By Shawn Flory Replogle
The phrase “Thy Will Be Done” has been prominent for me lately. Of course, we know that the primary source for those words is Jesus as he teaches his disciples how to pray (specifically Matthew 6:10). These words are one line among several in what we call “The Lord’s Prayer” or the “Prayer of Jesus.”
This past Tuesday there was an opinion piece in The McPherson Sentinel, titled “Thy will be done.” The author, though admittedly not very religious, confessed praying to God in times of need. He furthered confessed that these times of “prayer” were not very fulfilling as he often found himself just as anxious, if not more so, than when his “bargaining” (his words) had begun. His anxiety only subsided as he uttered the words “Thy will be done.” In that phrase he had come to recognize the control which he still hoped to cling to, but was finally able to give away. He went on to write, “That’s not faith, that’s fear. Fear is promising to give things up or offer things to get through….Faith is realizing that your control is an illusion….”1
Recently I attended a memorial service of someone who had been a member of a church, but who had not attended the church in quite sometime. The out-of-town pastor mentioned several times “the promise of God, that we will be with Him when our time on this earth is done”. This is not uncommon fare at memorial services, but I realized how increasingly uncomfortable I am when a pastor (including me) offers this “promise” on behalf of God. At best it seems like only a half-truth. Part of the story is certainly that we humans have received a promise that there is indeed more to our our (soul’s) existence than this life can offer, that after death there is yet something more, more glorious than we can begin to imagine.
After the pronouncements of “the promise of God” by the pastor at the memorial service, he invited us to conclude the homily by reciting together “The Lord’s Prayer.” That’s when the half-truth hit me: the entire homily had promised “pie-in-the-sky”, life-after-death, God’s-promise for whatever is next after this existence. But the “Prayer of Jesus” does not speak of this next-world-Kingdom. Jesus speaks of “Your Kingdom come” and “on earth as it IS [emphasis mine] in heaven” and “Your will be done.” The verb tense suggests a very present expectation, if not right in this very second, then a much anticipated moment soon after this one.
I would not want to deny the very real biblical promise of being with God after this life. But if we were to stay only in this promise, we would only be getting half the story. God is not just interested in our after-lives, but very much interested in our present-lives. When we pray “Your Kingdom come” it is an acknowledgement that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God consciously chose to reenter this human existence, to be with us, to participate with us dreaming new dreams for this world. “Your Kingdom come” is an invitation into a new relationship with God, into new relationships with all human beings, beginning with the people we encounter right now: family, friends, this community of faith, people on the street. To pray “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is to pray for a world that looks vastly different than the one we currently inhabit, and to pray for that “new heaven and new earth” to be made manifest right now, right here.
Sometimes I wonder if I fear that prayer more than I realize. Not only does it ask me to give up my illusion of control, but it asks me to participate with God in revolutionizing the world. The promise is not in wholesale political or economic change, but in a relationship revolution: how we treat and care for one another.
Indeed, “Your will be done”… and may You grant me the courage afraid to participate in every part of my life.
Blessings in Jesus’ name,
Pastor Shawn
1Wardwell, Sean. “Thy will be done”, The McPherson Sentinel, 2010 August 18; pg. 4.
