The Integral Lord’s Prayer – “thy kingdom come”

© By Peter T. Haas, www.contemplativechristians.com

The Integral Lord’s Prayer – “thy kingdom come”

The Jewish theologian Martin Buber once said that he was not a Christian because Jesus was not the Messiah for whom the Jews had waited. For Jews, the final goal of the Messiah is “the redemption of Israel and of the world.” Buber went on to deny Jesus as the Messiah because to do so would “contradict the deepest meaning of our Messianic passion. In our view redemption occurs forever, and none has yet occurred. Standing, bound and shackled, in the pillory of [humankind], we demonstrate with the bloody body of our people the unredeemedness of the world…”[1]

The ongoing presence of sin, suffering and the general unredeemed state of the world after Jesus is a serious theological problem. Clearly, Jesus’ death and resurrection, while revolutionary, did not eradicate the power and presence of sin, sickness, death, suffering and evil. Historical evidence bears this out. So does our own personal experience in the human condition. Humility is in order for all pontiffs of spiritual principles who speak of “living your best life now” from spires of power and privilege.  In fact, humility is daily bread for all people, pontiff or not. The kingdom of God has very little to do with power, success, wealth and glory. It has to do with experiencing transformation through love so to die to self and be alive to God, indded to be full of God – even if such transformation requires suffering. It was Fyodor Dostoevsky who mused that “my hosanna has been through the great furnace of doubt.”

Because of the reality of the unredeemedness of the world, we need to take Jesus’ instructions on prayer very seriously, especially the petitions for the future: pray “thy kingdom come” and “deliver us from evil.”  Jesus understood that despite the centrality of his life, death, resurrection and ascension for humanity, his contribution, as recorded in the Gospel passion stories, would not eradicate the power and presence of sin, sickness, death, suffering and evil. Thus, he urges us to pray for the only reality that will: the coming kingdom of God. He urges us to pray for protection from the dynamics that lead to evil, personally and globally. Every time we pray “thy kingdom come” we stand with the Jews and all other peoples who have suffered under violence, injustice and the inescapable gravity of the world’s unredeemedness and affirm the incongruency of matters at hand, but the indomitable hope for the divine hand that matters to show its final trump card – the Royal Flush. Jesus was certainly the Ace up God’s sleeve that even the finest educated Jewish rabbis of his day did not see coming. There is more to come as well and this second coming through you and me will be part of the dramatic flush-out of such powers that grip the human condition and keep it enslaved to sin and sleep and what one esoteric Christian called “the terror of the situation.” Let the second incarnation begin – in you and me by the power of the Spirit (Romans 5 – 8).

The fact that we are to pray for the kingdom to come is evidence that Jesus knew that he represented the kingdom’s presence in part, but not yet in full.  Jesus knew that there was incongruency, something we will explore more deeply in our next reflection when we consider the second part of this petition: pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

The kingdom of God is a symbol for the “rule” or “reign” of God that will occur in its totality sometime in the future. Jesus was like the first buds of spring announcing that the fullness of summer was coming. Time is a factor in this. The development of things requires time, and this is one reason the Jewish people are still waiting. We are also waiting with them and we can all join in the solidarity of hope in the present for the fruits of transformation in the future.

Time. There is a reason God did not begin with Jesus. God began with Israel. Surely it would have been easier to just start with the Son instead of the Law? Certainly it could have saved a lot of trouble and time. Such ideas demonstrate that there is a developmental process involved, a readiness that is revealed in the unfolding relationship between the mind of God and humankind. Step by step, we emerge into a deeper, fuller knowledge of the divine plan. It is relational. Interconnected. It is a dance of being to Being, unfolding through the cosmos. We get so caught up in our questions about God and who is God?, that we forget what God is asking us: Who will you be?

Who will we be? Who will you be? What if human beings began to wake up to the role they play in their own personal transformation? What if religion ceased being the power that divides and began to “bind” us in the love of God and one another? What if we began to understand the gifts of “salvation” both spiritually and psychologically? How many of us are mature in faith, but immature in human development? What if we began to self-observe in such a way that we saw our own patterns of negative emotions, mechanical reactivity and unconscious appetite and passions driving us to be and do and get and have even at the expense of others or the earth? How did that phrase go? The light shines in the darkness…Consciousness enlighted by the ongoing reality and presence of Christ is this light. What if Christianity was less about knowing the right beliefs and more about being transformed further into and by the light of Christ? Would this not speed the evolution of human development beyond the levels of regression, aggression and division that have marked our cultural history? What does it say that Christian countries killed over 100 million people in just two of the many wars during the 20th century alone? What does it say that churches continue to fight, divide and split over countless issues? Clearly, it says that we need to be praying thy kingdom come because it is certainly not here yet.

And just how might this connect with Jesus revolutionary announcement that the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17.21)? It was Rainer Maria Rilke who suggested that we think of God as a direction rather than as an object. Such has been the source of much of our human suffering. So too, it would be wise to think of the kingdom of God as a direction we are moving toward: within. We are spiritual pilgrims embodied on this earthly experience invited to become something more than we ever could imagine: sons and daughters of God. Not in a regressive way, but in a transformative surrender to Ultimate Love, which is and must  be the standard, rule and reign behind, beneath and beyond all things. The experience in and of this love and justice is what we anticipate when we pray thy kingdom come in me as it is everywhere else where people stop resisting its presence and power.

Every Blessing in the Love of God,

Peter Haas

www.contemplativechristians.com