The 6th chapter of the Gospel of Mathew contains a prayer said to be composed by Jesus when his disciples asked him to teach them to pray. The "Lord's Prayer" is prayed nearly every Sunday by Christian congregations all over the world. Unlike prayers composed by modern preachers, which can drone on for several minutes, Jesus' prayer is commendably brief and concise, containing seven or eight "petitions", depending on how you count. Even a drawling South Alabama native well into his 70s can recite the prayer in about 40 seconds.
As we repeat the prayer every week, one of the things we say is "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." I wonder what that means.
It could be, as I have heard preachers say, that Jesus was saying that God will heal the world and bring her kingdom to earth in her own good time. We, those of us praying, don't need to fret about when or how it happens, we just have to have faith that it will happen. All we have to do is believe.
Maybe, maybe not.
I tend to think that Jesus was delivering a tougher, more adult message. I read this passage as saying something like, "Don't spend your time dreaming of pie-in-the-sky blessings in the future. You can have a lot to say about things that happen here on earth today, especially in your own circle of influence. You can take actions and make statements that will help to bring about a godly kingdom here on earth. You can try to do God's will here on earth. That's what you need to concern yourself with."
OK, so what is God's will? What would her kingdom look like if it existed on earth? I find it easier to say what it would not look like.
God's kingdom on earth would not include wealthy white children in Alabama going to gleaming, luxurious, well-equipped private schools while their black and brown counterparts are packed into filthy, dangerous, over-crowded public schools with substandard equipment, no supplies, and teachers who are valiantly struggling to keep their head above water from the opening bell until graduation day. No god worthy of respect, let alone worship, would welcome into her kingdom Alabama's cruel, cynical "Accountability Act" which permits affluent taxpayers to take a tax credit - a dollar for dollar credit, not a deduction worth 5 cents on the dollar - for donations made to those segregated private schools, even those schools that blatantly promote fundamentalist Christianity as part of their curriculum. Donations made to public schools, on the other hand, are worth only a deduction on the giver's tax return.
Thy kingdom come ...
Surely God must weep when she sees a single mother having to pay one of the highest sales tax rates in the nation on food she buys for her children. According to The Tax Foundation, Alabama is one of only seven states in the United States that fully taxes the purchase of groceries, and in Montgomery and Birmingham the combined state-county-city rate of tax is 10%. Why would we impose such a hellish burden on our less fortunate citizens, you ask? It's simple really. Our bloated sales tax collections are what allow us to charge wealthy property owners one of the lowest property tax rates in the nation. Alabama's ruling class has flipped public funding on its head. Instead of each citizen contributing according to his or her ability to pay, our poor are gouged to the fullest extent possible, while our wealthy pay only a relatively small portion of the costs of running our state. Of course, if anyone dares to suggest some measure that might partially rectify our glaring imbalance in tax loads, our millionaires scream loudly about how oppressively over-taxed they are.
Thy will be done ...
Or consider, if you will, the state of our criminal justice system. Alabama incarcerates 1,230 of every 100,000 adult citizens, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Our overall rate of imprisonment puts us in fourth place in a shameful race to the bottom, closely trailing Mississippi at 1,270 per 100K, Oklahoma at 1,300, and grand prize winner Louisiana, with a whopping 1,420 of every 100,000 adults incarcerated. To put this in perspective, in 2015 (the latest year for which data is available) the national average rate of incarceration reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics is only 458 per 100,000 citizens. How is it possible that these four states, all of them "Buckles on the Bible Belt", can have rates of criminality ranging from 2.7 to 3.1 times the national average?
Comparisons based on the racial makeup of those incarcerated present an even more damning picture. For Alabama, the rate for white adults is 535 incarcerated for every 100,000 adult residents, slightly higher than the overall national average. However, we find reason to lock up 767 of every 100,000 Hispanic residents, and a ridiculous (if it were not so tragic) 1,788 of every 100,000 black Alabamians. Many of these black prisoners are jailed under sentencing guidelines dating to the Reagan-era "War on Drugs" that still survive in Alabama court procedures today, even as the rest of the country is taking steps to walk back those severely punitive, ill-advised rules. Also, too many of our black prisoners are, in one way or another, victims of the prevailing racism that permeates all of Alabama justice. From the Slavery era, through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and into our current troubled time, a black defendant in an Alabama court has always had to contend with a built-in presumption of guilt, not innocence. The slaveholders are still in charge.
On earth, as it is in heaven.
A band director friend tells the story of his first year teaching at the high school in a small Georgia town. The band was getting lined up before their half-time performance at the first football game of the year when the Drum Major came up to him and asked if the band could have a prayer. The director replied, "Sure, as long as you pray that we march in step and play in tune."
In a very real sense, the band director was suggesting (somewhat sarcastically) a mode of prayer that we adopt every week when we pray Jesus' prayer - we are asking God for something that we already have the knowledge and ability to bring about. She has not made any secret of what it will take to establish her kingdom on earth. Every earthly religion includes some version of the formula, something along the lines of "Treat other people, especially those less fortunate than you, as you would want to be treated by them if the situations were reversed." She is telling us, in other words, that her kingdom will come on earth when her people learn to treat each other with respect, kindness, and justice. How hard can that be?
Sadly, it seems to be very, very hard.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth
Amen, and Amen.
Thomas R. Borden Waugh, Alabama November 19, 2017
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