“The Lord’s Prayer - Your Kingdom Come” Luke 11: 2-4

A decade ago, I had the opportunity to travel to France to a place of retreat known as Taize. Taize is this beautiful place where young people from around the world come to pray by the thousands each week and reflect on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Several times a day, bells chime, ushering everyone into the chapel, where folks scatter around, sitting on the floor. And you pray. Yes, sometimes you pray silently. But other times you pray by singing songs together in a variety of different languages. Each song is simple but powerful, and is repeated over and over and over again until it sinks into your heart. Here’s one of those songs, “The kingdom of god is justice and peace. And joy in the Holy Spirit. Come, Lord and open in us the gates of your kingdom.”

“Your Kingdom come.” Simple words to say, but perhaps the hardest to pray in Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. Why? Because when we are saying “God’s Kingdom come” by necessity that means that it is not our Kingdom. God’s will. God’s way. God’s Kingdom. Not ours.

Perhaps there was no greater struggle for the early disciples than thinking about the Kingdom of God. Mostly because they had an image of what the Kingdom of God and the Messiah coming to usher it in when supposed to be like and here comes Jesus teaching them all sorts of other things about the Kingdom. 

If we are honest, we still do the same thing today as the Church. I get a little uncomfortable whenever folks tell me that they know all about God or the Kingdom of God. Why? Because none of us know everything about anything relating to God. Instead, we each catch a glimpse. A small part.

We all have favorite scripture verses or stories. Things that we return to again and again. On of my colleagues has an answer to “what is your favorite verse or passage?” That’s a little different than most folks. 1 Corinthians 13:12. Doesn’t strike a bell? That’s because what we remember about 1 Corinthians 13 is all of the beautiful stuff about what love looks like the body of Christ, but here is verse 12: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” In other words, I only know a little bit now, but I will more fully know in God’s prefect timing. 

We only know part about the Kingdom now. Why? Because here and now we believe that the Kingdom of God is present, but is yet to come as well. We only catch glimpses of the Kingdom in our present time, but we know that it will be more fully revealed by God when the time is right. 

Most of you have a ring of some sort that you wear. Do me a favor and take it off for a moment. Is there any way that you can envision hold that ring where you see every single part of it at once? If you have a ring with a stone or gem, as you rotate it around you can only see pieces of it at a time. If you look down on the stone you can only see the top and not the bottom. If you have a band - you won’t see the part that your finger is holding. If you place it in your palm, you will only see the part facing you, not the portion that is lying down. Does that mean you don’t know that it’s a ring? Of course not. But you have to trust that all of it is held together, even when you can’t specifically see certain sections.

So it is with the Kingdom of God being both present and not yet. We only see glimpses of it here and there, but we trust and believe that God is at work and that God’s reign is present and will be made known to all of creation.

But here’s the trick. We need to be cautious that we do not make the pieces that we cannot see, that which we do not fully understand in our image, instead of in God’s. I’ll say that again - We need to be cautious that we do not make the pieces that we cannot see, that which we do not fully understand in our image, instead of in God’s.

When we don’t understand something, we have a tendency like those first disciples to substitute in what we think or wish or sometimes even believe, even if it doesn’t match up with God’s vision. Why did those first disciples think that the Messiah was going to be a conquering hero who comes to usher in peace through military might? Because they looked at some of the words of the prophets and extrapolated it out. It made sense to them in their reading of scripture. 

Sometimes we do the same thing.

Other times we don’t even think about God’s Word when we come up with our own vision of what the Kingdom of God is going to be like. For example, let’s go back to the words from that song of prayer from the beginning of our time. “The kingdom of god is justice and peace.” Let’s break it down further. Peace. What is the Biblical understanding of peace? Shalom - wholeness. Isaiah says that the lion will lie down with the lamb. Isaiah also says that they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Yet, is that the first thing that comes to our mind when we think about peace? Maybe. Maybe not. 

When we pray “your Kingdom come” we are essentially saying, God I don’t fully understand this, but I want to be a part of it. I want to be a part of what you are doing. I trust you. 

So what’s our role in all of this as the people of God? Beyond trusting in God and God’s Kingdom, what are we to be doing now to proclaim it? We as the Church are to be a foretaste of the Kingdom of God. 

Once upon a time Sarah Lee (the baking company most known for being in the freezer isle) had these wonderfully delicious treats they sold called cheesecake bites. Just small pieces of cheesecake, often dipped in some type of chocolate that you were to eat one of. The idea of the cheesecake bite was just to get a little taste. Not to have a whole piece. Just a taste of. 

Or one of my professors described foretaste this way - when you go through Sam’s Club on a Saturday when all of those samples are out. They just give you a little taste in hopes that you will want more. 

We do not have to have every piece figured out about the Kingdom in order to be a foretaste of it. In order to be the ones that point to the Kingdom of God and helping folks want more of the fullness of what is to come. When we live as the people of God, which is radically different than the kingdom of this world, then we are being a foretaste. When we pray and truly mean, not my will God, but yours - we are being a foretaste. When we live for God’s Kingdom, even when it means setting aside our own desires - we are being a foretaste. When we are people who love God and love our neighbor well - we are being a foretaste. When we come around the communion table and proclaim “until you come and we feast at your Heavenly banquet” - we are being a foretaste.

Church, “Your Kingdom come” are powerful words. When we pray then, may we let them wash over us and change us. Not so we can have every little thing figured out, but so we can be a foretaste of what is to come. Amen.