First Sunday in Lent Mark 1:9-15 March 1, 2009

Yesterday our Book of Faith Retreat asked us to recall who first introduced us to the Bible.  Now it’s not always the case, but for myself and the person I was partnered with, it was our moms.  For some it might have been their dad, or aunt or uncle, or a grandparent or a friend.  For Bud Torgerson, it was a high school buddy.  Today, March 1, happens to be the anniversary of my mom’s birthday, so I want to dedicate this morning’s thoughts to her and to everyone – whoever they are – who first introduced each of us to the Bible.

Also at yesterday’s retreat Dan, our good teacher, quoted from the Opening the Book of Faith materials: “The Bible functions as the word of God when it shows us Jesus Christ and conveys the message of law and gospel to us.” In other words, the Bible functions as the word of God when it conveys God’s living presence and the good news of when we are in sync with that presence and the bad news of when we are not.  

Many of us have begun using the new Book of Faith resource: 40 day Lenten Journey with the Lord’s Prayer by Henry French. The book can be purchased through www.bookoffaith.org .  The Lord’s Prayer has been named “a summary of the whole gospel.”  Volumes have been written on it and along with perhaps the 23rd Psalm and John 3:16, it is what most Christians know by heart. Now today with various translations of the prayer, we don’t all use the same words, but there is no one right way to say it, unless perhaps we all wanted to learn it in its original Aramaic.   
One of the images Jesus includes in his prayer is an image in today’s Gospel. This image is often heard in the Gospel readings because it’s in the gospels 123 times. Today’s Gospel puts it this way: “Jesus came saying, “The kingdom of God has come near…”  Proclaiming God’s kingdom is Jesus’ passion and praying for its coming is one of the petitions Jesus taught us to pray: “Thy kingdom come.”

I was excited to find something written by Martin Luther in our ELW hymnal that I have never seen before.  He has put the Lord’s Prayer into his own words and it has been included as hymn #747 in the ELW and how contemporary his words are!  We may not be familiar with the tune it is set to, but it can be sung to “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” Luther writes of this second petition, “Your kingdom come: your will it be in time and in eternity…”
Luther was a prolific writer, and it’s good to see how consistent he was.  What he says here, he says also in his Large Catechism.  “The coming of God’s kingdom to us” takes place in two ways: first, it comes here, in time (as he says in his hymn), through the Word and faith, and second, in eternity (again, as he says in his hymn). 
The Large Catechism allows Luther space to get all worked up about this. He actually summarizes his whole theology in his response to this one petition of the Lord’s Prayer.  And he gets it done in one sentence.  Listen to this:
“To pray ‘Thy kingdom come’ is nothing more than to say: “Dear Father, we ask you first to give us your Word, so the gospel may be properly preached throughout the world and then that it may also be received in faith and may work and dwell in us, so that your kingdom may pervade among us through the Word and the power of the Holy Spirit and the devil’s kingdom may be destroyed so that he may have no right or power over us until finally his kingdom is utterly eradicated and sin, death, and hell wiped out, that we may live forever in perfect blessedness.”
Then Luther comes down to earth and says it very simply, “You see we are not asking for crumbs.” And he gives an example of what he means, inviting us to imagine “that the richest and most powerful emperor commanded a poor beggar to ask for whatever he might desire.  The emperor was prepared to give lavish, royal gifts, but the beggar asked only for a dish of broth.” Luther concludes that the beggar would be “making a mockery of the majesty’s command.  Just so, it is a dishonor to God if we, to whom God offers so many blessings, lack confidence and scarcely venture to ask for a morsel of bread” [let alone pray for God’s word and reign to have free course among us.]

I peaked ahead to what our 40 Day Lenten Journey book says about this petition of praying for God’s kingdom to come.  And it says a lot.  Day 7 begins, “Now we will study for a week what we could profitably spend a year on – or more!  We will be thinking together about the one thing Jesus seemed to think about most – the kingdom of God – a kingdom of love and justice, compassion and mercy, forgiveness and peace for all.”
To ask for even a little of those good things is not to ask for crumbs.  It is to ask that a banquet to be set before everyone in this world, fashioned after God’s heart and hopes.  And Jesus enlists us to live that desired reality here and now. 

And we taste it whenever we rub shoulders with justice being done with mercy.  We eat its goodness every time compassion lifts a weary soul.  We’re caught up in it whenever love replaces jealousy and forgiveness breaks cycles of violence. Then we know God’s reign is come near, and what a joy when it comes near through us.
Every day brings opportunities for us to embrace God’s reign.  And what helps us do so as much as anything is this prayer. Jesus teaches us to pray for God’s reign to come.  The catch is, pray isn’t just rote repeating of words.  Prayer includes trust and expectation that what we pray for will be done because God answers prayer.  Prayer includes believing that prayer matters.  When we pray the Lord’s Prayer we are not to have crumbs on our mind.  We are to picture ourselves praying for a banquet.  Praying the Lord’s Prayer is not for those without an appetite for justice and mercy, love and peace. 
I struggle with my own often low expectations of God’s reign being actualized among us.  I have to question why I expect more from the chef when I go to a fine restaurant than I expect from God who lovingly created me and you and all that exists. Jesus said to pray for nothing less than the kingdom – God’s reign of justice and mercy, love and peace – pray for it as if our prayers mattered, because they do. 

Our prayers matter partly because what we pray for, we invest in and work for and sacrifice to see happen.  Prayer means inner investment and God expects that kind of investment from us.  If prayer didn’t matter it wouldn’t be the one thing Jesus taught us to do.  He didn’t teach people how to fish or how cook; how to read or how to build a house, not that he didn’t value all those things. But he did teach people how to pray. 

As we work on becoming more fluent in the first language of faith, the Bible, a great place to begin is becoming fluent with the Lord’s Prayer – not just in knowing the words by memory, but in investing ourselves in them because we believe they matter.  Jesus wouldn’t have taught us to pray “Thy kingdom come” if he didn’t think our prayer mattered. Luther believed it did, and concludes his prayer hymn in this way: “Amen. Yes, yes, it shall be so!  Build up our faith and make it grow; Beset by doubt, help us believe what here we ask we shall receive.  So by your promise, in your name, with loud Amen your Yes we claim!              
                                                                                           

Amen

   +Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson, to the glory of God
Faith Lutheran Church, Chico, CA