Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.

Sermon on Sunday 6 September 2020

at the Church of the Holy Trinity and St Tudno’s Church, in the Ministry Area of Llandudno

The Ministry Area is following a teaching lectionary, with passages drawn from the Gospel according to St Matthew, during the Sundays of September, October and November. The readings, and the order of service as used at Holy Trinity, can be found here.

Listen to the Gospel of Christ according to Saint Matthew.
Glory be to you, O Lord.

At that time: Jesus said, ‘Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

‘When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

‘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.

‘For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’

This is the Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.

Though they proclaim the same Good News, the four New Testament Gospels were written at slightly different times, for slightly different audiences, and so each of them has a slightly different colour, a slightly different tone.

The Gospel of St Mark is the gospel for the energetic, dynamic folk — a gospel written for the Romans, for the imperial capital — a gospel for people who go to the gym — a gospel where Jesus is active, forceful, urgent; a gospel where the kingdom seems always on the verge of violently breaking through.

The Gospel of St Luke is the gospel for the keen and the converted — a gospel that lays out the detail of salvation’s history, that tells us the story of those who have gone before us; a gospel for the organised, for those who’ve got their priorities sorted; the gospel of our better natures.

The Gospel of St John is the gospel for the theologians among us — a gospel for those who want to enter into the mystery of the Word made flesh, who want to hear Jesus discourse on his messianic calling, on his relationship with the Father; a gospel of sign and sacrament; a gospel to be discerned.

And that leaves the Gospel of St Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew was written for respectable, sensible people, like you and me — good people, but people in need of a reminder, now and then, of the weight and the depth of our calling, of the height and the breadth of what we’re called to be. It’s the gospel in which Jesus speaks of holy things (of the kingdom, the divine will) in the language of daily bread. It’s the gospel in which the sower, the shepherd, the builder, the housewife, the guests at the wedding, the unmerciful servant, the workers in the vineyard, the lost sheep, the mustard seed, the solid rock and the soft sand, the stuff of everyday, of here are now, are put to work to help you and me understand what it means to talk about God’s kingdom coming, to help you and me understand what it means to pray for God’s will to be done. It’s the gospel in which Jesus asks each of us to take a good look at ourselves, the gospel in which Jesus demands of each us whether we are truly living our daily, earthly, mortal lives in the light of his pressing, transfiguring eternity.

And it’s the Gospel of Matthew that’ll be our companion here in Holy Trinity for the next three months. The Gospel passages that we’ll hear at the Eucharist for the coming twelve weeks — all of which are printed in the booklets you have in your hands — will take us into Matthew’s world, into his good news, into the heart of the story he has to tell about blessing and mission and justice, about Church and communion and eternity — about God’s kingdom coming and God’s will being done.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.

And we begin today with a passage from Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus teaches us how to pray. It comes from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, and from a part of the sermon where Jesus urges his followers to do three key things — to fast, to give alms and to pray. You need to fast, Jesus tells the people — you need to keep the spiritual disciplines, you need to fulfil your religious obligations. You need to give alms to the poor, Jesus tells the people — you need to be charitable, to care for the least and the last and the lost in your midst. But, above all, Jesus says, you need to pray to the Father.

And when he focuses on prayer in our Gospel passage today, Jesus has three things to say — what not to do, what actually to do, and why doing so is good. Don’t make a show of your prayer and your piety, Jesus says — praying isn’t a performance, it’s not a form of showing off and bolstering the ego. Find a quiet space, Jesus says, the inner-most place, a place to be still — and pray simply, like this — and he offers his followers the words of the Lord’s Prayer. And do this, pray like this, Jesus says, because it brings you into the heart of God, where faith and hope and love are to be found — where you will glimpse the kingdom and be united with God’s will.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.

It’s very likely that the words of the Lord’s Prayer are an abbreviation of ancient Jewish benedictions. The words that we say, the words that tumble so easily from our lips, the words that we pray today amid the changes and chances of our weird, anxious, lonely world — these words tie us to thousands of years of men and women who have found a quiet place, the inner-most place, a place to be still, and offered to God the same petitions.

As we begin our journey with Matthew for these twelve weeks, let me commend these booklets to you; let me invite you to take them home with you; and let me encourage you to return to the Gospel passages printed in them during the week, and to digest them and allow them to speak to you. And, during this week, let me urge you to find a quiet place, the inner-most place, a place to be still, and do no more than pray the words Jesus taught us.