Thy Kingdom Come?

A highlight of my recent Iona trip was hearing Martin Scott speak about his rewording of the Lord’s Prayer:

God in heaven, your name is to be honoured.

May your new community of hope be realised on earth as in heaven.

Give us today the essentials of life.

Release us from our wrongdoing as we also release those who wrong us.

Do not test us beyond our enduring; save us from all that is evil.

For you embrace justice, love and peace now and to the end of time.

Coincidentally he has written about it this month in a piece that touches on both the problematic use of Kingdom language and the ways in which the vision of the prayer may be expressed today:

What we need today is both an expression of Christian faith and a world order based on friends being in relationship (Jn 15:15) rather than servants of a glorious king; on community rather than kingdom; on justice, love and peace rather than kingdom, power and glory.

In a totally different interpretation of the same prayer, our local churches are all enthusiastically supporting “Thy Kingdom Come":

Thy Kingdom Come is a global ecumenical prayer movement that invites Christians around the world to pray from Ascension to Pentecost for more people to come to know Jesus.

Specifically, we again invite each and every Christian across the globe to pray that God’s Spirit might work in the lives of 5 people who have not responded with their ‘Yes’ to God’s call.

I have been really struck by these contrasting visions, both based on a reading of the same text. One is of a community of friendship and hope based on shared values, while the other is of numerical growth.

I know which I find most compelling.