If you think faith should have nothing to do with politics, stay away from praying, “Your kingdom come”! “Kingdom” is definitely a political word! When we pray that we’re saying, "Take over, God. Run this world! It belongs to you, anyway, so govern in the affairs of people and nations."
We’ve been saying that if we want to pray the way Jesus taught us, we need to begin by getting ourselves in line with the purposes of God. First, we pray that who God is and what God does may be honored in the earth: “Hallowed be your name.” Then we pray that the rule of God in human affairs—which doesn’t seem very evident—may be made real and visible: “Your kingdom come.”
Jesus never really defined the kingdom of God He didn’t need to. Everybody had studied about it in the Hebrew Bible and knew what it was. Everybody was talking about it. Everybody was looking for it.
The most striking thing Jesus ever said about the kingdom of God was that it was already here. He began his ministry, according to Mark's Gospel, by saying, ““The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15). If that’s not a statement that the kingdom of God has already come, it’s at the very least a claim that it’ll be coming any minute!
Later in his ministry, especially in connection with his struggle with the unseen, demonic powers that enslave and distort the human mind, Jesus made the claim that the kingdom of God has come: “[I]f it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Luke 11:20). Once again, when the Pharisees asked Jesus when the reign of God was coming, he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21).
But Jesus also clearly looked to the kingdom of God as future. He spoke of how we should receive it when it comes as little children (Mark 10:15). He spoke of the quality of righteousness it will take to enter God’s kingdom when it comes, far exceeding the righteousness of the holiest people in Jesus’ day (Matt. 5:19-20). He urged us to seek it more earnestly than we seek food and clothing: “[S]trive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things [i.e., food and clothing] will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33). Above all, he urged us to pray for it: “Your kingdom come” (Matt. 6:10), implying that it hasn’t fully come yet.
The Transfiguration was a “preview of coming attractions” for the three disciples that were with Jesus on the mountaintop. All three of the Synoptic gospels precede the Transfiguration account with a puzzling saying of Jesus that some who were standing with him at the time would not “taste death” until they had seen (and here the Gospels differ) “the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Mt 16:28), “the kingdom of God come with power” (Mk 9:1) or simply “the kingdom of God” (Lk 9:27).The meaning of this saying is debated, but one distinct possibility is that Jesus is talking about the Transfiguration, that happens a few verses later. As Jesus walked the earth, he was an ordinary human being, but in the transfiguration, Peter, James and John saw Jesus as he truly was. As one of the New Testament letters attributed to Peter explains:
… we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain (2 Pe 1:16–18).
So, in the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John saw the future kingdom coming in power and glory.
How can the reign of God be both here now and coming in the future? Well, the real key to understanding what Jesus meant by the “kingdom” or “reign” of God lies in the stories he told, his parables. The reign of God, he said, is like seed planted in the ground. It’s there right now, growing silently, we don’t know how. But one day, there’s the harvest, and we put in the sickle and reap the fully-grown crop. The reign of God is like a net, sunk down in the water. The net is there, but we can’t see it. Pull it in and it’s full of fish. It’s like the yeast that a woman hid in three measures of flour. You can’t hear it or see it, but the dough rises and it’s time to bake it. So God’s reign is hidden, but it’s really there. It will fully come in the future.
There’s very little in the paper or the evening news on TV that would lead us to suspect that the kingdom of God is here at all. What we look for and what we pray for is that what is hidden from all eyes except the eye of faith will become visible, manifest, effective, actual, and real. Here’s the important point—the hidden presence guarantees that it will eventually arrive. It’s a sure thing. You can no more keep the kingdom of God from coming than you can keep seeds from sprouting or bread from rising.
If with the eye of faith we’re to look for signs of the hidden presence of the kingdom of God, what are they? If our prayer for the coming of God’s kingdom will one day be answered, what will that answer look like? A key passage is Luke 6:20-26. The poor will be living the good life and the rich will have only memories. Those who are hungry now will be full and those who are full now will be hungry. Those who weep will laugh and those who laugh will mourn. The reign of God is the Great Reversal. The last will be first; the first will be last. Children will teach grown-ups. Servants will be the great ones. Sinners will go into God’s realm ahead of the religious big shots. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Not those who were powerful, but those who served the outsiders—the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the sick, the prisoners—will inherit God’s kingdom.
Hey, I know this is radical! The test of the kingdom of God is the poor. This isn’t because the poor are especially moral, but simply because of who they are, mostly women and children, victims of abuse, war, hunger, injustice. When their oppression stops, the rule of God will be here. The kingdom of God comes through the poor and in opposition to poverty, which will have no place in it.
It should be evident by now that the kingdom of God doesn’t look at all like our earthly political arrangements, where the strong overpower the weak and the rich dominate the poor. It doesn’t justify domination and injustice; it judges them. To pray “Your kingdom come” isn’t to bless the status quo but to cry out to God for something very, very different. It’s a revolutionary act. To pray “Your kingdom come” is to refuse to give to any earthly political order the loyalty that belongs only to God.
“Your kingdom come” is above all a prayer of great hope. We pray this way because the kingdom of God will come. That’s why we attempt to live by Jesus' demanding ethic, which isn’t appropriate to the world we live in but utterly appropriate to the world we hope for. We pray night and day, “Your kingdom come,” because this is one petition where all those promises about expecting the answer are definitely true. The kingdom of God is already here, and in God's time it will come in the fullness of its power and glory.
Stay warm, my friends.
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