5

The disciples asked many things of Jesus. “Save me, Lord,” asked Peter when he was sinking.[1] “Show us the Father and we will be satisfied.”[2] They were never satisfied. Peter said, “I’ll never desert you even if everyone else does,” presumably hoping this would somehow impress Jesus.[3] They asked why they couldn’t cast out demons as they had seen Jesus do.[4] On the mount of transfiguration, Peter said, “Lord, it’s great to be here. Should we build three tents so we can stay?” But we’re told that he didn’t know what he was talking about.[5] Thomas said, “Lord, how can we know the way?”[6] At one point they even asked which of them was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.[7]

Sometimes Jesus responded to the disciples’ statements and questions and sometimes he did not. Whenever I teach Bible classes, I say that there are no dumb questions. I don’t know if Jesus subscribed to that view or not. But he didn’t answer a lot of the disciples’ questions, maybe not because he thought they were dumb, but because they were not the right questions. It’s important to ask the right questions.

So when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he did in fact teach them. (See Luke 11.1ff.) That was the right question. It is still the right question. We learn to pray with Jesus. We are, as the title of Andrew Murray’s classic says, With Christ in the School of Prayer.[8] And today’s school lesson is about the kingdom of God. What does it mean to pray for the heavenly kingdom? Here are a couple of thoughts to help us answer that question.

Praying for God’s kingdom to come is, first of all, simply the most important way we say “yes” to God. A couple of weeks ago in the children’s message, I taught the kids that the word “amen” means “yes.” So whenever we end a prayer saying “amen” we are saying “yes” to God. But praying for the kingdom is the most important way of saying “yes.”

So following Jesus’ example, the church has always instructed new Christians by teaching them the Lord’s Prayer. So if we are asked, “Who is a Christian?” a good answer is, “A Christian is someone who has learned to pray the Lord’s Prayer.” A Christian is someone who prays as Jesus taught and, in terms of today’s focus, someone who prays for God’s kingdom to come. Because praying for the kingdom is how we say “yes” to God.

That’s why we learn this prayer by heart. We pray it out of habit. Sometimes people think or even say, “I often feel guilty that, when I’m praying the Lord’s Prayer, I’m not really thinking about what I’m praying. I just say the words out of habit.” Friends, don’t feel guilty about that. As William Willimon suggests, such habits are good. Most of the really important things we do in life, we do out of habit. We eat, sleep, get up in the morning, shake hands, hug our children or grandkids out of habit. We go to work or school out of habit. We come to church, hopefully, out of habit. Some things in life are too important to be left to chance. Some things in life are too difficult to be left to spontaneous desire — things like telling people we love them or praying to God. So we do them “out of habit.”[9]

That’s why in church we generally do the same things over and over again, week after week, year after year, telling the same stories and singing the same songs. We need the habit. When we know the Lord’s Prayer, we don’t have to worry about thinking up something to say to God. All we have to do is to say these words out of habit, by heart, and these words will lead to other words.[10] We need this habit because it’s how we say “Yes” to God rather than to all the other things that clamor for our allegiance.

When the disciples asked Jesus about prayer, he did not tell them to go off and sit quietly until something spiritual came to mind. He did not ask them, “Well, how do you feel about God?” He said, “Pray like this … “ We need to be taught this because the kingdom of God doesn’t just come upon us naturally. In fact, much of life distracts us from the kingdom under the heavens and we need to learn the habits and disciplines of saying “Yes” to God rather than to the many false gods that entice us every day.

Now the notion of the necessity of being taught to pray for the kingdom may sound odd. But something or someone will teach us and if it isn’t from the kingdom, it will not be from God. Someone or something is always teaching us and forming us. One of the things we’ve been taught is that our choices are all important. But that just means our consumer society has taught us well, turning our lives into a mere matter of consumer preference. The supermarket and shopping mall and advertising have been our school and we’ve learned our lessons well.[11]

So Jesus teaches us to pray for the heavenly kingdom because only in the kingdom do we say “yes” to God rather than to just our personal, consumer-oriented choices.

We can understand this further with a second insight. That is, by praying for the coming of God’s kingdom, we say “Yes” to God and “No” to other kingdoms that claim our allegiance. I want to talk specifically today about saying “No” to the kingdom of money.

The kingdom of money claims our allegiance in many ways. One of the most enslaving ways is the notion that what we have belongs to us. This is the view all of us have to one degree or another, namely that we own what we have: our homes, our clothing and cars, our bank accounts, investments, and retirement funds. But this is true only in the kingdom of money. It is not true in the kingdom under the heavens.

The heavenly kingdom for which we pray is the kingdom that comes upon us when we give our lives to Jesus Christ. That’s what being a Christian means and it means literally what it says: we give our lives to Jesus Christ. We give because the Creator has first claim on us and it means literally that God owns us. God owns us and everything about us: our homes, our clothing and cars, our bank accounts, investments, and retirement funds. God owns them all and in various ways the Bible teaches us this principle: God says, “I own it all but I’ll make a deal with you. You keep ninety percent and just ten percent belongs to me.” That’s what a tithe is all about: ten percent off the top before taxes.[12] (Remember, tithing was around a long time before the IRS. The biblical standard is simply this: ten percent off the top before taxes!

Now in any earthly financial transaction, who would not agree to such a deal? The owner agrees to give away ninety percent and keeps just one tenth. Who would not agree with that? But when it comes to our money and God, we struggle with it. We resist it. We ignore it. We don’t believe it. We don’t act on it. We only go part way with it.

The most painful text in the Bible for us may be the story of the man who came to Jesus and asked him how to have eternal life.[13] Jesus told him to keep the commandments: don’t commit adultery, don’t murder or steal or lie, honor your father and mother. In other words, live morally and you will have eternal life. The man said he lived morally his whole life. Jesus responded by saying that he still lacked one thing: sell all that had and give it to the poor. He went away sad because he was very rich.

We dodge that text by thinking I’m not rich. Bill Gates is rich but I’m not rich. Oh, but we are. We all are. By any reasonable standard even the poorest among us is very rich. And while I do not think this text should always be taken literally, it must always be taken seriously. For we so easily pledge allegiance to the kingdom of money. The rich man went away sad because he lived in the kingdom of money, not the kingdom of God. It didn’t matter how moral he was, he was living in the wrong kingdom.

You see, eternal life doesn’t really come from living morally. It doesn’t come from tithing. It doesn’t even come from selling all that we have and giving it to the poor. Eternal life — and remember eternal life isn’t just what happens after we die our earthly deaths but the character and quality of our life now and forever — comes only from the grace, mercy, and love of God. In other words, eternal life is the kingdom. It is the reality and presence and blessing of God. But the heavenly kingdom which is eternal life cannot come upon us if the flag we salute by our living is from the kingdom of money. Tithing or even moving towards tithing just helps us identify the kingdom in which we mostly live and the kingdom in which we want to live. So we pray for God’s kingdom to say “No” to all the other kingdoms that claim our allegiance.[14]

We need to stop for today. So I’ll close by asking again what it mean to pray for the kingdom. One writer says that praying for the kingdom “means seeing the world in binocular vision. See it with the love of the Creator for his spectacularly beautiful creation; and see it with the deep grief of the Creator for the battered and battle-scarred state in which the world now finds itself. Put those two together and bring the binocular picture into focus: The love and the grief join into the Jesus-shape, the kingdom-shape, the shape of the cross.”[15] We see the world through the lens of the cross: the world is beautiful and the world is broken. We live in it faithfully by praying and living for God’s kingdom.

So St. Francis of Assisi paraphrased this portion of the Lord’s Prayer in this way:

[1] Matthew 14.30: But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”

[2] John 14.8: Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

[3] Matthew 26.33: Peter said to him, “Though all become deserters because of you, I will never desert you.”

[4] Mark 9.28: When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?”

[5] Luke 9.33: Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” — not knowing what he said.

[6] John 14.5: Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

[7] Matthew 18.1: At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

[8] Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer: Thoughts on Our Training for the Ministry of Intercession (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1953) 27-28.

[9] William H. Willimon, “Teach Us to Pray,” Pulpit Resource 26.3 (1998): 16.

[10] Willimon, 17

[11] Willimon, 17.

[12] Searching the NRSV on the word “tithe” produced the following list of 15 verses. Num. 18.21: To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for a possession in return for the service that they perform, the service in the tent of meeting. Num. 18.24: because I have given to the Levites as their portion the tithe of the Israelites, which they set apart as an offering to the Lord. Therefore I have said of them that they shall have no allotment among the Israelites. Num. 18.26: You shall speak to the Levites, saying: When you receive from the Israelites the tithe that I have given you from them for your portion, you shall set apart an offering from it to the Lord, a tithe of the tithe. Deut. 12.17: Nor may you eat within your towns the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, the firstlings of your herds and your flocks, any of your votive gifts that you vow, your freewill offerings, or your donations. Deut. 14.22: Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field. Deut. 14.23: In the presence of the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. Deut. 14.28: Every third year you shall bring out the full tithe of your produce for that year, and store it within your towns. Deut. 26.12: When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year (which is the year of the tithe), giving it to the Levites, the aliens, the orphans, and the widows, so that they may eat their fill within your towns. 2 Chron. 31.5: As soon as the word spread, the people of Israel gave in abundance the first fruits of grain, wine, oil, honey, and of all the produce of the field; and they brought in abundantly the tithe of everything. 2 Chron. 31.6: The people of Israel and Judah who lived in the cities of Judah also brought in the tithe of cattle and sheep, and the tithe of the dedicated things that had been consecrated to the Lord their God, and laid them in heaps. Neh. 10.38: And the priest, the descendant of Aaron, shall be with the Levites when the Levites receive the tithes; and the Levites shall bring up a tithe of the tithes to the house of our God, to the chambers of the storehouse. Neh. 13.12: Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain, wine, and oil into the storehouses. Mal. 3.10: Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. Matt. 23.23: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. Luke 11.42: “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others.

[13] Luke 18.18-23: A certain ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother.’” He replied, “I have kept all these since my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” But when he heard this, he became sad; for he was very rich.

[14] Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1998) 260. Willard’s insights at this point are quite helpful but could not be developed at length in the sermon itself. “The kingdom of God is from everlastingly earlier to ever lastingly later. It does not come into existence, nor does it cease. But in human affairs other “kingdoms” may for a time be in power, and often are. This second request asks for those kingdoms to be displaced, wherever they are, or brought under God’s rule.
“We are thinking here of the places we spend our lives: of homes, playgrounds, city streets, workplaces, schools, and so forth. These are the places we have in mind, and they are where we are asking for the kingdom, God’s rule, to come, to be in effect. Also, we are thinking of our activities more than of those of other people. We know our weaknesses, our limitations, our habits, and we know how tiny our power of conscious choice is. We are therefore asking that, by means beyond our knowledge and the scope of our will, we be assisted to act within the flow of God’s actions.”

[15] N. T. Wright, The Lord and His Prayer (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) 31.

[16] C. David Yeager, “Not Ready for Prime Time,” Homiletics 11.4 (1998): 35.