THE FULL MONTY:
Matthew 6:5-15, Acts 17:19-30 Read this if you have time to take in a full exploration of what it means to seek God’s will for the places we live in
THE CONTINENTAL OPTION:
Matthew 6:9-13 Read this if you only have time for one significant passage
ONE SHOT ESPRESSO:
Matthew 6:10 ‘May your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.’
The historic struggle to deliver the Bible in the English language – resulting in the 1611 publication of the King James Version – involved a fundamental change in the understanding of religion. Consider this law, for example, enacted in England in the 15th Century:
‘Whosoever reads the scriptures in the mother tongue shall forfeit land, cattle, life and goods from their heirs for ever, and so be condemned for heretics to God, enemies to the crown and most arrant traitors to the land.’
It wasn’t only a crime to translate the Bible into English, or to print and sell it; it was even a crime to read it. Behind this attempt to keep the Bible locked away lay an assumption about religious truth that, in many ways, still dogs our steps. Thoughts about God are believed to belong to the distant, rarefied world of ‘absolute truth’ rather than to the everyday realities of ordinary lives. The very idea of ‘God’ speaks to us of the eternal, the unchanging: a reality beyond the here and now.
For the religious leaders of the 15th Century, God belonged in cloisters and cathedrals, not in the world of ‘land, cattle, life and goods’. In our own age we have largely overcome this problem in relation to language, but we still struggle with it in terms of location. We worship God in our own local tongues, but all too often we miss the passion for place that is implicit in the biblical approach to mission. We find it easier to think of God as being theoretically everywhere than actually anywhere. Are you driven by a generic belief in God’s unchanging commands, or by a confidence in his specific intentions for the places you live and work in?
The antidote to this malaise is buried at the heart of Jesus’ teaching on prayer. By inviting us to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, Jesus leads us directly to the localisation of prayer. Here’s how it works theologically: the will of God is the will of God whether it is enacted or not. God wants what he wants, and what he wants is known in heaven before we even think about seeing it done on Earth. In prayer, we look for the enactment or implementation of God’s will; its delivery in the real experience of our lives. The will of God becomes the kingdom of God when it lands in a particular place.
We find it easier to think of God as being theoretically everywhere than actually anywhere
In this sense, the purposes of God can be compared to the rules of American football. Until there is a touchdown, nobody has scored.
You could argue that ‘on Earth as in heaven’ is a fairly broad definition of place, taking in the whole planet, but this is not the implication here. There is a clear sense in the make-up of this prayer that we are asking for God’s will, like lightning, to touch the Earth in specific places. Those listening to Jesus would not have heard ‘on planet Earth as in heaven,’ but rather, ‘on the earth beneath my feet…’ Location is the vital ingredient that moves us from theology to mission; from theorising about what God might want to engaging with what God actually wants. To long for the coming of the kingdom is to make place a central emphasis in prayer.
This connection between mission and place becomes even more explicit in the work of Paul. Addressing the pagan intellectuals of Athens, he suggests that it is not enough to think of God purely in the general, eternal sense. The God we worship is our maker. He knows us intimately and has put each of us in specific places (Acts 17:26). He has chosen the boundaries of our habitation, and he’s done it so that we will search for him (v27). The implication is a revolution in religious thinking as you can only truly find God if you start where you are.
Mission, then, means growing in our passion for the places God is asking us to care about. To pray for the kingdom is to ask for the will of God to be done in the specific place you have in mind: your home, your neighbourhood, your town, your nation. Here are four suggestions for developing prayers of mission that are prayers of place:
Location is the vital ingredient that moves us from theology to mission
Pray with precision
Instead of asking ‘what does God want?’ ask ‘what does God want here?’ Ask God for insight into what his plans are for the places you are praying for. What is his vision for your city? How does he want your school, your college or your district to change? Be confident that it is always the will of God for the will of God to be done. God does not love some people more than others, nor does he want to bless some places more than others. Wherever you are it is the purpose of God that his kingdom come and his will be done where you are.
Pray with knowledge
Take some time to consider the history of your area. Ask God for insight into specific patterns you can pray into. Are there strongholds of slavery and addiction in your area? Is there too much closely guarded wealth? Are your local churches joyfully united or horribly divided? Ask God for the specific keys to unlocking renewal in your area. Pray, knowing that there is a kingdom plan for the place you are praying for. It may take time and commitment to uncover that plan and help others to pray into it, but it is there to be found.
Pray with maps
Use a physical map of your area as a ‘virtual’ map for your prayers. Speak out over the map as if you were addressing the area it covers. What are you asking for? What does God want? How does it feel to speak out the general promises of God from scripture over the specific places you are praying for? However familiar you become with the places you are praying for, God already knows them better and loves them more. The map you are praying over is already etched into the heart of your creator.
Pray with your feet
If you want to fall in love with God’s purposes for an area, you will need to walk it at some stage. Walk and pray, pray and walk, and keep your eyes open all the time for the signs God is showing you. Ask God to give you his eyes for your area and his heart for its future. Take your camera with you. Capture the places you are drawn to, record what God is saying, carry it back with you into the place of prayer.
Theologians and town planners call the process of engaging with a local area ‘placemaking’. It is about taking seriously the place in which you have been set and caring for its future. At its root, this is what ‘Church’ means. The New Testament word for the Church, ‘ecclesia’, was first used to describe an assembly of concerned citizens coming together to discuss the needs of their city. Do you care for the future of your ‘place’? If you are responsible for leading a group of young people, ask yourself how deep is your passion for the places they live and move in? How effectively are you nurturing in them a love for those same places?
The reformers of the 15th and 16th Centuries discovered that scripture is at its most powerful when it enters a local language. In the same way, we can discover that the will of God is at its most wonderful when it becomes his kingdom, realised in the here and now. We do not pray for God’s will to be known and respected in some general, theoretical sense. We pray for it to be done in the reality of places we can name and know.
TAKE AWAY
Two easily digestible tweet-sized bites
THOUGHT:
God’s people have been creating places of prayer for centuries. May God give us in this age a passion to craft prayers of place.
PRAYER:
Prayer is God’s arc-welding. Love leaping. Heaven earthed. Kingdom sparks across the gap, between what is and what can be.
(@twitturgies)
