Heaven Come to Earth & Earth Come to Heaven

[This article is cross-posted on my Our Long View blog.]

One night recently, at a church’s regular night of prayer and worship, I noticed the emphasis in what we said, what we sang, and what we prayed touching again and again on the phrase “your kingdom come” from the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:10, which says,

“Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.”

It resonated with me at the time because just a day earlier, I had been journaling through the tail-end of John 17—which is known as Jesus’ high priestly prayer for his followers—and I was struck by the way that Jesus prayed for “Heaven to come to earth.” He was praying for the kingdom to come, just not in those words.

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:20-24)

While Jesus prayed, it was not only for his disciples at that time…but by extension for all believers down through history…which includes all true Christ-followers today.

This section of Jesus’ prayer is, first of all, that we might be one, in perfect relationship with each other. The church has an “invisible” spiritual unity in Christ, but often we lack that visible unity between denominations and congregations that we need to be a convincing witness to the world (v.21). Thankfully, while we have a long way to go, I think this is getting better all the time. I see new trans-denominational partnerships developing. Yet we have to stop seeing others as competitors in a market-driven approach to church growth. We were saved by the grace of God to be one body, woven together like strands in a great tapestry that, as a whole, testifies beautifully of the love and grace of God in Christ. In order to do this—to be one—we will need to trust in the glory Jesus has shared with us all instead of trying to produce our own. Unity takes humility and an intentional effort, most of the time, to develop brother/sister relationships with other congregations. Jesus' second prayer for us, in this section, is that we might be with Jesus in heaven to see the shared glory of God and experience that perfect Trinitarian love for ourselves.

Waiting for dawn in Jerusalem

We pray “your kingdom come, your will be done,” and Jesus, when he prayed for us, told us what the answer to our prayer looks like. He prayed for our unity with each other in the here and now (heaven come to earth) as the evidence of God’s triune presence, and he prayed for our unity (earth come to heaven) with God in the future. That we could be with him where he is in the glorious love of the Father was the longing of our Lord Jesus. God, in his shared glory, invites us to eat with him in unity at his table (Luke 13:29).

So when we pray for the coming of the Kingdom of God, perhaps we should start looking with the wide-eyed wonder and expectancy of a child for the ways in which it is already present in the midst of us (Luke 17:21) and seek to experience it together as “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17).
 

As we seek to live out heaven’s kingdom convictions on earth, many will see it and desire to “immigrate” in order to worship with us in the Spirit and in truth. May we walk worthy of such citizenship.

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” (Revelation 12:9-11)

The Empty Tomb

As we continue through the Lenten season in preparation for our celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, perhaps we would make Jesus’ prayer our prayer as well.
 

 Will you join me?

 

The Gates of... Shall not Prevail!

[This post is an assigned response to Dr. Paul Metzger’s article, Gated Communities and the Visible/Invisible Church. It may, or may not be, helpful to read his post first.]

Brickell Key from north.
Photo by Marc Averette

Dr. Metzger uses the metaphor of “gated communities” two ways. First he uses it for the divisions and “Keep out” signs we put up in our lives and especially in our churches. There was a church growth principle popular in the 1980s-90s call the Homogeneous Unit Principle. This taught that the fastest way to grow a church was with people of the same race, class, education, interests, etc. The problem with this principle is that it works because it makes use of our natural worldly responses and has led many to keep using it. It is comfortable. It is safe. It keeps those without the gate code out. Who knows what might happen if we let everybody in… it might lead to the zombie apocalypse! OK so that last part was hyperbole.

The real problem with this gated community approach is that it is not Jesus’ way. His approach in the incarnation—God coming to the world in the flesh—was what we would call “downwardly mobile”. He came to minister to, spend time with, and suffered a brutal death to save everyone who would come. How willing are our churches to follow his example?

The second way he uses gated community metaphor for the invisible church that doesn’t engage the world around it. This happens two ways. Some people think that they can be Christians without functioning in community as the church. And some churches think they can be Christian inside their safe little spiritual compound without being a part of the larger culture and community. This may seem safe considering the things that go on “out there” but it is also an act of disobedience to Jesus’ command to go, preach, and disciple the whole world.

Don't Back Up!

We are not called to back up, circle the wagons, and hold the fort just because we are no longer in charge of the cultural forces around us. Instead of going all Elijah (1 Kings 19:14,18) and thinking we are the last true Jesus-followers on earth. If we take time to look and listen we will see God at work in some pretty amazing ways. This is not a call to compromise for as Dr. Metzger repeatedly states, “When engaging our culture, we must always go through our convictions, never around them, and never stopping short at them.” It seems to me that by not engaging we are stopping short of being truly biblical, fully orthodox, and faithful followers of Jesus.

So what gates have we placed in the way of those who God is calling to himself? What prevents us from gathering in unity as the visible Church?  Metzger suggests that,

"Perhaps some churches exclude people of other ethnicities, economic brackets, those with “disabilities,” the elderly or young or singles, the vibrant or dying, or those with different worship styles,  personality types, hobbies, IQ’s, and political perspectives."

But Jesus came to make us one, where all our gifts serve the unity of the congregation and all the “giftedness’s” of the local expressions of the Church contribute to the one Church, the visible body of Christ on earth. And I hate to break it to the gate-keepers and the spiritual HOA people, but the Church can’t be contained within your walls. Come out and join it in the great mission of God. It is risky and sometimes messy, but it smells like heaven.

Not only do we need to come out and collaborate with the wider church to engage the world but we also need to open the gates to welcome others inside to share life with us. It is wonderful to hear that many churches today are working towards a more multi-ethnic ministry model that better represents the church as it will be when Christ returns.

And they sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll
    and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
    from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
    and they shall reign on the earth.” (Rev. 5:9-10)

But there is a barrier that is still up in many areas and it is primarily socio-economic, as I wrote in my last post Poor Praise Indeed. Honestly, how welcome do the poor of our community feel to come not just to get help but to fully participate in our gatherings? I am disturbed afresh by Jesus' parable in Luke 16:19-31 of the rich man who let a poor sick man named Lazarus die un-served and un-welcomed at his gate. I don’t want to minimize the efforts we make to go to minister to the poor—both foreign and domestic—but do we let the poor minister to us… and worship with us in our churches? Or have we settled for something less in a gated community?

In next week’s post, entitled Moving Day, I will bring this section on unity to a conclusion before taking up the next topic—Diplomacy.