Dawn from the graveyard at Iona Abbey on Easter Sunday 2025
Photo credit: A Adam/Iona Community
In May’s Sounds of Iona, the Community’s Chair Martin Scott, argues that the time has come to bring an end to the kingdom.
Nearly 30 years ago, in the context of teaching New Testament to folks preparing for different forms of ministry, I found myself increasingly challenged by the gap between what the Gospels (in particular John’s Gospel) say about Jesus’ life, values and teaching and what the church has made of it. What to do with limited time in a busy programme?
As a starting point, the prayer of Jesus proved a good place – it is at least familiar and emerges from communities of faith. By re-wording it, retaining the familiar shape, the following emerged:
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.
Most of it is tinkering with the familiar, but two phrases are fundamental to its construction: they are about what it means to be a people in community. “May your new community of hope be realised…” and “You embrace justice, love and peace…” These phrases intentionally replace key terms, so familiar that we hardly think about using them: kingdom, power and glory.
It is often argued that Jesus used terms like kingdom in a counter-cultural way. That may indeed have been true. But the problem is that we must now stop and explain these terms every time we use them because they have become inextricably linked to a church culture of dominance, hierarchy and in particular male (patriarchal) structures. We need a break from this. We need to say what we actually mean rather than repeat what we have been given and use out of habit.
Fresh expressions
The time has come to bring an end to kingdom language. The time has come to listen carefully to the Gospel story, especially as John tells it (Jn 15:12-17), to find a real radical heart which places shared community rather than individual values at the centre.
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.
So as another Easter comes and goes let’s look again at our language, bringing to the fore expressions which ‘do what it says on the tin’ and no longer resting on tired and metaphors. Let’s speak about a new community of hope which is:
- always NEW, fresh, surprising and constantly seeking renewal;
- founded in COMMUNITY, friendship, communion and ever seeking to communicate well;
- rooted in a HOPE which draws us always toward a future where justice, peace and love prevail.
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