Prayer: "May Your Will Be Done on Earth, As It Is in Heaven"
Scott Lyons
3/13/2010

In the third petition of the Lord's Prayer, we pray that God's will may be done, and we notice a peculiar phrase attached: "on earth, as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). The phrase separates the first three petitions from the final four; it separates the petitions that concern God with the ones that concern us (though all concern God and all concern us). It is also important to recognize that this phrase is properly applied to all the petitions that concern God (i.e., the first three petitions), rather than only to the third petition concerning God's will. The phrase seems unexceptional enough, perhaps even somewhat tangential, and yet there is no superfluity here. We pray that we, that everyone on the earth, might submit ourselves to God as the angels in heaven do, as Christ himself submitted himself to the Father. So we need to inquire about what God wills for us, and then we need to begin the hard work of obedience and submission and peace.

Thomas Aquinas, in his Catechetical Instructions, identifies three things that God wills for human beings. First, God wills that all people might have eternal life (1 Timothy 2:4; John 6:40). Second, God wills that we obey the commandments, which our Lord says are based on the love of God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40, 19:17, 5:48). Third, Aquinas says that God wills that human beings be restored to their original state, which involves the reconciliation of our flesh with our spirit, which Paul writes of as being at war. God wills for our sonship, and if our sonship, then our sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3; 2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 3:1-3)—we are meant, in his Son, to become like his Son.

Now these three things that God wills are parts of the same thing: God wants us to share in his life, or as Athanasius of Alexandria (and others) put it, "God the Word became man so that man by God's grace might become God." So God wills that we be saved, and what is begun in our salvation now is consummated in our sanctification—our becoming holy, our becoming like God—which is brought about through God's grace and our response to his grace in obedience to his commands (which is also only through God's grace). Do we rise every day for work, sit in front of the TV each night, go to church once a week, and someday hope to wake up holy? This kind of life will not make me holy any more than it will make me a marathoner. Holiness is work. It is an impossible work apart from God's grace; but thanks be to God, all things are possible through Christ our Lord (Philippians 4:13).

Let me share what this kind of life, a life peacefully submitted to God's will, looks like in the life of Abba Agathon, a Desert Father from the fourth century. "Going to town one day to sell some small articles, Abba Agathon met a cripple on the roadside, paralyzed in his legs, who asked him where he was going. Abba Agathon replied, 'To town, to sell some things.' The other said, 'Do me the favor of carrying me there.' So he carried him to the town. The cripple said to him, 'Put me down where you sell your wares.' He did so. When he sold an article, the cripple asked, 'What did you sell it for?' and he told him the price. The other said, 'Buy me a cake,' and he bought it. When Abba Agathon had sold a second article, the sick man asked, 'How much did you sell it for?' And he told him the price of it. Then the other said, 'Buy me this,' and he bought it. When Agathon, having sold all his wares, wanted to go, he said to him, 'Are you going back?' and he replied, 'Yes.' Then said he, 'Do me the favor of carrying me back to the place where you found me.' Once more picking him up, he carried him back to that place. Then the cripple said, 'Agathon, you are filled with divine blessings, in heaven and on earth.' Raising his eyes, Agathon saw no man; it was an angel of the Lord, come to try him" (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers).

Agathon's life teaches us what ours ought to look like. And yet when I put myself in his shoes, I know that I would do my best to avoid the debt of love I owed the paralyzed man. I would not have acted as Agathon did. Here is Agathon, all his expectations for the day spoiled, and he is at peace, as if this is precisely what he intended for this day (and so it was, as his intention was only God's will). We need to come to this place. We need to accept interruptions to our plans, expectations, and dreams as purposed, and respond peacefully by saying, "May your will be done." So we come before God, humble ourselves, and pray. And how we pray is how we believe, and how we believe is how we live.