Last week when the march to ‘Unite the Kingdom’ in London gathered momentum using the Lord’s Prayer of Jesus, which invokes a rallying cry of ‘Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’, it becomes essential we stop and ask the question, “What does this ‘Kingdom’ of God and the ‘will’ of God actually look like — and is this the same as the kingdom Tommy Robinson is wrapping up in a flag, escorted by the words of Jesus?”
When Jesus of Nazareth hit the road with an invitation to embrace a manifesto that began, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is near”, he didn’t do so from the saddle of a white charger waving a sword and carrying a flag into the corridors of power. He began in a region considered the ‘dirty north’ where little, if any good, could possibly be found. Whilst Roman generals boasted of victory parading into cities in chariots pulled by white chargers, Jesus modelled something very different when he eventually rode into town on the colt of a donkey - contrast a huge military entourage with a bloke riding in on a bicycle made from spare parts and you get the picture.
Jesus’s task in hand was a tall order and gathered the politically disaffected and religiously ostracised around him. They were fed up with being used and lied to. He was up against the might of the oppressive Roman Empire and a religious system that had gone rogue - a sacred community that once anticipated his arrival, but was now blind to it, because it was more interested in lining its own pockets and cosying up to power.
It’s into this context Jesus introduced those gathered around him to what we know as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ and it sits in the middle of his ‘Sermon on the Mount’. This teaching is an incendiary manifesto that challenges any notions of building an empire, and any desires to grade the value and worth of a person because they don’t look, sound or think like you. To truly march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means we need to take this context seriously.
To march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means we move through life in awe of a God who doesn’t grandstand on public platforms taking pot shots at those he doesn’t like, but binds up the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in Spirit.
To march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means we wrestle with Jesus saying things like ‘Blessed are the Peacemakers’, for they are recognised as belonging to God, as carriers of this Kingdom.
To march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means we take seriously the call to ‘Love our neighbours’ - not just the ones we choose, but also the ones we don’t. The guts of the story of the Good Samaritan is as revolutionary and subversive as you can get, if you truly want a revolution towards a cultural shift.
To march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means we commit to loving God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul and all our strength. This means loving God, embracing the words and teaching of Jesus, more than any flag, any nation or any one political allegiance or alliance.
To march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means we see all of life as gift from God - to appreciate that daily bread can be enough — and the greedy accumulation of wealth & power, so that others go without, is an abuse of this gift.
To march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means we move through life with humility, recognising our own flawed patterns of behaviour - and wrestle with trying to forgive those who have offended us.
To march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means we recognise we have enemies and wrestle with the countercultural call to love them - and seek blessing on those who would persecute us.
To march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means we find ourselves in Gethsemane with Jesus, asleep while he suffers. “Wake up, don’t be tempted to forget everything I’ve told you and how this all fits together.” If you dare to pray the Lord’s Prayer, read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter’s 5-7 first.
To march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means we recognise that there’s evil in this world we might need deliverance from. It may not be the horned devil we might imagine - it’s perhaps more likely to be wrapped up in a flag and escorted through the streets with religious language or languish in the boardrooms plotting what it can get away with, rather than what it can contribute.
To march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means we dare to imagine that life can be radically different. Truly unified. Truly loving. Truly just — just true.
To march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means that even if speech is silenced at times, actions can continue to speak much louder - even the most gentle act of meekness has the capacity to threaten the power of a corrupt or violent oppressor.
To march to the heartbeat of the Lord’s Prayer means we are open to changing our mind towards the way of a different kingdom with a different kind of King - and it’s a long way from the gospel of Tommy, the empire of Elon or the kingdom of Donald.
I can’t promise the Kingdom of God will always bring unity, because it should always challenge injustice, hypocrisy and egotistical empires - but it should always be about love. Love for neighbour, love for enemies, love for those different to me, love for those society deems worthless.
That’s what loving God looks like and that’s what cultural revolution can look like. That’s what we see in Jesus of Nazareth, who was martyred for doing those things. If I am to live my life in gratitude to the God who gives me the breath in my lungs each day, I am to take seriously the demands of the Lord’s Prayer — if I’m brave enough to speak it.
If I’m to die a martyr may it be for who I love, not who I hate.
Sean Stillman