Imagine the following scene. In a hurry, as usual, familiar words rush from your mouth: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on Earth as it is heaven.”
Suddenly, abruptly, almost curtly, a voice responds: “Are you sure?”
Shocked, you reply, “Sure of what?"
The voice continues: “Sure that you want my will to be done, my desires to be made actual.”
You: “Well, yeah, we could always use a little more heaven on Earth!”
The voice: “My will: No more children dying of hunger. No more extreme poverty. No more allowing the greed of a few to trump the need of many. Peace among nations, even religions. People truly loving me and each other. These are my desires. This is my will. Is this what you want?”
You: “Yes, sure. Absolutely. All of that sounds exactly right. It sounds very good, in fact.”
The voice: “Then what are you doing to make these things happen?”
Wondering how to finish this now uncomfortable dialogue, you mumble: “Em. Well. Me? What am I doing, you ask?”
The voice, in a calm yet firm tone: “Yes, you. If not you, who? Who else would do my will?”
The dialogue ends.
Wow. Try to catch your breath. If that dialogue happened to you, what would you think, feel and do? Would you ever dare to pray those words again?
After all, the voice — which we assume to be God’s voice — has called you out. You claimed to want God’s will on earth. And the voice met your claim and raised you one: What are you doing to make that claim become reality?
That’s a tough one. In fact, it is so tough that I think we ought to back up and blame it on Jesus. After all, he’s the one who used this phrase in his model prayer.
It’s true. Jesus was big on kingdom of God talk. Line up 100 New Testament scholars and ask what is most central to the message of Jesus, and I bet nearly 100 will say it is this idea that the kingdom of God can transform earthly kingdoms.
Or if you don’t like scholars, just open the Bible. Kingdom of God talk is all over the place, especially in the first three Gospels.In Mark, which is the oldest Gospel, Jesus uses the phrase in his inaugural address: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe this Gospel.” (Mark 1:15) Matthew and Luke both include kingdom talk in their beatitudes and many parables.
So, what did this phrase mean for Jesus? For Jesus, God’s kingdom had a present and a future meaning at the same time.
In the present, right now, you can claim the presence of God within you and among you within community. The future meaning aspect for the kingdom of God envisions a transformed world where relationships are deeper and the Earth and its fullness are rightly recognized as belonging to God. (Psalm 24)
There is more to say about this, but not today. After all, today I am thinking about your prayer to want things ordered the way they would be if God were king and other rulers were not.
It’s a big claim. Are you sure we want that?
Showing posts with label will. Show all posts
Showing posts with label will. Show all posts
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Questioning the prayer
Questioning the prayer
By Nathan Day Wilson
How many times have you said The Lord’s Prayer? A few hundred times? Many thousands? Never at all?
The prayer is a work of beauty, especially Matthew’s version with its pleasant cadences and well balanced couplets. Try reading this aloud so you can feel the pulse: “Our father in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. They will be done.”
Did you feel it? Whether it means anything to your faith or not, you have to admit there’s wonderful rhythm to the prayer, smooth and melodic.
For me, the prayer evokes many memories. I’ve prayed it with close friends and with complete strangers. Those words have celebrated new lives and consoled recent deaths. In rooms where all spoke the same language, and in rooms where languages were as numerous as people, I’ve claimed and clamored this prayer that Jesus taught his followers.
Yet for a prayer so beautiful, so evocative and so central to whom and whose I am, rarely have I thought about what each phrase in the prayer means or why Jesus decided to include it. So I asked myself some questions.
For example, I asked myself, “Self, why did the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray? After all, prayer was a pillar of Jewish piety. Public prayer, spoken aloud in the morning, afternoon and evening was common.”Then I thought, “Hmmm, Self, that is a good question.”
Then I considered rewarding my good question with some mint chocolate chip ice cream, but decided I should ask more questions instead.
What do you think? Why did the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray? Or what’s your answer to these questions: Why did Jesus organize the prayer the way he did? After the beginning invocation, is there anything significant about the order of his six requests? How was the prayer radical at the time when Jesus taught it?
And the big one: Does this prayer have relevance for you; or, do you just say the prayer now because that’s what others have always done?
Not to be rude, but if you’re not going to speak up with some answers, I’m going to ask one more question: Of all the images or ways that Jesus could have addressed God at the beginning of the prayer, why did he start by saying “Our Father?”
After all, Jesus could have said something like, “Holy One who loves us more than there is water in the deepest sea.” It would have been true, and poetic if I may say so. God does love us, and all creation, more than there is water in the deepest sea — or even all the seas combined.
Or Jesus could have addressed God as “Ground of all our existence.” Or even, “One whose strength surpasses the strongest boulder.” Both are true statements; both are apt descriptions.
But Jesus did not start the prayer with any of those. Instead, he started with the Aramaic word, “Abba.” Why?
Those are the sorts of questions I’ve been asking myself. The good and exciting news for me is that this weekend I’ll be sharing some answers to the questions. The congregation I get to serve, First Christian Church, is beginning a worship series about The Lord’s Prayer this Sunday at 10 a.m.
One of the most requested worship topics, I think and pray it’ll be a good series. I guess I’m not the only one interested in deeply experiencing this much loved prayer.
By Nathan Day Wilson
How many times have you said The Lord’s Prayer? A few hundred times? Many thousands? Never at all?
The prayer is a work of beauty, especially Matthew’s version with its pleasant cadences and well balanced couplets. Try reading this aloud so you can feel the pulse: “Our father in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. They will be done.”
Did you feel it? Whether it means anything to your faith or not, you have to admit there’s wonderful rhythm to the prayer, smooth and melodic.
For me, the prayer evokes many memories. I’ve prayed it with close friends and with complete strangers. Those words have celebrated new lives and consoled recent deaths. In rooms where all spoke the same language, and in rooms where languages were as numerous as people, I’ve claimed and clamored this prayer that Jesus taught his followers.
Yet for a prayer so beautiful, so evocative and so central to whom and whose I am, rarely have I thought about what each phrase in the prayer means or why Jesus decided to include it. So I asked myself some questions.
For example, I asked myself, “Self, why did the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray? After all, prayer was a pillar of Jewish piety. Public prayer, spoken aloud in the morning, afternoon and evening was common.”Then I thought, “Hmmm, Self, that is a good question.”
Then I considered rewarding my good question with some mint chocolate chip ice cream, but decided I should ask more questions instead.
What do you think? Why did the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray? Or what’s your answer to these questions: Why did Jesus organize the prayer the way he did? After the beginning invocation, is there anything significant about the order of his six requests? How was the prayer radical at the time when Jesus taught it?
And the big one: Does this prayer have relevance for you; or, do you just say the prayer now because that’s what others have always done?
Not to be rude, but if you’re not going to speak up with some answers, I’m going to ask one more question: Of all the images or ways that Jesus could have addressed God at the beginning of the prayer, why did he start by saying “Our Father?”
After all, Jesus could have said something like, “Holy One who loves us more than there is water in the deepest sea.” It would have been true, and poetic if I may say so. God does love us, and all creation, more than there is water in the deepest sea — or even all the seas combined.
Or Jesus could have addressed God as “Ground of all our existence.” Or even, “One whose strength surpasses the strongest boulder.” Both are true statements; both are apt descriptions.
But Jesus did not start the prayer with any of those. Instead, he started with the Aramaic word, “Abba.” Why?
Those are the sorts of questions I’ve been asking myself. The good and exciting news for me is that this weekend I’ll be sharing some answers to the questions. The congregation I get to serve, First Christian Church, is beginning a worship series about The Lord’s Prayer this Sunday at 10 a.m.
One of the most requested worship topics, I think and pray it’ll be a good series. I guess I’m not the only one interested in deeply experiencing this much loved prayer.
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