Last week we looked at the “Hallowed be thy Name” phrase in
the Lord’s Prayer. Our adventure this summer is delving deeply into each phrase
in this very familiar prayer. Today, we move on to “Thy Kingdom come”.
I think it can be difficult to understand the concept of
Kingdom in 21st Century America. We are very far removed from the hope
of 1st Century Judea where the long-desired King would be like David
or Solomon-the Messiah who would deliver the people from the oppression of Rome.
Our images of kingdoms are most likely colored by fairy tales with princesses,
castles, and dragons. King and Kingdom may conjure up the idea of an absolute
ruler, or even a despot.
How is the Kingdom of God different than these interpretations?
I think it has to do with the difference in defining Kingdom in everyday vs. faith
language.
As we study the Lord’s Prayer, we are speaking the language
of faith, which is often at odds with the everyday language, even when the
words are the same. On the June 21 Episcopal Café, Speaking to the Soul post, the author, Leslie Scoopmire, notes that
at Pentecost “these disciples, many of them simple country folk, have just
learned to speak other people’s language. I think that’s an important point for
us too in the Church today: we are
called to speak to people in their own languages first, rather than expect them
to immediately understand the language of Christianity.”
Leslie goes on to say, “the disciples’ first new language
came as a challenge even earlier, for them as well as us. As soon as those
early disciples answered Jesus’s call to follow him, they had to learn the language of Jesus—a strange language, then
and now, awash in a grammar of grace
rather than a grammar of vengeance. We are still learning Jesus’s language of
reconciliation today. It is the language of salvation, but not salvation for
selfish ends. Rather, this language calls all disciples, them as well as us, to
find the vocabulary for helping to repair the world and our relationships within
it, with each other and ultimately, with God. This idea of responsibility of
faithful people to repair the world is what our Jewish brothers and sisters
call tikkun olam—the repair of
the world...[And] that’s exactly what we are called to do as the Church.”
Enter the Presence: The Kingdom we pray for
in the Lord’s Prayer is one that will, according to Leslie Scoopmire, ‘repair
the world and our relationships within it, with each other and ultimately, with
God’.
Take some time to think about your definition of the word
‘Kingdom’. What alternative word might you use to better express the Kingdom of
God to someone who might not necessarily be speaking the ‘language’ of faith or
grace?
Stand In Awe: Paul
reminds the Corinthians, “When I came to
you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of
God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among
you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness
and in fear and in much trembling. My
speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but
with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might
rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.” (I Corinthians 2:1-5)
It is ultimately the Spirit of God that opens the ears of
the hearers to our proclamation. Like the disciples, speaking in the languages
of the people in Jerusalem at Pentecost, we are able to speak to our friends
and neighbors of the Kingdom in ways that they will understand when we put God
first.
One way to start the transformation of ourselves and of the
world is prayer. In the days leading up to Pentecost, the Archbishop of
Canterbury invited people around the world to intentional prayer for Thy Kingdom Come. The website says, “Thy
Kingdom Come is a global prayer movement that invites Christians around the
world to pray for more people to come to know Jesus. What started in 2016
as an invitation from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to the Church of
England has grown into an international and ecumenical call to prayer.”
Involve your Heart: Leslie Scoopmire says, “We are called to speak to the soul of each
precious person we encounter, and hear the echoed whisper of that goodness and
love vibrating from them—especially when it’s hard for us to do so, when we
allow our differences, our fears, or our suspicions to divide us rather than
strengthen us. Words do matter when we are speaking to the soul, and the word
is God and the Word is with God and with all of us.”
Use the ‘Pray for 5 Friends’ resource from “Thy Kingdom
Come” to pray for 5 people who you may find different or difficult.
Ask God to be King over the whole world by taking a map and
physically placing a sticky note with local and world-wide prayer concerns on
the map, or simply pray around the world with intention for places in the
news.*
Continue your ZenTangle or Praying in Color activity that
you may have started.
This week focus on Thy Kingdom
Come.
Next
week we will consider “They will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
*From Thy Kingdom Come
