In Sickness and Health, "Let" God be God

I confess I haven't done much daily officing in the past few days. I first felt the cold coming on in my throat Saturday night. I croaked my way through the service on Sunday and started self-medicating: lots of mucinex, soup and hot liquids. But after three days of self-medication, I finally dragged myself to the doctor this morning, where I got two shots (one penicillin, the other a steroid), Allegra D, an antibiotic and cough syrup. That I'm thinking straight enough to write this is one sign that I'm getting better, I think, though you all can be the judge of that.

During the past days, I've done a lot of resting in my recliner, and not praying at my little prayer station with its kneeler, icon and candles. But as I've rested, I've still found myself praying, from the Lord's Prayer, but not the traditional version, or even the contemporary version as found in the Book of Common Prayer. In my evening prayers, I've taken to using the direct translation from Greek to English found in my interlinear New Testament, in which you see the Greek and the English right below it:

Father of us, the one in the heavens,

Let be revered the name of you,

Let come the kingdom of you,

Let be done the will of you,

      As in heaven, also on earth.

The daily bread of us give to us today.

And forgive us the debts of us,

      As also we have forgiven the debtors of us.

And do not bring us into temptation,

      But rescue us from the evil one.

Because yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever, amen.

(Matthew 6:9-13)

As I’ve laid in my chair, too weak to even go to my place of prayer, I’ve found myself breathing in and out these words:  [breathe in] Let be done, [breathe out] the will of you, [breathe in] as in heaven, [breathe out] also on earth. The Greek verb “Let,” emphasizes even more than most translations, that God’s will is indeed the most powerful thing in the universe. God doesn’t even have to “do” anything to accomplish the divine purpose. God just has to “let” it unfold.

When we look around us, all we seem to see is evidence of the evil one frustrating God’s will, and that we need God to “do” something about it. And yet, the God we worship let the worst be done to him, through the Son, that was possible. Yet from the cross was released the power of a love that not even death could contain. Even our dashed expectations, our failures, all our little deaths, are only steps in the letting of God’s loving will be done in our lives.

And best of all, it doesn’t all depend on me. In my previous work, a “Law of the Public Policy Process” goes like this, “Pray as if it all depended on God, work as if it all depended on you.” From my experience and observation, that intensity of work tends to become a way of thinking that undermines the prayer. And of course, that attitude toward one’s work is not confined to politics.

Ultimately, the building up of the kingdom of God is not something for any of us to accomplish through our hard work. It begins as a helpless newborn in a dangerous world. And so the first step for us, as the church claiming that mystery, is to acknowledge our vulnerability and weakness, and then looking for the vulnerable in our midst. That is where the kingdom is, and where the church needs to be.

And so, in weakness and strength, may my prayer always be, “Let be done the will of you, as in heaven also on earth.”