'Matthew’s gospel makes it most clear that the kingdom is about the reign of God: it exists where people carry out God’s will.' Photo: Chris Liverani / Unsplash.
A living will
Janet Scott reads from the gospel of Matthew
‘Your kingdom come, your will be done.’ (Matthew 6:10)
The parables in the gospels give us many metaphors for the kingdom of God; harvest, a wedding, a treasure, a party, a judgement. It is not a territory, but more connected with time, the eternal breaking into the now. Matthew’s gospel makes it most clear that the kingdom is about the reign of God: it exists where people carry out God’s will.
The first way to see this is by comparing Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer with Luke’s (11:2). Translations differ here. Many cannot resist harmonising the two gospels, not only with each other but also with the standard version used in churches. The most reliable translations, based on the most reliable manuscripts, show that Luke does not follow ‘Your kingdom come’ with ‘Your will be done’. Only Matthew has both.
There are three more instances where Matthew mentions the will of God. The first of these comes towards the end of the sermon on the mount: ‘Not everyone who says to me “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven’ (7:21 onwards). The parable that follows, about the houses built on sand and on rock, suggests that the way to know the will of God is to follow the teaching of Jesus.
The two other uses also appear in Mark. It is worth looking carefully at how Matthew handles this material. ‘Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’ If we compare Matthew 12:46-50 with Mark 3:20-21 and 31-35 we can see that they are very similar, but Matthew has omitted the implied hostility of Jesus’s family to his mission. Perhaps the most significant change, consistent with Matthew’s interest in the church, is that in the new family around Jesus Mark includes all those present, whereas Matthew has Jesus point to his disciples, those who will carry on his teaching (note that this shows that the disciples include women).
The final passage comes in the story of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane, Matthew 26:36-42, compared with Mark 14:32-39. Usually Matthew shortens Mark’s accounts, so when he adds to them we need to pay particular attention. He follows Mark very closely for the most part, but the significant addition comes in verse forty-two. Mark says that Jesus prayed for a second time using the same words. Matthew gives us the words, but his second prayer, though similar to the first, is not identical. In the use of ‘Father… your will be done’ he echoes the Lord’s prayer, making it not just what Jesus taught but what he prayed himself. In this we may see Jesus setting the example of doing the will of God and thus entering the kingdom, leading the way for his new family.
Doing the will of God is costly. Yet seeking to find it and do it is the business of our Society. I wonder why we prefer to use language such as ‘the sense of the Meeting’. Is it because doing the will of God is so awesome that we dare not claim it for ourselves? Or are we so fearful of the cost that we prefer to substitute our own way?
