Thy Kingdom Come -- A Message for June 9, 2024

 

Scripture Luke 11:2-4 

 

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” 

² He said to them, “When you pray, say: 

“‘Father, 
hallowed be your name, 
your kingdom come. 
³ Give us each day our daily bread. 
⁴ Forgive us our sins, 
    for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. 
And lead us not into temptation.’” 

 

Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen 

 

Let us pray. ... 

 

 

Message                                         The Kingdom 

 

May thy kingdom come, and thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

Every time we gather for worship, we pray the Lord’s Prayer. We conclude our Consistory meetings by praying the Lord’s Prayer. We teach our littlest children to pray this prayer. We may personally pray it every day, perhaps as we conclude other prayers. It is the prayer Jesus taught his followers to pray, and it covers all the points we feel are essential to mention when we talk to God. 

But, when I surveyed people this week and asked them what they think we mean when we say the line, “May thy kingdom come” everyone had different answers that covered different ideas. There is little unison among Trinity’s members about what we mean when we invite God’s kingdom to come – and when you read scholar’s theological interpretations of what this portion of the prayer means, you also find differing opinions and ideas. 

The Prophet Daniel prophesized about the kingdom of God. In the beginning of his book, he interpreted a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar. The dream had warring kingdoms that would conquer each other in the future. At the end of the saga of the kingdoms, Daniel described the final kingdom. Daniel said: “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.” 

The Book of Daniel was written about 2 centuries before the birth of Jesus. In the first century, many Jewish people saw the time in which they lived as the fulfillment of the book of Dainel’s prophesies – their land had been conquered by several larger countries...they were ruled by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the Romans. The people of Israel wanted God to assert God’s rule over their land and they wanted the people of Israel to have power to rule over all the people of the earth. They wanted God to break into the world and set things right. 

When Jesus, God’s messiah and God-incarnate, walked the earth, he was asked about the Kingdom of God. Would God take over, cast out the Romans, and rule the people directly? 

In chapter 17 of the Gospel of Luke, it is written: 

Some of the Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will the kingdom of God come?” 

Jesus answered, “God’s kingdom is coming, but not in a way that you will be able to see with your eyes.  

People will not say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ because God’s kingdom is within you.” 

Jesus’ answer to the Pharisee’s question about the kingdom of God may have increased the mysteriousness about the kingdom of God....The kingdom is coming, but not in a way that you can see with your eyes. It is within you. 

When we commit to become Christians and follow God, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is within us. We, the followers of Jesus, are connected to each other through the presence of the Holy Spirit in each of us. We up the Kingdom of God on earth right now. We are God’s kingdom, God’s empire, God’s workers here on earth right now. 

We are also striving to have the kingdom of God even more present on earth—so it is here now, and it is coming. If Christians work together to evangelize and teach other people about God and the Christian message, we increase God’s kingdom on earth. Our goal is God’s goal – eventually, we want all people to have a relationship with God. Then, the kingdom of God will be present over all the earth, just as it is present in Heaven. 

The people of the first century may have been disappointed that God was not going to come to earth, sit on a throne, and rule. But, for us, the beneficiaries of the presence of the Holy Spirit, we are blessed by God’s presence within each of us. 

When we pray the words of the Lord’s prayer, we say: “May thy kingdom come, and thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” As followers of God, God’s kingdom is made up of us, God’s Holy Spirit filled people. We are God’s workers here on earth. It is important, therefore, for us to work to live out God’s teachings to us so that we can make God’s world a reflection of God’s kingdom in heaven. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells us to give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, welcome to strangers, clothes for the naked, and visits to the sick and imprisoned. We are called to care for our neighbors, to care for people who are in need and people who are suffering. We are called to do the work of making our world a reflection of God’s kingdom in heaven. 

As the people of the kingdom of God, let us work together to make God’s kingdom more evident to the people of our world. Amen.