This week’s Lord’s Prayer focus:
“For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory…”
Scripture Reading: Matthew 20:17-34
“The kingdom, the power and the glory” is something the disciples and others around Jesus think about a lot. They know that with Jesus they are – or at least they are becoming a group, a community, a movement that is remaking the world – making the world into something good, something better than they have known, into something like it’s always been meant to be, for the good and well-being of all.
But, as they
think about this, and where they’re going, and where this will lead, they still
think in old ways – about a new kingdom somehow coming into being, with Jesus
as king, and them as his lieutenants – in control and with power.
Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem.
On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”
Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.
“What is it you want?” he asked.
She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”
“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”
“We can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”
When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers.
Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”
The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”
Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
“Lord,” they answered, “let our eyes be opened.”
Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they regained their sight and followed him.
We’re almost to the end of the Lord’s Prayer in our Lenten series of reflections on it. “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory…” Leaving only “Forever and ever, Amen” for next week – an interesting text and a good one for Easter Sunday. I’m looking forward to it.
For now, though, what we have to consider is this whole matter of the kingdom, the power and the glory of God on Earth being shaped and determined by commitment to “thine.”
“Thine” is one of those words. An old King James word that sounds so archaic. Thine. Thine. Thine. Who says "thine" anymore? And as I thought about that, what came to mind was a chorus I remembered from somewhere of “Mine! Mine! Mine!”
Do you know it? It’s from a movie I watched with Japhia and our grandkids, called “Finding Nemo.” It’s from a scene late in the movie – a rather hilarious scene, but deadly in its dangers, in which a flock of seagulls caught up in a feeding frenzy comes swooping down on two little fish on a pier, all of them screeching, “Mine! Mine! Mine!”
I thought of showing the video clip, but since we live-stream I have to remember copyright laws. Plus the little clip doesn’t give the whole story. So I’ll try to fill you in.
“Finding Nemo” is an animated film released by Disney in 2003 in which Nemo is a little, somewhat disabled clownfish living happily in the ocean near Australia, until his life takes a tragic turn. Swimming one day too near the surface and taking one risk too many, he is caught by a diver and sold to a pet store in Sydney. From there he is bought by a dentist, and ends up captive with other abducted fish and ocean creatures in a fish tank in the dentist’s office – a terrible way for a free ocean creature to have to spend and then end its life.
Just think of Joseph in the Bible when he is sold into slavery by his brothers. Think of the people of Israel generations after him, falling deeper and deeper into bondage to Egypt and its imperial needs and insecurity. Think of people enslaved and in bondage in various ways all through history, right up to today. How bondage and imprisonment is both a reality and a metaphor for so many people.
Anyway, that’s the beginning of the movie. The rest is made up of two parallel stories. One is Nemo’s desire to be free – to escape back to the ocean where he is meant to be. The other is the journey of Nemo’s father Marlin and a ditzy bluefish named Dory to find out where Nemo is, and to go and rescue him.
A kind of fish-version tale of parallel stories we all know and we all live in one way or another -- of longing and of looking, of wanting to be rescued and of trying to help that we all know and identify with? Like that of a wasteful son and a heart-broken father, of a lost sheep and a good shepherd, of a misplaced coin and a committed housewife, of any soul or person or family or whole country stuck in distress and others reaching out to help and to save?
In the end, the two stories of the lost and the looking come together through a character named Nigel – a pelican who travels freely between the two worlds of the ocean and the city. Nigel is a mediator – a saviour, in the way he inhabits both sides of the story. On one side of his life – as a creature of the ocean, Nigel hears of Nemo’s capture and of his father looking for him. On the other side – as a creature of the city, through the window of the dentist’s office where he likes to perch, one day Nigel sees a new fish in the fish tank inside, and finds out that yes, this is the Nemo whom Marlin is looking for.
From that point on, Nigel’s mission is to bring Marlin and Nemo together, and in that mission there’s a critical scene on the pier in Sydney Harbour. Marlin and Dory have arrived on the pier. They know Nemo is somewhere in the city. Nigel sees them, knows who they are, and wants to take them to Nemo. He swoops down to them and invites them to jump into his beak so he can carry them to where Nemo is.
They hesitate. What right-minded fish would ever jump into a pelican’s beak? We are reluctant sometimes – often rightly so, to give and entrust ourselves that completely to others.
At that moment, though, the little scene between Nigel and Marlin and Dory catches the attention of a flock of hungry seagulls perched nearby. They catch sight of the two little fish on the pier. Lunch! Within seconds the cry goes up from seagull to seagull: Mine! Mine! Mine! The gulls swoop down from all angles, each wanting to claim at least one of the fish, if not both, for their lunch.
In their wild swoops and dives, they careen and crash into one another. In their feeding frenzy, they fly into sails on the boats all around. They crash into masts. But still, driven by need and greed, they come.
Marlin and Dory are in danger of being scooped up and swallowed whole by any one of the gulls. Suddenly, Nigel looks pretty good. They jump in. Or at least let themselves be taken in. They are safe. Nigel happily lifts off from the pier, takes them away from the gulls, and carries them safely to where they want and need to be – to Nemo.
The seagulls are left behind, their self-centred cries of “Mine! Mine! Mine!” still echoing. Scavengers of the weak and the vulnerable, they know no other rule in life.
And isn’t that just the way of the world? The way that we and other people need to be saved from, and that is to be left behind if we are to get where we need, and really want to be?
The rule of “mine” – is that not the way of many of our leaders? Of so many others around us? Of us as well? Is the world not filled with so many cries of “Mine!”? Cries for attention (“Mine!”), for approval (“Mine!), for security (“Mine!”), for power (“Mine!”).
“The rule of Mine” is so prevalent, so powerful, and so persistent in keeping us from living out the good the world longs for. And is this maybe why Jesus is so wildly and happily by the poor, the weak, and the vulnerable – by the little ones of the world, whenever he appears? Because he lives and he teaches a different rule: “the rule of Thine.”
Like in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he says, “O God, if only this cup could pass from me! Do I really have to give so much – so all, of myself, for others? Not my will, though, but thine be done.”
It sounds good, doesn’t it? This “rule of Thine.” It’s so good that we include it as part of what we say to God as a congregation, when we offer Prayers of the People. We want to live by it, as Jesus does.
Except it’s not quite that simple or easy. Because how many claim “not my will, but God’s” as their mantra and their justification for all kinds of things they do for their own well-being?
How many nations, for instance – those that self-identify as Christian or as being led by some other religious tradition, have “in God we trust” or their own version of it, on their currency or in their motto or in their coat of arms or in their self-image, as they pursue the rule of self-interest? In Jesus’ day, Rome had its gods and thought itself to be doing their god’s good will, as Egypt did in the days of Moses, and most every nation or empire does right down to today.
And how many Christians – and people of other religious traditions, claim as God’s blessing and God’s good will whatever benefits them, their family, their immediate circle, or even their class and their interest in society?
I look at myself, for instance. I think I’m a pretty good person. I know I give time and attention to other people, to what they need, to what I can offer for their well-being. As much as I am able. The rule of thine – thy will be done, o God. But at the same time, when I’m really honest, there is also an element of “Mine” at work within it. The same need, the same desire for attention, for approval, for security and for control as we see at work all the time in the world.
So what do we do? What do I do, about the persistence of the rule of Mine at work within us?
Right now, I wonder if there’s something about the way Jesus says, “Thy will, not mine, be done,” that shows a way beyond the rule of Mine. Can we imagine, for instance, that when Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane offering his prayer to God – “Thy will, not mine, be done,” the God he is praying to is not just vaguely somewhere up in heaven, ready to bless whatever he – Jesus, thinks is best.
Rather, God for Jesus at that moment – and maybe for all moments, is here on Earth, and is seen and known most easily and most clearly by being with, looking to, and really seeing the poor, the outcast, the weak and the vulnerable. That that’s where God is, and where the face and the heart and the life of God – and the service of God, are to be found.
It’s as though when Jesus prays to God, “Thy will be done; who and what I am be given for you,” he doesn’t have his eyes closed so he can see God inside himself. Nor does he raise them to heaven the better to be in touch with God up there.
Rather, he has his eyes open and as he does all through his life, he is looking straight at the poor and the weak and the needy all around him, when he says, “Thy will and they well-being, not mine, be done.” Looking them face to face and straight in the eye, he says, “May who and what I am be offered, be broken, and be poured out, for you.” And then he does it.
If that’s “the rule of Thine” as Jesus knows it, lives it, and teaches it, no wonder the poor of Jerusalem welcome him as they do.
Is that what the world still needs?
Does the world still welcome whoever they see living out that understanding of the rule of Thine?
Is that still the kind of king, the kind of leader, the kind of rule we are invited to give and commit ourselves to?
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