“Pray, then, in this way: Our Father in heaven, may your name be revered as holy. May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:9-10
When I read and recite The Lord’s Prayer, a persistent question unsettles me: When I pray, do I expect my prayers to affect anything about my own life?
–
Imagine that you and I are friends, and you decided to invite me over for dinner. How kind!
But, when I arrive, I find that you’ve served seafood. Well, I’m allergic to shellfish (sad, I know). You apologize, of course. This sort of thing happens, it’s no big deal!
What if it happened a second time? And a third?
Imagine you kept offering the same invitation: “Graydon, please come over to my house for dinner! I’d love for you to come!” Yet, you never alter the menu.
What if you invited my whole family, but you ignored my kids all night?
What if you invited two of my kids, but you uninvited my third?
What if you only spoke about topics that disturbed me or badmouthed my oldest friends?
What if you couldn’t even remember my name?
Over and over, you told me, “Come to my house, you are welcome here!” But your unwillingness to change and your disinterest in knowing who I am communicate the opposite: I am not welcome, and you do not want me to come to dinner.
–
I wonder if God sometimes receives The Lord’s Prayer like this?
We love to pray for the Kingdom to come while unknowingly setting up barriers to the Kingdom coming. We earnestly pray, “Lord, come!” But, then we turn around and live a life repellant to the Kingdom. We go straight from reading Matthew 6 to idolizing money, sex, and power, ignoring injustice, working economically predatory jobs, showing little care to our neighbors, supporting dehumanizing policies, dismissing the plight of refugees, practicing unforgiveness, excluding image bearers of God, baptizing violence, worshiping individual autonomy over self-giving love, and distracting ourselves as much as humanly possible.
The Lord’s Prayer is not about twisting God’s arm to send the Kingdom. God is already willing! The Lord’s Prayer is supposed to get into our business and change us to become participants in God’s in-breaking Kingdom.
So, can the Kingdom of God come over for dinner? Is there space in our lives for the Kingdom of God to make a home? Will we learn to love the Kingdom of God more than the idea of the Kingdom of God?
Here’s some good news: the Gospels reveal that Jesus was down for a dinner invite, and he showed up at some unlikely tables. Our shortcomings and hypocrisies are no match for God’s mercy. On the flip side, Jesus was not shy to announce the host’s hypocrisy and injustice. The God of love calls us to be transformed into the compassionate image of Jesus, so injustice simply cannot stay on the table.
May all of God’s people create hospitable spaces where the Kingdom of God is welcome to dinner.
RLC welcomes and encourages individuals who engage in critical thinking at the intersection of faith and justice to contribute to our blog. The views and opinions expressed by our blog authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of RLC, its staff, members, or officers.
