Readings (Track 2)

This morning’s Collect focused on Holy Scripture: “Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life…” How might that work with today’s readings?

More precisely, the themes in some of the readings recall that petition in the Lord’s Prayer: “your kingdom come.” How might the readings help us better pray “your kingdom come”?

Our first reading from the prophet Malachi: “See, the day is coming.” The day, the day of the Lord, the Lord’s decisive action. Like many other descriptions of the day of the Lord, the text focuses the Lord sorting things out: the arrogant, the evildoers, “you who revere my name,” each will get their due. (We’re still a couple weeks out from Advent, but this wouldn’t make a bad Advent reading!)

That sounds pretty good: the arrogant and evildoers, “you who revere my name” neatly separated. But our tradition, informed by Holy Scripture, has us confessing at each Eucharist “we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed…” That separation isn’t as stable as we’d like.

When we pray “your kingdom come” it’s pretty much inevitable that we focus on where we perceive God’s agenda and our agenda aligning. And that easily becomes a focus on only where those agendas align, so that “your kingdom come” and “my kingdom come” become indistinguishable. In our polarized national context, it’s easy to see this happening among those with whom we disagree. So the challenge is to stay alert to the possibility that God might have some questions about our agenda. Easier said than done. In the midst of the English civil war, Oliver Cromwell to the Scottish clergy: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” Among the many spiritual disciplines on offer today, that may be one of the more relevant.

What do our enemies want us to hear as we read Holy Scripture? They won’t always be wrong.

What of today’s Gospel reading? The temple in Jerusalem was one of the axes of Jesus’ ministry. Even after his resurrection his followers were worshipping in the temple, like Peter and John that day that they encountered the man lame from birth (Acts 3:1ff). It would have been natural for the disciples to assume that “your kingdom come” could only mean increased glory for the temple. And already it was glorious, “adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God.” So Luke is probably underplaying the shock of Jesus’ words (“As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”). It’s a warning to us: to pray “your kingdom come” is to write our merciful God a blank check. Our merciful God, so there’s no reason to fear, but also no reason to assume that we know what God will do with it.

Our reading from 2^nd Thessalonians is the odd man out, included not because it relates to the other readings, but because the lectionary—justifiably—wants to include some of the letter somewhere, so here we are. No direct connection to “your kingdom come,” but not entirely disconnected. Like the other petitions in the first half of the Lord’s Prayer, it’s self-involving. In Thessalonica, praying “your kingdom come” means I make my decisions about time, talent, and treasure as a member of the community of believers. Following Paul’s example, idleness is not an appropriate response. Where idleness is not an issue, the broader principle holds: to pray “your kingdom come” is to commit to live together in a way that witnesses to the hope of that kingdom.

“Your kingdom come.” Our texts have encouraged us to understand this as playing out in our future. True enough, but not the whole truth. We started with Malachi’s announcement of “the day,” shorthand for “the day of the Lord.” But recall that we refer to Sunday as “the Lord’s day.” We’re already encountering that use in the New Testament. From the first chapter of the Revelation: “I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day” (1:10). The core of “the day of the Lord” is in our past, whether we think of it as Easter Sunday, Holy Week, or that whole stretch from the Incarnation to the Ascension. Every Sunday, a celebration of the Resurrection, a celebration of the Lord’s victory as anticipated in Psalm 98.

2 With his right hand and his holy arm
has he won for himself the victory.

3 The Lord has made known his victory;
his righteousness has he openly shown in the sight of the nations.

The tomb is empty. Jesus 1, Death 0. Or, more accurately, Death 0, Jesus 1, since this world is God’s home turf.

And so, while the Church is not the Kingdom, it’s the context in which we get a foretaste of the Kingdom. Paul again: “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17). The Risen Christ has showered on us the Holy Spirit, and with “your kingdom come,” we pray that these gifts spread out to the ends of the earth. Amen.