Jesus taught us to pray to God, that “Thy Kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus was clear that this is not an abstract kind of prayer but something to sincerely try to live out in word and in deed.

A prayer such as this can lead us to new ways of being and doing, in which we live in our earthly lives as citizens of the Realm of heaven, with courage and compassion, as living bridges between the here-beyond and the here-and-now, between the possibilities of God’s dream for humanity and the realities of life as it is.

On this bridge between the Realms of heaven and of earth, there will be tension.

The German theologian Karl Barth expressed this tension by saying that Christians must have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. The tension between the two he called a crisis, a crisis that we much engage with rather than run away from. This way of being led Barth in his time to resist the rise of the Nazis when too many other German Christians used their religion to dodge the moral demands of their times or, worse, to twist Christianity into the worship of human power and authority.

You see, Jesus was savvy in speaking not just about “heaven” but about the “basileia of heaven.” The Greek word basileia is often translated as “kingdom,” the “Kingdom of heaven.”

The Roman Empire was a basileia centered around the authority of Caesar. The Kingdom of Judea was a basileia centered around the authority of King Herod and, later, his sons. These basileias were spheres of influence reinforced through domination, through violence and threats of violence, through control of resources, through the policing of the boundaries between who is in and who is out.

But when Jesus teaches about the basileia of heaven, this basileia is clearly a realm of a very different order, centered around a very different kind of power, the power of God, the Holy Creator of each and all. Everything that Jesus taught and showed about this basileia made the contrasts very startling between the basileia of heaven and the other basileias of his time. He makes it clear to which basileia we are to pledge our ultimate allegiance.

This is what we are going to explore this Lent, what Jesus can reveal to us about the basileia of heaven and how we can live as “citizens” of the basileia of heaven in the here-and-now of our lives on earth.

Some translators show the contrast that Jesus makes between God’s basilea and the basileia of Caesars and kingsby using the word “kin-dom” rather than “kingdom.” “Kin-dom”: a realm in which we are all kindred as children of the living God. Other translators prefer the word “Realm” of heaven, to show the blurring of the boundaries between the spiritual realm and the earthly realm – a state of being, a state of the soul, as well as a state of social order.

The Way of Jesus is not just about evaporating into a spiritual realm and being aloof to the material and social world, dismissing it all as deluded and debased. The Way of Jesus does not give us an excuse to sit on the sidelines floating off in disembodied bliss ignoring the cries of urgent moral demands.

No. The Way of Jesus instead is all about living on earth as it is in heaven, according to the higher purposes we find through trying to align our lives and lives together according to the will of God. Even when, as Karl Barth said, this means embracing crisis. Jesus made it very clear that this way of life compels us to not run away but rather to engage with pain and suffering and tragedy and grit, with hearts of love, yearning for mercy and for justice, as agents of the kin-dom of heaven on earth.

As Fannie Lou Hamer said “You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.” The God we meet in prayer often can stir us to action.

This way of being, this way of living requires us to connect deeply with the realm of heaven at the same time as we connect deeply with ourselves and our neighbors and the other beings of the world here and now. This is not easy, but it deeply fulfilling. It takes sacrifice, it takes risk, it takes discomfort; but it gives tremendous blessings. And we can make good friends and enjoy kindred spirits along the way.

In the season of Lent we are challenged us to look honestly at what separates us from one another and from God and the truth of our souls, both in our personal habits and in the social systems that influence us. In Lent we are invited to evaluate honestly how much we are living with the Realm of heaven as our basileia or earthly authorities ruled by fear and anger and greed. In Lent we are invited turn toward mercy, justice, and healing, not just in our personal lives, but in our communities.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday (which many of you participated in last week). Ash Wednesday is profound reminder of our mortality, as beings of heaven and earth formed and animated in love by God. In our living and in our dying, we belong to God, as we are given this precious opportunity to live our lives in the time we are given. Remembering mortality can help us remember that we were made for these times, we are endowed with purpose for our lives in these times.

This season of Lent is traditionally a season to commit to practices of prayer, of fasting, and of service. Traditionally they say “almsgiving,” but I feel led to say “service.” Prayer, fasting, service: I’ll have more to say about each of these in a moment, and I invite us to a creative and authentic approach to them. We can see these practices as being ways to engage with the realms of heaven and of earth, to live out our identities as citizens of Kin-dom of heaven in the here-and-now.

I invite and challenge us all to honestly and prayerfully and courageously and creatively and authentically discern what practices to commit to this Lent.

A practice of prayer.

A practice of fasting.

A practice of service.

Consider this honestly, prayerfully, and courageously:

What is a practice of prayer you can commit to, as a sacred experiment, for these 40 days and nights leading to Easter? What is a way you can open yourself in a regular way to that expansiveness we can find with the Holy Sprit, that belovedness we can find with Jesus, that greater belonging, that greater gratitude, and blessedness, that awe, that wonder, that majesty we can find when we open ourselves in prayer to God and to the Realm of heaven?

What is a practice of fasting you can commit to for these 40 days and nights? I invite us to see fasting in the broadest sense, not only about giving up meat or alcohol (although you may be called to do that).

A way to think about “fasting” is about our “Yes” and our “No.” In order to say “Yes” to living on behalf of the realm of heaven on earth in our lives and times, what do you need to say “No” to? What is separating us from God and from each other? What is bringing us down, constricting our souls, making us small or petty or embittered or numb or detached?

What would it be like to let go of this, to repent of it and grieve the pain it has caused, and then let it rest and resist the temptation to pick it back up again? Pick one thing and stick with it, or – I should say – stick with getting unstuck from it and staying unstuck. Do this with God’s Grace and Mercy, knowing it isn’t easy, as a sacred experiment of saying “No” in a way that helps you say “Yes” to living in the Way of Jesus.

Finally, when you are honest to God, how are you being called to serve others in this time?

Really, because we’re all in this together, in the view of the realm of Heaven, true service probably looks more like solidarity. It’s not about being at arm’s length with the “needy.” Rather it is about joining with others in our shared humanity, in our shared need for mercy, generosity, love, and justice. Joining with others in solidarity to serve the vision of the realm of heaven on earth, what Dr. King called “the Beloved Community.”

Please, find something concrete to do with others that is a “prosocial” antidote to the antisocial forces in our society; find something that is courageous and compassionate, that involves some risk and perhaps some sacrifice. You’ll know you’re on the right track if you are made to feel a good kind of discomfort. You’ll really know you’re on the right track if you make at least one new friend in the process, who lives in a different kind of neighborhood than you do. You’ll know you’re on the right track if your practice leads you to meet neighbors from a different neighborhood, in shared service of the vision of the realm of heaven in the here and now.

In all of this I wish you the blessing that I sometimes use as a benediction at the close of worship, by the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, the great progressive Baptist minister and leader in the civil rights and peace movements:

“May God give you the grace    never to sell yourself short;

grace to risk something bigfor what is good;

grace to remember that the world is too dangerous

for anything but truth and

too small for anything but love.

So, may God take your minds

and think through them;

may God take your lips

and speak through them;

my God take you ears

and hear through them;

may God take your hearts

and set them on fire.”