Thy Kingdom Come: Luke 11:2-4 - Third Sunday after Pentecost

Elizabeth is a huge Jeopardy! fan. If she were a contestant on the show, she would be a formidable competitor. Me, not so much. I tend to do a little bit better with Wheel of Fortune, which comes on afterwards. 

Lately, I’ve grown increasingly frustrated with the show, and it has nothing to do with Pat Sajak’s looming retirement and rumors that Ryan Seacrest will take his place.

My frustration has to do with their bizarre puzzles. Recently, a contestant lost the bonus round because she was unable to use the letters H, L, N, O, and S to come up with fabulous shindig. 

Another pair of contests was unable to use the letters E, L, N, R, and T to come up with outer lobby. 

My problem is that they are putting words together that usually don’t go together. I also think that some of the categories they choose make the puzzles more difficult. When I think of a place, I’m usually thinking of something you’d find on a map. As for events, I’ve never been invited to a “fabulous shindig.” 

Let’s pretend, for a moment, that God’s Kingdom is a Wheel of Fortune puzzle. Would you categorize it as a place or as an event?

Photo by Sebastian Knoll on Unsplash

For a long time, I would’ve said place, because that’s what a kingdom is. It’s a territory with distinct borders. The people who live within those borders are its subjects. 

Click here to read the Scripture text

But does God’s Kingdom have borders? Are there peoples who are not subject to God’s rule?

Lately, I’ve been inclined to define God’s Kingdom not as a place, but as an event. When you pray “thy kingdom come,” you are praying for something to happen. That something is for God to rule the earth. 

So thus far, in the first three petitions of the Lord’s prayer, nothing you have prayed for concerns anything youneed or want. It’s all about God and what God wants. And yet, the coming of God’s Kingdom involves you and all aspects of your life. It involves the neighbor, the stranger, every living thing; the earth, the environment; everything.

Right now, the world is groaning for God’s Kingdom to come. You can hear it in the cries of mothers who’ve lost their children in war, and fathers who cannot feed their families. You can see it in the pollution and desecration of this fragile planet. We need peace, we need justice, we need reconciliation, we need restoration. The only problem is that mankind is trying to build kingdoms of its own through oppression, exploitation, and violence. Instead of living by God’s rules, we live by our own rules: If it feels good, do it. Greed is good. Might makes right. The ends justify the means. Only the strong survive. Winner takes all. 

We need God’s Kingdom to come, if, for no other reason, than to save us from ourselves and from each other. 

But if you’re asking, “who will be in, and who will be out in God’s Kingdom,” you’re asking the wrong question. The truth is, God’s Kingdom coming is not a triumph of “us versus them.” We don’t look for it as the eradication of non-Christians, or our enemies being destroyed, or our political party winning big in the November election. It’s not a return to the good old days. 

God’s Kingdom comes whenever and wherever God’s will is done, and by whomever God’s will is done. 

Do you know where God’s Kingdom begins? In your heart and in your mind. Make no mistake: God’s Kingdom is in you! It's in the faith and the hope that brought you here. It’s the Holy Spirit living and breathing in you. 

If you have ever prayed, “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done,” God’s answer to your prayer is to bring God’s Kingdom out of you and into the world. 

One of the biggest reasons why my home church means so much to me is that my great grandfather would spend his evenings laying the cement blocks after a long day in the coal mines. You, too, are a builder, a mover, and a shaker in the kingdom of God.

When you are at work, at school, at the store, in clubs and organizations, or out in the community, you sow the seeds of God’s Kingdom as you bear the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (cf. Galatians 5:22-23). God’s Kingdom isn’t so much a place as it is a people. Its building blocks are relationships. It’s a community bound together by love. Do not underestimate what a blessing you can be to stressed-out, worn, and weary people. Do not underestimate the power of the Spirit within you to transform lives, most especially, your own. When we choose to be people of peace, hope, and charity, we are moving ever closer to God’s promised future.

I believe that these tense and trying times are the perfect time for the Church to arise and show the world that we don’t need to vote the same, look the same, or think the same to worship together and serve together. We can have disagreements over things and still work together for the common good. After all, we’re praying for the same thing: for God’s Kingdom to come, and God’s will to be done. We have hands, we have feet, we have voices, and we have the gifts to make it happen, on earth as it is in heaven.