deals with the end of time, however we might understand
that as a concept, which we won’t go into today.
And yet, it’s also not just about the end of time, because
we understand that the reign of God has already begun under and through Christ.
After all he begins his ministry by proclaiming “repent for the Kingdom of God
has come near.” And at another time in Luke Jesus is asked by the Pharisees
when the Kingdom of God will come and Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is not
coming with things that can be observed; 21nor will they say, “Look, here
it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
(Lk 17:20-21) That is that the Kingdom of God, and I should mention that
Matthew often uses the Kingdom of heaven instead, but they have the same
meaning and connotation, just remembering that Jews don’t say the name of God,
or God, if they can help it, but the Kingdom of God is already here and it’s
also not quite here. We know it’s here because it was brought by Christ and his
in-breaking into the world, introducing the Kingdom, for in Christ, as he says
to John’s disciples, “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the
lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have
good news brought to them.” (Matt 11:6) Notice anything about that passage?
While not exactly the same, it mirrors to the passage from Isaiah, and it seems
to be that was the signs that John the Baptist had been waiting for to see in
the Messiah, perhaps because that is what he imagined that the Messiah would be
doing.
Because the truth is, while it would be great if Jesus had
said “this is what the Kingdom looks like,” we never get a definitive explanation
of the Kingdom. In the Beatitudes we are told that blessed are the poor in
spirit, or just in the poor in Luke, and those who are persecuted for
righteousness sake, for theirs in the Kingdom of God. And Jesus says in a
series of parables that the Kingdom of God is like a landowner who hires people
at different times of the day but pays everyone the same wage. Or the Kingdom
of God is like a man who discovers a great pearl, or a treasure in a field, and
they go and sell everything they have to attain it. Or the Kingdom of God is
like a woman adding leaven to her bread dough until all is leavened. Or the
Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, or sower scattering seed, or a net that
gathers up all types of fish, or like a wedding banquet where none of the
invited guests show up, and so the king sends servants to invite everyone on
the street they can find. I would encourage you to read some of these Kingdom
parables, and we do begin to get a sense. And what we see is who is included in
the Kingdom, the poor, those with psychical ailments, children, widows, the
powerless and the vulnerable. And so, again, we have to see the ways of the
Kingdom turning the ways of the world totally upside down and calling for a
different way of being.
And that’s why we ask for God’s will to be done on earth as
it is in heaven. Heaven seems to be perfectly fine, it’s us that are screwed
up. But, pay special attention to that petition. It doesn’t say lord deliver us
from all the problems of the world through the promise of eternal life. This is
not us saying that we know that everything is messed up here, but we know there
is a promise of something better and so we just have to wait for our eternal
reward. Instead it says everything is messed up here, and so we are going to
work to make it better here, not some time in the future but here and now.
Think about the ending of the book of Revelation. In chapter 21, the holy city
of Jerusalem comes down to earth and we are told that God will dwell with us,
God will dwell among the people. We are not going to heaven, heaven is coming
to us. And so when we pray to God, thy will be done, on earth as it is in
heaven, we are not just asking God to do that. More importantly, most
importantly, we are saying to God, we are going to help in doing that. We are
going to work to make that happen, and we do that by following God’s will,
doing what God has called us to do.
We already talked about that reality when we said that we
are going to work to hallow God’s name, that we are going to make God’s name
holy, by not defiling God’s name by how we live and act. That by our actions we
will bring glory to God so that others will then see God’s goodness and also
want to be in relationship with God. And so now we are actually giving direct
voice to that petition by not just asking that God’s will will be done, but by
actually seeking to do God’s will. Now it is in this petition that we get a
significant difference between the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew and in Luke. The
petition we are talking about is from Matthew. In Luke, it simply says “Your
kingdom come” and then it moves onto the petition about bread, which is also
slightly different than Matthew, which we will address next week. There has
been lots of debate about why Luke doesn’t include this petition but Matthew
does. Did Luke not know this portion to write it down, or did he intentionally not
use it? John Dominic Crossan argues that second, that Luke intentionally
omitted this petition from the Lord’s Prayer in order to include it in Jesus’
prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus says “Father, if you are willing,
remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” Luke’s version of
that prayer is slightly different than the other gospels, and he uses the same
noun for God’s will and same imperative verb for “be done” as Matthew’s version
of the Lord ’s Prayer does.
And so there is a clear link between doing God’s will and
the call to pick up our cross and follow, just as there is a clear link between
repentance and the Kingdom of God, and that all of those things are all linked
together as well. But what does that all mean? How are we to know if we are
doing God’s will? How do we figure out God’s will? Unfortunately, like with a
full understanding of the Kingdom of God, scripture is not as clear as we might
like it to be, and prayer is a great place to start, but I want to posit three
pieces of scripture that I hold onto myself that help me to understand who we
are called to be and what we are called to do. The first is Micah 6:8, “what
does the Lord require of you? To do justice, to love kindness and to walk
humbly with your Lord.” Now we often get this passage a little mixed up,
because how we often see it is that we are to love justice, do kindness and
walk humbly, and that seems a little easier and what we tend to focus on. But
that’s not what it says. It says to do justice and love mercy. And what we see
in scripture is that part of the nature of God’s name is that of justice. We
hear the cry to justice throughout the prophets, who are the ones who seek to
try and convey God’s will, often by showing where we are falling so short. So
doing justice is part of doing God’s will, and is clearly a part of seeking
God’s Kingdom, here and now. And when we are truly humble before God, then it
is much easier to see and understand God’s will, because we are then subverting
our own desire and will to that of God, by kneeling before God, which is part
of the role of worship. To seek to do God’s will is to be willing to put our
own will aside, and let’s face it that’s hard.
The second one is Jesus being asked what is the greatest
commandment, and he says that the first is to love the Lord your God with all
your heart, mind, strength and soul, and the second is just like it, to love
your neighbor as yourself. I’ve mentioned this before, but the Rev. Zan Holmes
has said that we are called to live cross centered lives, and the way he
explains that is through this commandment, that our vertical is loving God, and
the horizontal is loving others, and we have to have both parts of that to be
whole and complete, we have to have both parts of that to say we are picking up
our cross, and we have to have both parts to be able to begin to say that we
are doing God’s will: Love God and love your neighbor.
And then finally in the parable of the sheep and the goats,
which is not usually included in the list of Kingdom parables, but really
should be. Some of you will remember this parable, in which the sheep and the
goats are separated from each other, and the Son of Man, who is also referred
to as the king, says to the sheep, come, and inherit the Kingdom. And why are
they inheriting the Kingdom? Because when the king was hungry they gave him
something to eat, and when he was thirsty they gave him something to drink, and
when he was a stranger they welcome him, and when he was naked they clothed
him, and when he was sick they took care of him, and when he was in prison they
visited him, and so just as they did to the least of these, so they did it to
the king himself. And so those who didn’t do anything of these things, do not
inherit the kingdom. A pretty clear message.
And I guess one final passage, that might act as a word of warning, is that Jesus says at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, “Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” Words are not enough, belief is not enough, because our beliefs should lead to our actions, or as James says, “faith without works is dead.” Or as John Wesley said, the only appropriate response to accepting God’s saving action on our behalf is to work on that in the world. We are not just called to follow Christ, we are called to seek to do God’s will in the world, to bring the Kingdom of God about here and now, to make God’s creation better here and now. One of the purposes of the church should be to try and do away with the need for the church, because things are done here as they are in heaven. And so that takes commitment, not just to say the words, but to act of them, to do justice, which is not about criminals or breaking laws, but about God’s justice for all, to love kindness, to walk humbly with God so that we will indeed love the Lord our God and love our neighbors as ourselves, and when we do that, we will be seeking and carrying out the work of the Kingdom, for the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, and we have been anointed to preach good news to all of God’s children. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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