“Do We Really Want God’s Kingdom to Come”

Matthew 6:10

Isaiah 2:4: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Amos 5:18 (The Message): “Woe to all of you who want God’s Judgment Day! Why would you want to see God, want him to come? When God comes, it will be bad news before it’s good news; the worst of times, not the best of times.”

Frederich Buechner: “We are asking God to be God. We are asking God to do not what we want but what God wants. We’re asking God to make manifest the holiness that is now mostly hidden, to set free in all its terrible splendor the devastating power that is now mostly under restraint… And if that were suddenly to happen, what then? What would stand and what would fall? Who would be welcomed in and who would be thrown [out]? Which if any of our most precious visions of what God is and what humans beings are would prove to be more or less on the mark and which would turn out to be as phony as three-dollar bills… To speak these words is to invite the tiger out of its cage, to unleash a power that makes atomic power look like a warm breeze…”

[prayer]

“Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done.” As the old proverb tells us, “Be careful what you pray for; you just might get it.”

I doubt that any of us would object to the images of the Kingdom come found in Isaiah 2:4 or Revelation 21:1-4. Weapons of war transformed into helpful tools. Peace established between the nations. The art of war no longer a required course. God making his home among us. No more sadness, grief, or pain. Death defeated forever.

But what about those questions raised by the prophet Amos? Or those suggested by Frederich Buechner? Do we really want the Day of the Lord to come? It might not be what we expect. The light we anticipate might turn out to be darkness. The victory we’re hoping for might just be a disaster. The heaven we’re expecting might be hell.

Do we want God to be who he is instead of whom we want him to be? Do we really want him to loosen the restraints on his power? Are we willing to risk ending up being counted with the goats instead of the sheep? Are we ready for the possibility of hearing Jesus say, “I never knew you?” Can we handle having our most precious assumptions called into question by no less an authority than God Almighty himself?

The wonderful visions of the Kingdom come found in Isaiah and Revelation are just one side of the eternal equation. There will be peace and joy beyond human imagining. There will also be the dark reality of a judgment some of us might not expect. Repeated proclamations of “Lord! Lord!” might not be enough to put us on the good side of Jesus. Spending eternity on the right hand of God rather than the left just might require more than orthodoxy, piety, political correctness, or good citizenship.

“On earth as it is in heaven.” Those seven words hold the key to understanding this prayer. We’re not just praying for pie in the sky in the sweet by and by. We’re not just looking for a ticket to heaven or a get-out-of-hell-free card. The Kingdom isn’t just about tomorrow; it’s about today. It’s not just some event that will take place somewhere out there in the future; it’s a reality that must be lived in and proclaimed now.

Although we are praying for the ultimate accomplishment of God’s purpose in history, the fulfillment of his saving plan, and the final establishment of Christ’s authority, we are also saying in essence, “Let there be peace – God’s shalom - on earth, and let it begin with me.” We’re praying as St. Francis prayed, “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace – an instrument of your shalom.” God’s ultimate will is for shalom: a mode of life in which there is a total sense of health, wholeness, goodness, justice, and righteous throughout all of God’s good creation.

We can’t just pray for God’s will. We have to be instruments of it. We don’t just wait for God’s will to be done; we are to be actively living it, modeling it, proclaiming it, doing it. When we’re asking God to bring in the Kingdom we’re asking God to empower and enable us to be active agents of that Kingdom. We’re praying for the ability to create a little bit of heaven here on earth. To, if only partially and momentarily, retrieve some of Eden’s innocence and perfection, to give the world a brief glimpse of Isaiah’s dream and St. John’s vision.

We are asking God the Father, by way of the sanctifying power of his Holy Spirit, to mold us into the kind of disciples of his Son that we have promised to be. In other words we’re asking God to make faithful ambassadors of Christ out of us. We’re asking God for the strength, determination, wisdom, and humility to obey not just the letter of the Ten Commandments but also their spirit as spelled out in the Sermon on the Mount. We’re asking God to enable us to make manifest the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

And in the asking we’re promising, either explicitly or implicitly, to open our hearts and minds as fully as possible to God’s Word and God’s will. We’re promising to obey the Ten Commandments and live the Beatitudes. We’re promising to live lives that reflect God’s grace, mercy, and love, lives that reflect out to the world our inward capacity for doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God.

We’re promising to live lives of righteousness, lives that display a real affection for others, exuberance for life, and a deep-seated serenity. We are pledging to live lives that show an obvious willingness to persevere, a heartfelt sense of compassion, and a conviction as to the basic holiness of creation. We are telling God that we ready to live lives that make clear our willingness to involve ourselves in loyal commitments, have no need to force our way in life, and an ability to marshal and direct our energies wisely. In other words lives that display the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

We are prayerfully trusting God to be God, to uphold rather than oppose his will. We are promising to diligently search for that will as we study his Word and pray for his guidance. Thus we guard against being considered strangers by Jesus on Judgment Day. We make sure that we are going about our Father’s business in the world in such a way as to not end up being counted with the goats instead of the sheep.

We minister to the hungry, thirsty, homeless, imprisoned, suffering, and lonely people around us, not out of a sense of begrudged duty or guilt but as a loving response to the God who first loved us. We hate evil and love good.

When push comes to shove we obey the laws of God even if such obedience requires us to break the laws of our nation or turn our backs on the conventional wisdom and ethics of our culture. We live as resident aliens in our culture, serving as a counterpoint to it. We are constantly mindful of the fact that we are, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that [we] may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

If day in and day out, we faithfully seek to live such lives, then we don’t have to worry about the warnings of Amos 5. Frederich Buechner’s questions shouldn’t scare us. If day in and day out, we faithfully seek to live such lives, then we won’t be disappointed on Judgment Day. If day in and day out, we faithfully seek to live such lives, then we’ll one day know what Isaiah was talking about; we’ll one day be part of that vision portrayed by John in Revelation 21. We will see our prayers answered in an ultimate way. God’s Kingdom will have come in all its wonderful fullness. God’s ultimate will for creation will have been fulfilled. Heaven and earth will be one and the same. Amen.