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On earth as it is in heaven
ILOL. IMHO. LMK. ROFL. These text abbreviations are child’s play compared to my favorite: PBPGINFWMY. Translation: Please be patient. God is not finished with me yet.
When we started RenewalWorks, a ministry with congregations, I told people there was an invisible tattoo on my forehead which read (in elegant typeface): Work-in-progress. I’ve been told that at some point I have to stop calling the work a pilot project. These thoughts were prompted by today’s line from the Lord’s Prayer. After addressing the one whose name we seek to hallow, we pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It suggests a holy work-in-progress. God is not finished with us yet. I’m grateful for that.
I once had a young child ask me a question after I preached a sermon on heaven. He asked: Is heaven a place or a feeling? I fumbled through a typical Episcopal answer, like “It’s both.” Or “What do you think?” But whatever, however, wherever it is, it is its advent for which we pray.
The Lord’s Prayer suggests that heaven is the place where God’s will is completely done, where all that resists God’s gracious will has been set aside. In my limited imagination, it is the place where we will finally be able to fulfill the great commandment to love God with whole heart and soul and mind, and to love neighbor as self. Talk about a work in progress. In my imagination it is the place where relationships that have been broken can be healed. Where does your imagination take you?
I take it as holy coincidence that we come to this part of the prayer as we begin Holy Week. The week is filled with questions about what kind of kingdom we’re looking for, what kind of king Jesus might be. Jesus spoke a lot about the kingdom (random sampling above), and he spoke in mysterious ways. It is coming. It is here. It is out there. It is within. It is very much a work in progress, as parables indicated, often with mysterious beginnings and small starts like a mustard seed growing into a tree expansive and inclusive enough to provide a place for all the birds of the air. All of them.
In Jesus’ last days (which we observe this week), all kinds of questions about his kingship surfaced, beginning with the procession on Palm Sunday, when crowds hailed him as king. Pilate asked point blank: Are you a king? Jesus responded: My kingdom is not of this world. It’s not what you’ve been expecting. Those who ridiculed and tortured Jesus made fun of his claims to kingship. They didn’t understand. In the end, Pilate insists on a sign on the cross that declares that Jesus is a king.
And so we sing: The king of love my shepherd is. The kingdom for which we pray is marked by love. As Michael Curry repeats: If it isn’t about love, it isn’t about God. The cross that stands at the end of this week shows us what love looks like. Words of compassion, forgiveness, hope and trust are spoken by Jesus in that crucial moment, with arms stretched out on hard wood to draw us into his saving embrace.
Take this Holy Week as an opportunity to pray for God’s kingdom to come, on earth as in heaven. The news of the day tells us we are not there yet, in oh so many ways. That prayer can be offered not only with our lips but with our lives, as we realize that we are indeed a work in progress, that we have left undone those things that we ought to have done. In each day there are opportunities to grow in love of God and neighbor, a step at a time, a step closer to heaven. Holy Week is a grand time to take those next steps.
