Many of us may feel that life is somewhat on hold at the moment, as if someone has pushed the 'pause' button. Some of us may experience this pause as a time for deeper reflection and prayer; others may find it a very stressful and anxious time. This season of the church year between Ascension Day this last Thursday and Pentecost next Sunday has something of the quality of a 'pause' about it too. Karl Barth, the eminent Swiss theologian, called this time 'a significant pause' between the mighty acts of God, a time in which the church's task is to wait and pray.
It is fitting then, that for the last few years, Christians from a wide range of different churches have been encouraged, through the global ecumencial initiative 'Thy Kingdom Come', to set aside this specific period of time to pray. This prayer movement encourages us to pray for God's grace to be at work in our world, our communities, and our own everyday lives in our work situations and families. We are encouraged to pray specifically for five people (friends, family members, neighbours or work colleagues) who do not know God's love in Christ to be open to receive it. There is a wealth of resources online which we can use to help us to pray and I have mentioned some of those in my recent email message sent out to you all. But the two basic prayers this initiative calls us to pray are 'Thy Kingdom Come' and 'Come, Holy Spirit'. These are also themes in our readings at this time of year. Today I'd like us to think particularly about 'Thy Kingdom come'; the prayer 'Come Holy Spirit' will be our focus at Pentecost, next Sunday.
What does it mean to pray 'Thy Kingdom come'? We do that every time we say the Lord's Prayer. But what is God's kingdom? In our first reading today from the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we hear about the Ascension of Jesus, when he returns to God the Father at the end of his earthly ministry. As Jesus prepares to leave them, the disciples ask him: 'Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?' The disciples are wondering...when will Jesus' kingdom come and will that mean fulfilment of the Jewish hope that Israel will finally be freed from her enemies, the occupying Romans? Jesus does not directly answer their question, but he tells them that only God knows the time for the fulfilment of his purposes. Nevertheless, they themselves are given a task, to be 'my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and Samaria and to the ends of the earth' and the Spirit will give them the power to do this.
How does this relate to the kingdom? Jesus often preached about the kingdom of God; many of his parables illustrate the upside down values of this kingdom, where the last will be first, and the first will be last. Jesus, when he is crucified, is nailed to the cross with the inscription 'the King of the Jews'. So what kind of king is Jesus and what kind of kingdom does he rule over?
In Acts, there are various occasions when the first Christians are accused of treason against the Roman Emperor. Jews in Thessalonica, for example, drag a group of Christians before the authorities saying 'these people have been turning the world upside down....they are acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.' (Acts 17). Certainly the first Christians challenged the prevailing beliefs and customs. Their commitment to Christ involved the whole of life; they sought to live in a different way and this was culturally destabilising. In the name of Christ, books of magic were burned and people turned away from the worship of local deities. When Paul healed a slave girl with a spirit of divination he also threatened the livelihood of those who exploited her for money. The Christian gospel didn't just affect people's private religious beliefs, but also public social and economic structures and networks. Many people saw these first Christians as disturbing the prevailing norms of the wider culture, and bringing trouble.
Yet, at same time Luke, the author of Acts, makes clear that Christianity is not 'treason'. In several incidents, the ruling authorities find Paul innocent of the charges of treason brought against him. The early Christians were not in direct competition with the Roman state, but they were still offering an alternative way of living. As one writer puts it 'New culture, yes – coup no.'
The kingdom of God, the kingdom of Jesus, is not the same as 'Christendom', by which we mean a political order that imposes Christianity on its society. That was the norm in much of Europe for many centuries, but whatever the benefits of Christendom may have been, most Christians would now say it involved serious distortions of what Christianity fundamentally is, and we are much better off without Christianity being imposed by political power. Rather as Christians, we are to follow Jesus, whose power and authority is found in service and sacrifice. Jesus is the servant king, who stoops to wash his disciples feet, who came not to 'be served' but 'to serve' and suffered a brutal death to bring life to others. Christians who follow Christ are not to seek after power, but to be servants as he was; indeed, as we hear in the first letter of Peter, following Christ may also involve suffering ourselves.
Jesus on trial before Pilate says 'my kingdom is not of this world.' But this does not mean that his kingdom is so other worldly that it has no relevance to the political, social and economic realities of this world. When we pray the Lord's Prayer we pray 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven'. The first Christians were accused of 'turning this world upside down'. They did not simply live a pious, private faith separate from the world around them; they were known publicly to live by different values and to challenge the prevailing culture.
So how can we follow the king and pray and work for the kingdom in our daily lives? Perhaps we first need to recognise that the kingdom of God is a challenge to our culture too; where so often power, status and money reign supreme and seeking our own happiness and self-fulfilment can be seen as our primary goal. God's kingdom turns the world upside down; his kingdom is seen where the outcasts are welcomed, the poor and vulnerable are cared for, human life, including the lives of the unborn, the disabled and those with dementia, is valued, and where those who have responsibility and influence use it to serve others rather than for their own status. Justice, peace, service, humility, generosity, sacrificial love – these are all values of the kingdom.
God's kingdom is not 'owned' by the church; God is also at work 'out there' in the world and we are called to co-operate with movements and activities which further the values of the kingdom. But we are also called, as Christians, to point to the king, our Lord Jesus, in our words, our attitudes and our actions and, as church communities, to be a visible sign of an alternative way of living in our world. Are we a church community where people of different ethnic and social backgrounds are welcome, where the vulnerable are valued and cared for, where the individual's talents and experience are used for the good of all, where the only status that matters is our identity in Christ?
Let us ask ourselves if we seek to follow the way of Jesus our king in our life as a church and in our daily lives at home and at work. If we are seeking to follow Jesus and to live the values of the kingdom that may sometimes lead to a clash with the values at our work place, in our families, or in our wider society. Let us pray for wisdom and humility to see where we can make a difference through our words or our actions.
But although we can seek to live the values of the kingdom, we can never establish this kingdom ourselves through our own church programmes and plans, however good and generous they are. We pray 'Thy kingdom come': the kingdom is God's kingdom, not ours, and that kingdom only comes through the working of the Spirit.
That's why we also need to pray 'Come, Holy Spirit'. We will, of course, be thinking more about the Spirit next Sunday, but let me say a few very brief words now.
As we pray for the coming of God's kingdom, we also have to pray for the Spirit. When Jesus gives his disciples the task of being his witnesses to the ends of the earth, he first tells them to 'wait for the power from on high.' Our life as Christians is not all about our activity; first and foremost we need to wait upon God in prayer and to be open to the life and power of his Holy Spirit. The things that need doing in our world are beyond our capacity to do in our own strength. To wait and to pray, to know our dependence on God and his grace; this must always come first before any activity of ours.
In these coming days as we approach Pentecost, let us make more time to pray; to pray for the coming of the kingdom and to pray for the resources of the Spirit. The kingdom cannot come without the Spirit, and without the Spirit the church has no life and we cannot bear fruit. We need the Spirit to work within us and among us.
As we face this enforced 'pause' in our lives in so many ways, may we embrace this 'significant pause' in the church year, and take time during this week to join in prayer with Christians all over the world and perhaps to use some of the resources of the Thy Kingdom Come initiative which I have sent out in recent emails. If we can, let us at the very least commit ourselves to praying the Lord's Prayer, slowly, every day at noon.
We pray:
Thy Kingdom Come.
Come, Holy Spirit.
Amen
Revd Helen Marshall