“Power and Glory”
Matthew 21:1-11
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
March 20, 2016
I love looking out on the congregation as we sing the Lord’s Prayer on the second Sunday of every month. I love lifting my eyes and gazing at the rose window as the music soars for the last line: “For thine is the kingdom and the power and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
What do these words mean? What exactly are we praying for?
It is striking to reflect on these words on Palm Sunday–a day filled with costumes and parades and donkeys and deeply unsettling questions. What is this kingdom that Jesus proclaims? What is he telling us about power? Where is the glory in a man on a donkey?
In a few minutes our young people will join us to enact the Palm Sunday story. Through their costumes and their demeanor, they will remind us that there were actually two parades in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
The first parade was in honor of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor appointed by the Emperor to keep control over the troublesome region of Judea. Passover was about to begin, and Jews were flocking to Jerusalem for the celebration. Since Pilate knew that this holiday was all about freedom, he was worried. And so he came with pomp and circumstance into the city, flanked by a battalion of Roman soldiers. A show of force–swords, shields, maybe chariots and horses.
That was the first parade. The second one looked quite different. There were no soldiers, only disciples. Instead of swords, palm branches. A borrowed donkey took the place of horse and chariot. And instead of a governor whose authority came from the emperor, a teacher and healer whose authority came from God.
This is the story that shapes our hearing today of this last line of the Lord’s Prayer.
“Thine is the kingdom,” we pray each week. What is this kingdom? We know what the kingdom of Rome is—laws, armies, control, taxation, brutal punishment of dissenters. Jesus begins his ministry by declaring that another kingdom—the Kingdom of God—has come near. Jesus’ words threaten the Romans, and confuse people who hope he has come to overthow the empire with force. Jesus means something different, something so different we question whether kingdom is even the right word for it. Kin-dom, as Dawn suggested, seems a better fit—a world transformed as we treat one another as sisters and brothers. Healing of lepers, meals shared with outcasts, storms stilled and bread multiplied—these are signs that this kin-dom has come near.
Jesus knows exactly what he is doing with his parade. The true kingdom—the kin-dom—, he proclaims with this actions, does not belong to Caesar. The kin-dom comes from God and belongs to God.
Our prayer continues: Thine is the power. Caesar’s power is all about armies, weapons, numbers, intimidation and co-optation. It is the power of fear. The Governor’s parade is designed to display it. By parading in later that same day, what is Jesus saying about power? There is no force, no fear, no intimidation in his parade. Instead, there is the power of story, the power of welcome, the power of hope. There is the power of love. This is the power that comes from God.
Finally we pray: Thine is the glory. Norma reminded me on Ash Wednesday that the word usually rendered as “glory” might better be translated as radiance.
I imagine Pilate’s parade to be shiny and bright. Steel armor shimmering in the sunlight. Gleaming swords catching rays of light and reflecting them out as sparkling spears. In contrast, Jesus’ parade must seem quite dull. Jesus and his donkey are dusty and dirty. A palm branch can catch only a little light.
The radiance in this parade has nothing to do with shiny objects. Instead, it is the light of compassion shining in Jesus’ eyes. It is gratitude emanating from a healed leper. It is passion for justice burning in the hearts of the disciples. It is yearning–yearning and hope–radiating from the crowd.
“For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.”. Jesus on his donkey turns these words upside down and inside out.
God’s kingdom is not like any other kingdom we know; it is kin-dom–connection, compassion. God’s power is revealed in weakness—the power of touch, power that is shared, power that lifts up. God’s glory—God’s radiance—shines through the ordinary hopes and actions of people like you and me.
Next time we sing these words, I will sing them a little bit differently. I won’t lift my eyes to the rose window. Instead, I will look out on this congregation–as we bring the prayer to fruition in our very singing of it. A kin-dom of caring, the power of voices raised together, the radiance of each and every face.
For thine is the kin-dom, and the empowerment, and the radiance forever and ever. Amen.