A sermon by the Rev. Dr. Margaret Guenther, Author, Spiritual Director and Professor-emeritus of Ascetical Theology and Retired Director of the Center of Christian Spirituality at General Theological Seminary, given on
February 12, 2008, in Christ Chapel.

Matthew 6:7-15

It calls for a certain temerity to preach on this Gospel. What is there to say about these few words that we know so well, that are engraved on our hearts, written permanently on our spiritual hard discs? Words that are spoken every time we come together for common worship, words that are also at the heart of our solitary devotions. Words that I suspect we will recognize and remember even when memory, speech, and intellect fail us.

I find that sometimes I say the words mechanically, almost mindlessly. After all, they have been part of me for as long as I can remember, maybe since I was three or even two years old. I have recited the prayer in Latin, in Spanish, in German. In another life in the esoteric groves of academe, I even learned it in a defunct East Germanic dialect of the 4th century called Gothic. The words are so much a part of me – as I suspect that they are part of you – that I say them without thinking about them.

So I was struck, as I prepared for this homily , by the toughness of the stark, simple version of the prayer – as it appears in Matthew’s Gospel. This is a scary prayer.

We could spend the rest of the day, the rest of the week, the rest of our lives pondering these few powerful words, but now I want to reflect with you for a few minutes on two sentences, two petitions that we should utter carefully, awe-fully, not with our spiritual fingers crossed behind our back, but in full awareness of what we are saying.

“Your kingdom come.” If I remember my language-teaching days, this is an optative subjunctive, expressing a wish. Let your kingdom come. Make it happen. This is not up to us, but to God. These are words of acceptance and surrender.

My question is: do we know what we are asking for? Do we really want this to happen? Are we willing to risk it?

What indeed would it mean if the kingdom of God were to come, to be realized, i.e. made real, tangible, the very stuff and reality of our lives. Jesus tells his followers that they have come near to the kingdom, that the kingdom is not far, maybe in their midst. But we are living in a world where God’s reign seems remote indeed, where we – even the most trusting and naive among us – have grown cynical about our institutions, where falsehood and infidelity are acceptable so long as the economy is strong, where our lives are dominated by violence – how much of our treasure us spent on weaponry, how many of our children grow up accustomed to violent death – on the streets and on the television screen. Violence, hurting and murder as entertainment – just think about it. We are living in a world where people scrounge in garbage cans, live without hope, and die without homes. We are living in a world infected by war – a plague as terrible as the so-called Black Death of the fourteenth century.

And yet we pray: Your kingdom come. Let it happen. I don’t know what that means. I doubt that I will be invited to sit on the divine steering committee to usher in the new day. I don’t know what I would lose, have to give up – when I am in my selfish, grasping, clutching mood. And I don’t know what riches it might bring, what freedom from fear and from all kinds of want, not just material want, but from that deep yearning that nothing but God can satisfy.

How does it happen? What can we do – assuming that we really believe what we are saying and yearn for the transformation of our lives – out little individual lives and our lives together – in the church, in our cities, in God’s great rich, hurting world?

I don’t have an answer to my question, but I think I know the first step – to stop clutching, grasping, and holding on. To let ourselves be bold and heedless, to become again like children. We’ve heard that message before. But I don’t know how it will, how it can happen. I do know that we had better be careful with this prayer, to be sure, very sure that we mean what we say. Because we are inviting radical change, we are relinquishing our seats on the steering committee, we are letting ourselves be open and receptive to the action of the Holy Spirit.

And then: forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. I don’t know about you, but often I conveniently forget that second clause. Of course God will forgive my sins, assuming that I am at least moderately contrite. We are praying to a loving God, after all, a God who invites us into an intimate relationship, who numbers the hairs on our heads, who cares what happens to us. That’s nice. But this is not a cosy God, a God of the 1970's warm fuzzies. This is a demanding God who expects a lot. Even as I wonder, “Can I let go of my carefully constructed little world, all my little plans and perks, and get out of the way for the inbreaking of the kingdom,” I also wonder, ”Am I up to that? Can I let go of my hurts and grievances and righteous anger so that my behavior can be at least a pale reflection of the prodigally forgiving love of God?” The prayer seems to make it clear that there can be no holdouts, no escape clauses, no exceptions.

Thesew few words in Matthew’s Gospel are a prayer about our whole lives, of course. About our need for sustenance and strength, our daily bread and our being spared from trials that are too much for us. Our deliverance from evil – how easily we say these words, how easy it is to forget that evil is never far from us. But I invite you to stay with these two hard petitions, the ones that place demands on us, that demand a kind of reciprocity or at least a response from us. When we pray the prayer together, in just a few minutes, let them sink deep within you, let yourself feel the healthy terror and the awe that they evoke – if only we let ourselves be open.

Please God, help us to forgive as we wish to be forgiven. And make us fearless to await the coming of your kingdom with joy and open hands. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen