Preaching Series on the Lord's Prayer

[This is Week 3 of a 4-week preaching series on the Lord’s Prayer]

Psalm 23
"Psalm 23," John August Swanson. Used by permission from the artist. Image © by John August Swanson.  Artwork held in the Luther Seminary Fine Arts Collection, St. Paul, Minn.

August 28, 2016

Narrative Lectionary
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Commentary on Luke 11:2-4

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Meda Stamper

[This is Week 3 of a 4-week preaching series on the Lord’s Prayer]

Week Three: The Kingdom

When we ask for the coming of the kingdom, we are again asking for a gift God wants to give (Luke 12:32). The kingdom has indeed already been revealed in Jesus (1:33; 11:20; 17:20-21). But there is a sense in which it is still underground or hidden like yeast in un-risen dough (13:18-21), still to be revealed in fullness (21:31; 22:16-18, 29-30). In the meantime Jesus’ followers are to proclaim it, as Jesus proclaims it (4:43; 9:11; 10:9, 11), which means coming to know it for what it is; good starting places are Mary’s poem (1:46-55), Jesus’ mission statement (4:18-19), and the sermon on the plain (6:20-49), which opens with the promise of the kingdom to the poor. The kingdom is both a gift and something for which we strive, a place we want to enter (18:24-25) and in which we hope to live, so our prayer for its coming is also a prayer that we would know how to equip ourselves to be citizens and would be about collecting the treasure that matters in a place where the only currency is love.