Kingdom, Power, Glory
I Chronicles 29:10-13
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This morning brings us to the conclusion of our summer sermon series on The Lord’s Prayer. That means it also brings us to the conclusion of three summers spent looking closely at three of the most instructive texts of the Christian faith: two from scripture, and one from very earliest days of the church. Two years ago we made our way through the Apostles’ Creed, which articulates in a trinitarian structure some of our most fundamental beliefs about how we understand God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (although when we use the creed in worship we still say ‘Holy Ghost’). Then last year we turned our attention to the Ten Commandments, looking beyond the symbolism of monuments to the actual words that form the foundation of our understanding about what it looks like to love God as well as our neighbor. The creed, the Law, and finally the Prayer. Because when it comes to faith, the act of trusting in God, we need to know what it is that we are giving our hearts to, and we need to know how that’s done, and then we need to remember that faith is about more that knowing the right answers, or doing the right things, it is essentially a relationship between us, God and one another. Prayer is the ongoing conversation that feeds and defines that relationship. For centuries, long before there was widespread literacy, or even bibles that people could read in their own native language, it was these three texts that were committed to memory, written on believers’ hearts, that were used to teach us how to follow as students of Jesus, and what it means to do so.
Now the ending of this prayer, what is called the doxology, isn’t actually a part of the prayer that Jesus taught. And just so we know what we’re talking about, the word doxology- literally words about glory- means hymn of praise. So, if this bit at the end, this hymn of praise isn’t something recorded in the two gospels where the prayer is found, then what is it doing in the prayer? The answer, interestingly enough, is found in another prayer, offered by someone you may have heard of, King David, in a book of the Hebrew prophets called 1st Chronicles. We could go down a whole rabbit hole talking about 1st and 2nd Chronicles, but more to the point today is that what is recorded is a pretty standard conclusion for a Jewish prayer. Listen to these words from 1st Chronicles, chapter 29, verses 10-13.
10 Then David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly; David said: ‘Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our ancestor Israel, for ever and ever. 11Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. 12Riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might; and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all. 13And now, our God, we give thanks to you and praise your glorious name.
I couldn’t have been more than 7-years-old when I went to church with my best friend, whose family happened to be Roman Catholic. I knew enough to know that that meant they weren’t the same as us Presbyterians, but I wasn’t sure just how. So, we went to Mass and it didn’t seem all that different. They had pews, just like we had pews. They had hymnals, just like we had hymnals. Something I was very excited about, by the way, because I can remember that I had recently learned to read the words that were being sung by their stanza, instead of just straight down the page. The people around me seemed to know all the words to say that I didn’t, and when to say them. And then we began to say something I recognized, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” It was the Lord’s Prayer. Finally I could chime in with everybody else. I stumbled a bit over trespasses and those who trespass against us, but quickly recovered for “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” And then, like the good Presbyterian kid I was, I enthusiastically plowed ahead into, “for thine is the kingdom…” Only I quickly realized I was on my own. Everybody else had stopped praying. It’s a little ironic to think that the Roman Catholics were more biblical in their offering of the Lord’s Prayer than the very bible-centric Protestants. But there it was. So, beyond the simple answer that it is a function of practice and tradition over time, why do we add this doxology to the end of the prayer that Jesus taught?
It might help to re-visit where we’ve been. This prayer that Jesus teaches us, this prayer that he offers as a model for how to pray- how to connect, how to turn toward God and open our hearts to what God can change in us and in the world- begins with a series of three affirmative statements about God, followed by a series of three petitions. And the whole thing is spoken from the first person plural. From the outset Jesus is teaching us that even when we pray in our closet alone, we are still a part of the larger community of prayer. Just like there is no such thing as individual salvation- I’ve got mine now you get yours. There is also no such thing as individual prayer. The simpe act of praying is an acknowledgment that each of us is a part of something larger, that we belong to something more than simply ourselves.
The prayer then sets the stage by establishing three things about this Father in heaven to whom we all belong. The first one is a re-articulation of the third commandment. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you what it is in case you don’t have them written on your heart. The third commandment is, you shall not misuse or take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Or in the more positive words of this prayer- hallowed be thy name. More literally, let your name be kept holy. I don’t need to tell you this, but people pray for some pretty silly stuff. They pray for parking spaces, or to pass tests they haven’t studied for. Here within the prayer and at the outset is the reminder that God isn’t our cosmic concierge- here to give us whatever we want. God is the one to whom we all belong, the creator and maker of all. And while God certainly works in and through what is common and mundane in our lives, it’s important to set apart our understanding of God as anything but common and mundane. We open ourselves in prayer with a certain amount of reverence for the one whom we are addressing.
Second, we say thy kingdom come. There are other kingdoms all around us, but the one we’re seeking, the one we want realized in our lives when we come to God in prayer is the one in which God reigns supreme. And third, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Certainly we bring our own hopes, fears and desires to prayer. There’s no point in pretending that we’re something that we’re not with God. God knows the truth. God is the truth. But it helps to be reminded before laying out whatever it is that we want God to bless, that what we ultimately are looking for is what God wants, what God has already blessed. As the old saying goes, “if you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.” And not only do we want what God wants, we’re not waiting for later to get it. No pie in the sky here. Ultimately we want what God wants in heaven to be made manifest right here, right now on earth.
Then there are the three basic petitions: for bread, forgiveness, and salvation. Interestingly enough they parallel a bit the three temptations visited upon Jesus at the end of his forty days in the wilderness following his baptism. First, he’s tempted to turn stones into bread. Give us this day our daily bread. Then he’s tempted to throw himself from the top of the temple and test God. Forgive us, as we forgive. Finally, he’s offered all earthly wealth and power if he’ll just worship something other than God. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from the evil one. Temptation isn’t the offer to do something that is inherently evil, or bad. Temptation comes from the invitation to attempt a freestanding life outside of the abundant goodness that God provides for us, to believe that we’re somehow autonomous. This prayer puts those things back into the hands of God to give us, and reminds us from whom the blessings of sustenance, forgiveness and salvation flow.
First we name who God is and how God is approached. Then we name our most fundamental needs, not just as individuals but as a community. And in the end we return to God. Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.
A couple of months ago I had the privilege of attending a naturalization ceremony for people from all around the world who were becoming United States citizens. There in the Albuquerque Convention Center were people from over forty nations, along with the friends and the family who love them. As you may know, this ceremony includes an oath that new citizens take promising, among other things, to “absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.” Now it would be unrealistic for us to expect people from other parts of the world to renounce the affection and appreciation of their homeland. America isn’t like the borg from the old Star Trek TV show that seeks to assimilate immigrants in a way that erases all trace of their former existence. Rather we are made better by the gifts each of those cultures has contributed, and continue to contribute. But there is a clear line in that oath about where one’s allegiance is to reside.
When Christians speak the words “thine is the kingdom,” we are in effect renouncing and abjuring any allegiance that would rival our citizenship in the realm of what God is about. I am an American, a Westerner, a Broncos and Rockies fan, and pretty firmly on team Marvel. But none of those things, not my nationality, not my geographical or athletic affinities, or even my preference of comic book universes comes before what God has done and is doing in my life and in the life of the world around me. Put another way, those are my kingdoms. Or, if not mine, they are just some of the varied and assorted kingdoms of this world. Some are political, some are recreational, but all of them are the creation of human beings and so inherently flawed, and ultimately terminal. As we conclude our prayer we speak of where our true and lasting hope comes from. It comes not from the kingdoms, princes, potentates, states or sovereignties of this world, it comes from the realm of what God has done and what God has yet to bring to completion.
Likewise, we continue, [thine is] the power. The power of God is in stark contrast with the way power is exercised in the world around us. That is a power often secured through military might and superior fire power. It is exercised through force and coercion. The manifestation of this in Jesus’ day was the mighty Roman Empire, who kept the pax Romana, the peace of Rome through public demonstrations of its power by crucifying enemies of the state. That is what makes the cross such an ironic symbol. As Paul puts it in one of his letters to the church in Corinth, “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The methods may have changed but the distinction remains, what worldly power uses to show its strength and to silence its enemies is the very thing that God uses to turn everything we think we know about power on its head. As Paul writes further in that same letter, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.” Thine is the power, we pray. And we’re reminded of what true power looks like.
And finally, [thine is] the glory. We know what glory looks like in the world today. It looks like strong quarterly profits and strong ratings. It looks like awards and accolades. It looks like the gold star next to your name attesting to your worth, your value, your talent. It’s a throng of screaming fans, or a campaign rally filled with supporters chanting your name. It’s your brand, your reputation, the number in your win column. When Jesus speaks of his glory, and how God will glorify him, he’s speaking of the cross. He’s talking about everything we actively avoid if we can at all help it. Because Jesus recognizes what we are taught to name with this concluding doxology. All Glory belongs to God. And it isn’t just the product of whatever success we may experience, it’s also what happens when our mourning turns to dancing, when God takes the sackcloth of our sorrow and clothes us with joy. The glory this world seeks is afraid of the dark, but the glory that is God’s begins in the dark. It begins with a blank page, it begins on the bathroom floor, it begins when we are at our worst so that God can show us what God can do when we cannot. Thine is the glory.
With these three words ascribed to God in praise at the conclusion of our prayer we renounce and abjure not just the other kingdoms that would demand our loyalty, or coercive power, or empty glory, we turn from all the falsehoods on which our lives are too often based and lean instead into God’s kingdom, power, and glory that are forever. And if that is true, if we can give our hearts to that truth as it is embodied in the one who teaches us this prayer, then there is only one thing left to say. And that is, “Amen.”