Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, “Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.” Sadly, this description could apply to many Christians who have uncritically accepted the notion that this world does not ultimately matter to God, and therefore should not matter to us. “We’re just passing through” and “This world is not my home” are popular cliches among followers of Christ today.
This dismissive posture toward the world does not align with how Jesus taught us to pray. After addressing God as both our intimate Father and as holy Other, we pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” This is the great desire and aspiration of all who belong to God. Rather than praying to escape the earth for heaven, Jesus tells us to pray for God’s kingdom to arrive on earth from heaven.
Like much of the Lord’s Prayer, this phrase carries both a longing and a responsibility. First, we long to see our world bloom with the order, beauty, and abundance that mark God’s kingdom, and we want every ounce of injustice, death, and scarcity purged away. This full hope will only be fulfilled when the power of Jesus’ resurrection is unleashed throughout the cosmos in the age to come.
However, our longing for the full healing of our world is not a passive desire. In these words, we find an implied responsibility upon all who speak this prayer. As Eugene Peterson says, “We participate in the invasion of heaven on earth every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer.” In longing for God’s will to be done on the earth, we are affirming our willingness to surrender our wills to God’s. We are making ourselves servants of God’s kingdom on earth, which means we are resisting the common temptation to use God’s name and power to serve our own kingdoms. I appreciate how Cyprian, an early church father, understood this part of the Lord’s Prayer. He said, “We ask not that God should do what he wills, but that we may be able to do what God wills.” After all, God has no problem accomplishing his will. We do.
Daily Scripture
Matthew 6:9–13
Luke 1:34–38
Weekly Prayer
From Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
O Lord, let me no longer desire health or life except to spend them for you and with you. You alone know what is good for me; therefore do what seems best to you. Give to me or take from me; conform me to your will; and grant that, with humble and perfect submission, and in holy confidence, I may receive the orders of your eternal providence; and may equally adore all that comes to me from you, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
