A sermon by Associate Minister Elsa A. Peters, July 29, 2007
Colossians 2:10, 15-19
Luke 11:1-13
Your Kingdom Come. We think we know what that means. We think we know what this Kingdom will look like because we know this familiar prayer so well. “Your Kingdom come…”
Right. “On Earth as it is Heaven.” The prayer explains it so that our imaginations don’t run wild with possibility. Instead, the prayer gives us a tidy image of heaven on earth. That’s the Kingdom of God. But, Luke doesn’t let us get away with any of our comfortable assumptions. Luke makes us struggle with the things that are most familiar to us. Ask. Search. Knock. Luke reminds us. Ask. Search. Knock.
Luke reminds us to ask. “Ask, and it will be given [to] you.” Perhaps all we can do is ask because there are no easy answers. And Luke doesn’t think that there should be any easy answers. When we have so many questions, we can only ask.
When Jesus teaches us to pray, why must we pray for the coming Kingdom? Why is this the first thing that we petition in our prayer? Before we ask anything for ourselves. Before bread or forgiveness. Before we think of ourselves, why do we demand God’s Kingdom? And why doesn’t Luke offer the rest of that petition: “your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven”?
“Your kingdom come.” Luke stops there. Luke never talks about how this will happen. In fact, none of the gospels offer us a clear picture of what it might be like for the Kingdom to come. And yet, it’s the first thing in our prayers. In no uncertain terms, we pray for the Kingdom to come. The earnest determination of the prayer makes you think that you could open your eyes and see it. Right there. “Look, here it is!” But, that’s not what Luke has in mind.
It’s not as simple as Heaven on Earth. And even if Jesus tells us that we need only ask and it will be given to us, the Kingdom will not be something that you of I can point to. It won’t be something that just appears. You won’t get to smile and say, “Oh, there it is!”. Nope, Luke tells us. The Kingdom won’t come with “things that can be observed.”
And yet Luke reminds us: Ask and it will be given to you. It seems impossible – especially if we cannot observe it. We can never see our answered prayer. But, still we ask. Still, we pray for this Kingdom to come – only knowing that somehow it will transform us. It will transform our lives as we “continue to live in Christ.” Isn’t that what it says in the beginning our reading in of Colossians?
We will continue to live “rooted and built in [Christ] and established in the faith, just as [we] were taught.” In this letter written to an early Christian community that was not established by Paul, someone pretending to be Paul writes a heartfelt letter about Christ. In antiquity, this would have been the only way to get published or even read. You wrote in the penname of someone you respected – someone like Paul. And Paul would have been pleased with this compliment.
Paul would have praised this letter that starts with a beautiful hymn and continues with this wordy reminder to not become captive to the ways of the world. And though it seems like too much, it strikes that part of each of us that is uncertain. That wonders if our prayers could possibly be answered. That wonders if this is just a wonderful myth that we retell again and again to make ourselves feel better.
This letter writer reminds the community in Colossae that Christ is the “head of every ruler and authority.” Two thousand years later, with all of the bad news that we hear from our world leaders, we need that reminder. We need to remember that we are not governed by world leaders. We are searching for something else. We, who are rooted and built in Christ, search for the Kingdom to come. Even if we can’t see it, we search for this Kingdom where “God reigns in all aspects of personal and social life.”
Search, and you will find. We can’t only ask and have it appear. Jesus tells us that we must search to find it. It won’t be readily observed, but we must search. Search beyond the bad news of world leaders. Search because we are not satisfied with easy answers. Search because even when we find answers, we think that there must be more that we can do. There must be more that we can understand. There must be more.
And so, like the Colossians, we are searching. We are rooted and built in Christ. And like the Colossians, we often don’t know what to do with what we have been taught. We are still trying to figure it all out. Because it can’t possibly be that simple. We can’t just ask for the Kingdom to come and have it appear. It just can’t be that simple.
We must search. We must search to find it. And yet, it seems that our search could go on forever. Like the Colossians, we could find ourselves seduced by easy answers that make this Kingdom-stuff more manageable so that we don’t get lost in concerns about “matters of food and drink or observing the right festivals, new moons and sabbaths.” And this stuff is easier. It’s easier to have simple rules about what you should and should not eat. It’s easier to condemn or praise than to be there in the shadows.
But, that’s where we are supposed to be. There. In the shadows. This is exactly where our search should lead us. That’s where Jesus goes. That’s where Jesus does all of his preaching and teaching. It’s in the shadows that Jesus eats, heals and blesses. It’s in the shadows that we will find it. Right there. “Look, here it is!”
Well, we might not be able to observe it. But, it is here. Luke tells us that it is here. The Kingdom is here, though we might only see the “shadow of what is to come.” We might not be able to have the clear vision of what the Kingdom looks like. We might not have the slightest inclination of the tremendous shift the Kingdom would have – socially, politically, economically and communally. But, Luke insists that it’s already here.
The shifting has already begun. Even though it is not obvious to our sight. It started when Jesus “disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them.” The Kingdom was there. It was “available already through the preaching and activity of Jesus.” Even though we can’t observe it. Even though we are not sure what to expect. We might just see a shadow of it.
So, we wonder in the midst of our search, will it be open to us? Will this overwhelming concept of the Kingdom welcome us in? Will it come to us? Will we be open to it? What does the text remind us? What must we do to open it?
Knock. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. Knock as this friend does in the shadows of midnight. Knock and ask for three loaves of bread because friends have arrived and there is nothing to offer. Knock upon the door. Knock and ask for help from a friend.
After Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray, he tells this parable about a friend knocking. Knocking and asking for help.
Which one of you, he begins. Which one of you would knock on a friend’s door at midnight asking for bread? It’s a rhetorical question, as are so many of Jesus’ questions. And the answer is obvious. There is only one answer: No one.
But, if we read the parable again, we have to wonder is that really the question. Is Jesus asking if we would knock on our friend’s door? Or is Jesus’ rhetorical question really about the friend that is awoken from his slumber? Which one of you would say in reply, “Do not bother me… I cannot get up and give you anything”? The answer is obvious. There is only one answer: No one.
Ask. Search. Knock. Jesus reminds us as he tells this parable after teaching the disciples to pray. So this must be about prayer. Like the friend in the shadows of midnight, this is how we are supposed to pray. Perhaps the answer is obvious. Perhaps there is only one answer. But, Luke doesn’t tell the story that way. There are no easy answers in Luke. Luke won’t let us get away with a vision of the coming Kingdom simply being Heaven on Earth. And Luke certainly won’t let us get away with our comfortable assumptions here. So I wonder about this parable after Jesus teaches the disciples to pray.
Luke adds this parable that doesn’t appear in any of the other gospels. Perhaps this is a parable about prayer. Perhaps it is simply a parable about how we relate to God. Perhaps the answer is obvious. That is, if we assume that we are knocking on God’s door.
But, when we are so brave and brazen to demand that the Kingdom come in our first petition of prayer, how often are we sleeping behind a locked door? When God comes to us in the shadows of the night, do we roll over? When God knocks on the doors of our hearts, how often do we say, “Do not bother me. I cannot get up and give you anything”?
Perhaps this is why we must first pray for the Kingdom to come. Perhaps the only answer is that we are not ready. We are not ready to witness the Kingdom that is already here. Until we can find our way to come out of our locked doors into the shadows. Until then, Jesus reminds us: Ask. Search. Knock.