The Kingdom Of God

Jesus said to the crowds, "Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one." --Matthew 6:9-13 (Emphasis added)

Thy kingdom come.
What does this mean?
The kingdom of God comes indeed without our prayer, of itself; but we pray in this petition that it may come unto us also.
How is this done?
When our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead a godly life here in time and yonder in eternity. (Martin Luther's Small Catechism)

I was poking around before my devotion time and found a blog called AlreadyNotYet. What follows is not an endorsement, just a reference to something that made me reconsider my faith and practice. In an entry on June 21st, one of the bloggers talks about a mission conference in South Africa. Here's what he says:

Rev. David Zak Niringiye, Archbishop of the Anglican Church inUganda, has been speaking each morning. Yesterday he suggested that the mission community’s obsession with the “Great Commission” is more a reflection of a Western, imperialist narrative than it is of atrue, theological understanding of mission. “Listen to our language”he said. “Winning souls and conquering people. We somehow think we’rebringing Jesus places. My brothers and sisters. You aren’t bringing Jesus anywhere. He’s already there!”

I think to myself, "Hmmm...gotta ponder that a bit more." and turn to my devotions for today. (BTW, I use a site called Sacred Space. It's been a great launching pad for me, even if it is Catholic. :) ) Their appointed reading for today is the text above. With the idea of imperialist narrative already stewing in my mind, I stumble upon the key phrase in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come." This sends me looking for my Small Catechism, which one can find with the whole Book fo Concord. All to wrestle with Archbishop Niringiye's comments.

I think Archbishop Niringiye is on to something. The Kingdom of God is not an earthly, flesh and bone kingdom. In fact, Dr. Jeff Gibbs puts forward an idea of re-interpreting "kingdom" as more a "king-ing" or "reigning" of Christ, in order to lessen the earthliness of the concept. Likewise, Luther doesn't talk about God's reign on earth but on God's will being affected on earth, namely that the Holy Spirit would have free reign to do what the Holy Spirit does: bring people to faith in Christ.

"My brothers and sisters, we aren't bringing Christ anywhere; he's already there." This is a true statement and makes me really re-think my role as a chaplain. "Bringing Soldiers to God and God to Soldiers" is a common tag-line for the work of the chaplain. How can I bring God somewhere He already is? My job is not to bring God into any situation; it's to help people realize that God's already in their situation and to help them feel his presence. We don't "win souls for Christ;" Christ has already won them through His death and resurrection. We simply tell people what they've been given in Christ.