Tuesday, February 16
“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”
The Lord’s Prayer is considered by many scholars to be a poem in the ancient Jewish liturgical tradition. Its language is at once expressive and figurative.
I have long been enamored of poetic forms. I’ve been reading and writing them ever since I can remember. My earliest ones followed the sing-song patterns of nursery rhymes. They spoke imaginatively about objects of play, friends, and everyday occurrences in my neighborhood. Over time they became more complex, pointing to deeper truths of beingness. Their numbers increased when I experienced something new or when I was sorting through a tricky place in my life. They decreased when I was busy or when life hummed along.
Poetic cadence opens me to divine grace and revelation. Rather than mere words strung together in clothes line fashion in prosaic writing, poetic ordering weaves new meaning and possibility into my life. Years ago I climbed Sandia Peak as part of an extended hiking and camping trip. Sandia Peak is a rocky outcropping amid the Sandia mountain range just north of Albuquerque, NM. The view from the top magnificently exposes desert and open sky—crisp stars and heated sun. My blue enameled tin coffee cup overflowed with blessing. I wrote prolifically that summer at the wonder of it all.
Jesus’ simple poetic prayer captures the wonder of it all. As he stands within the hilly terrain north of Galilea he expresses intimacy and respect in addressing God. His theology is clear. Jesus invokes covenantal and familial language to invite us into personal relationship with God. It is a deeply holy act.
Anglican bishop N.T. Wright writes that the Lord’s Prayer is an invitation to share in the divine life itself. I believe this is so. When we welcome God’s kingdom on earth it means we are to follow God’s way. Our poetic invocation is a prelude to the specific petitions that follow in this simple prayer. The plea for sustenance, forgiveness, and deliverance removed barriers to our worship of God and the fullness of life itself. As we are fed and clear the clutter in our lives, our efforts can point us to life-giving hope and beneficent action for our world.
God we pray this day to see your way more clearly as we work to create your kingdom on earth. Allow us to remove those obstacles that block our vision of your love and healing grace amongst us. And let us be thankful for the beauty in mountains, deserts, and seas in our world as sure signs of your magnificent creative act of all that is. Amen
–Nena Radtke