Thy Kingdom Come

A sermon for Proper 24
October 16, 2022

There once was a widow woman. She lived down at the end of one of these farm roads, way off by herself. Her husband died 20 years ago, leaving her a little Toyota truck. She drove into town once a week for groceries, to see the doctor, to attend to what she had to. Then back to the farm. Her road was bad; she needed that truck. You’ve seen roads like hers. Deep drainage ditches on either side. After each heavy rain, the road gave way a little more. The road eventually eroded to the point that it was nearly impossible for her to get down that road and into town. 

She called the county judge. “Judge, my road needs fixed.” She knew the Judge. She voted for him. They had grown up together. He didn’t live far from her, as the crow flies. “Well, we don’t have much money for roads, ma’am. They’re all in bad shape. I’ll get a crew out to look at it.” Funny thing was, his road was brand new. She waited. No crew. She called again. And then again. Finally she was calling everyday. She couldn’t use the road anymore. Eventually the Judge stopped answering her call. 

She wasn’t going to give up. She was a hardened woman. Life had thrown plenty her way. She was a fighter. She called a farmer neighbor. He picked her up in his tractor. He shook his head when she told him the story. “That’s not right,” he said. The farmer’s wife drove her to the Judge’s office. The Judge saw her coming and turned out his lights. She waited in the waiting room. All morning. All afternoon. The farmer’s wife was with her. She and her husband got mad. The farmer called the farm bureau president first. The Judge would not be welcome at that year’s dinner. Then he called their senator in Little Rock. The senator called the Judge, who, by the way, would be up for re-election that year. When the Judge finally worked up the courage to peek his head out of his office, he could only come up with a few words. “Road crew will be there tomorrow.” 

Jesus tells a story about a woman like this today. A persistent widow woman who prevails against the unjust judge, the corrupt systems of our rotten politics. We know people like her. We know they are often ignored because they can’t make a big splash. They are often taken advantage of because they don’t have the right friends in the right places. Jesus’s time was not so different from our own. 

Jesus tells us this story to commend the widow’s example, to tell us to be like her in prayer and persistence, and not to lose heart no matter what. We are to pray persistently in all things. Jesus does not only mean praying with our words. We are also to pray with our actions, with everything in our lives. Our entire lives, every word and every action, is a prayer. When we live like that, things happen. It might be slow. It might be frustrating. There may be many unjust judges standing in our way. But eventually something breaks through. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, the arch of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. It bends that way because of these persistent widows, because of those constant prayers that blend words and actions. The Kingdom of God will not be stopped, not even by an unjust judge. 

That widow’s prayer can be summed up in some simple words we say everyday: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s Kingdom is one in which no widow is ignored, no child is forgotten, no hurting person is forsaken, and everyone has what they need for life. God’s Kingdom is one in which the lowly are lifted up and the high and mighty are brought down to size; the humble are exalted and the proud are reminded they are no better than anyone else; the pure is normalized and the corrupt is cleaned. God’s kingdom breaks out in this broken and sinful world whenever the will of God is done. God’s kingdom breaks out despite the odds because that prayer is prayed persistently with words and actions: thy kingdom come. 

What does it look like when we pray “thy kingdom come,” not only with our words, but also with our actions? Well, it might look like that widow, not giving up for a moment, being persistent, taking everything to God in prayer and then putting on our work boots. That prayer might look like that farmer and his wife, seeing something wrong and knowing that God had put them in a position to do something about it. That prayer might look a lot less pious, like a senator who wants a donor off his back or a judge who wants to be re-elected. But without knowing it, they are participating in God’s designs. 

Who are we in this story, this ordinary story? Where do we find ourselves? It’s a question of stewardship: How are we using, or not using, the gifts God has given us? Are we praying that God’s kingdom would break out among us, even right now, with our words and our actions? Or are we being that stumbling block that has to be twisted and turned, manipulated to fit God’s designs? 

God has given us a life and a small amount of time. God hears us when we pray, and sometimes, God is going to put us to work to answer that prayer. One day God’s kingdom will break out in a big way, rupturing our very reality, ending this age, stopping time itself. But until then, God’s kingdom breaks out in small but significant ways, bit by bit, all around us. Are we going to stand in its way? Or are we going to pray for its coming, with our words and our actions?