Gordon T. Smith - Teach Us to Pray

InterVarsity Press
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2018 by Gordon T. Smith

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ISBN 978-0-8308-8846-7 (digital)

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i n learning how to pray, it is, of course, helpful to go to the very prayer that Jesus gave his disciples when they asked, Teach us to pray. He taught them to say what we know as the Lords Prayer, or in some Christian communities, the Our Father. The prayer is a sequence of prayers: hallowed be thy name, forgive us our debts, and give us this day. Yet these prayers pivot on one prayer or petition in particular: thy kingdom come, and its twin, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:9-11 KJV). Essentially, then, Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the coming of the kingdomfor coming of the reign of God. When we pray thy kingdom come, we are expressing the longing of our hearts and minds that the will of God would happen, on earth as it is in heaven.

It would be a profound understatement to say that this matters. For indeed nothing matters more. Nothing. The idea of the kingdom of God permeates the whole of the witness of the Old Testament; we read again and again of the longing for the future manifestation of the reign of God. From this vantage point, the prayer is a longing, in the Jewish tradition, for the coming of the Messiah. Jesus himself spoke of how he would not drink of the fruit of the vine again until the kingdom of God comes (Luke 22:18). And this is the prayer of the church: for the coming of the kingdom, for Christ to return and bring about the restoration and healing of the entire created order. We yearn for the consummation of the reign of Christ: that Christthe Messiahwould be revealed, and that all creation would know the full manifestation of the healing and restorative grace of God.

Theologians therefore speak of this as an eschatological prayerlooking ahead to a day that is yet to come. That day is when the purposes of Godnow very present in heaven, where God dwellswill be fully consummated on earth, where we dwell. Our great longing and prayer, in other words, is not to go to heaven but for heaven to come down and transform the earth and all its inhabitants and thus reveal the glory and purposes of God (see Revelation 21).

And yet when Jesusthe very one who announced that the kingdom of God is at hand (Mark 1:14-15)offers this prayer, we have to also read it through another lens. Yes, the kingdom is future; we look forward to a day that is yet to come; we anticipate the consummation of the kingdom. But the kingdom of God is also very present. The disciples of Jesus are those who now live in him and under his authority. We have become and are becoming citizens of this kingdom, living now, in the present, in and under the reign of Christ. His disciples are those who seek his kingdom and even now, as a foretaste of what is yet to come, begin to allow the will of Godthy will be done in earth, as it is in heavento be effective and expressed in every sphere and dimension of human lifeindeed, of the whole cosmos. This begins in particular, of course, in our own lives. In our prayers, we learn obedience; very specifically, we learn the freedom that comes in and through obedience within the benevolent reign of Christ. In our prayers we enter into the grace of deferring to the will and authority of Christ.

This is our great longing: to enter into his kingdom. Jesus suggests that we should seek the kingdom, that this is the most important agenda in our lives. It is worth any price; it merits the full scope of our energies and desires. We are invited not only to pray the prayer but also, in praying, to enter into the kingdomto seek it and to live in this new dimension of reality. Saint Paul urges us to set our minds on things that are above (Colossians 3:2), which means precisely the same thingto live with our minds set on Christ, who is the ascended Lord and whose reign has come and is coming.