When we stop asking how to get God to give us what we want when we pray and begin to wonder what Jesus wants to come alive in us through the practice of prayer I think we start seeing what Jesus was talking about in lives all around us, even as this broken down world seems to be breaking down only further by the day.
We are all invited to look up from our tasks, whatever the work that we are about might be, and see what we are part of – what we are creating through all of our efforts. The invitation to pause does not come because we are in the wrong for tending to necessary tasks, but to help us see that the tasks are in service of a more beautiful life for ourselves and for those in our company.
And Jesus says, I know. I know the size of your heart, and of your soul, and of your strength, and of your mind. I know you can’t do it all, but here’s the thing. You can do something. You can help this guy right in front of you, even if he’s not your kind or your kin. You can learn through the actions of others, even “other” others, how to show mercy and to change, if not the world, then the world of the person right in front of you.
In fact, the reign of God may spring a little more into view every time one person looks over at another one, not wondering what she has to offer or how he might be of use, but looks at them as the miracle they are just by existing in this glorious, hurting, strange, beautiful, bountiful harvest of a world that Jesus wants us to see for the miracle it is.
When Jesus described the reign of God, it wasn’t as some fixed inheritance to be preserved and passed on intact. It was like a few mustard seeds exploding into a bush full of birds or a little yeast blowing up a loaf of bread like a balloon. He told his followers that they and we would do even greater things than he did after he was gone. He said he was leaving, not Christian operating instructions or even a fixed set of holy scriptures, but a Holy Spirit who would work within and among us a lead us into all sorts of new life and possibilities.