Thy Kingdom Come--Prayer and suffering

These three words: "Thy Kingdom come", are to me the essence of prayer. The kingdom of God envelopes every part and parcel of our lives. The kingdom of God includes forgiveness, repentance, gratefulness, intercession, love, peace, joy and every good thing we receive from God. All that is good about life itself, is to be found in greater and even more abundant provision in the kingdom of God.

In John 10:10 Jesus said "I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly." Yet in Luke 9:23 he also said "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." God's ultimate plan is to destroy our pain and suffering. Yet for life to be authentic, suffering is a part of it, for now. In the incarnation, we see God coming to earth to suffer, first as a poor pilgrim sharing humanity with us, and finally sharing the experience of a humiliating painful death.

God wants us to be happy. He wants us to have lives full of joy, peace and beauty. He is not an angry God relishing in our suffering. His kingdom is to alleviate all suffering. The only way to understand and fully experience true life and the end of suffering is through union with God. My own definition of the kingdom of God is this: through our union with God, we bring peace, love, beauty and joy to a suffering world.

So when we pray "Thy kingdom come", are we praying for peace or for conflict? I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that it is both. Ultimately, it is for peace for the world. But that peace does not come without a price. The price is for us to follow the model of Christ, and to live our own incarnation. We voluntarily empty ourselves (kenosis, Philippians 2) to help alleviate the suffering of others. Rather than spend our lives building our own little fifedoms of wealth, pleasure, control, and separation from the hurting, we give of ourselves.

Christ is our example in giving of himself to bring his kingdom to others. Mary, a layperson and contemplative, also showed this emptying by accepting the cross she was to bear, the death of her son. May our prayer be for ultimate peace, love, joy and beauty, as we with Mary cry be it unto me according to your word. Thy kingdom come.

Paradigms of prayer--Ponder

Lectio Divina is the spiritual practice of slowly and contemplatively reading scripture, with the goal not so much intellectual knowledge as union with God. It has been a practice of the church from ancient times, starting with monastics and contemplatives from very early. The goal is to take the word of God from the objective or scientific realm, to the subjective and personal; to make the word of God real to my spirit. This is true theology. As the desert fathers have said: A theologian is one who prays.

The book of Psalms plays a huge part in Orthodox liturgics. I can't think of a service that does not include the Psalms, if not directly chanting them, at least sound bytes, such as the Prokemenon for the Epistle reading. Clearly the Psalms are a wellspring for spiritual growth, and a wealth of material for contemplative practice. "The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of gold and silver" Ps 119:72

I vaguely remember as an evangelical, a preacher encouraging believers to spend the bulk of their time reading the bible in the epistles. The epistles (according to him) were the law of God for the New Testament church. The gospels were important, not so much for Christ' teaching as the revelation of salvation. And the Psalms, well they were milk for spiritual babes and one should eventually grow out of them for the most part. How strange that teaching seems to me now that I've been Orthodox for 10 years.

Far from being just spiritual milk, the Psalms are truly God's word. They are not only our hymnbook, they are a source of comfort, of learning, of peace, of weapons for spiritual warfare, and a depth of life for contemplation. No where is this more apparent than Psalm 119. Of its 176 verses, all but 4 specifically refer to God's word, law, decrees, statues, commands, and precepts. The Psalms have become for me, and specifically Psalm 119, a great starting point for contemplative prayer. They prime the pump so to speak, and lead me to ponder what is truly the word of God: the revelation of God to my heart.

To the evangelical still in me, this kind of talk is borderline heresy, and dangerous. To them, the word of God is an objective intellectual enterprise, a book of rules and laws for great minds to interpret for the rest of us in unchanging stagnant decrees. But far from dangerous, lectio divina brings the word of God to life. I don't expect to hear God speaking directly in specific concrete instructions (go to Chicago today, leave your wife, drink the kool-aid) nor should I. Clearly that would be opposed to the spirit of God's word. But I do hear the Spirit make personal the real word of God: God is love, God is life, God is concerned about me personally.

Words only represent thoughts, emotions, or senses that are made personal to each of us. As we ponder the word of God, and prayerfully ask "Speak Lord, your servant listens", we follow the model of the greatest lay contemplative and the Mother of our God. "I am the Lords servant, may it be to me as you have said" Luke 1:38. "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart" Luke 2:19.