In this reflection on his favourite phrase of the Lord’s Prayer, 'Your kingdom come', Wiradjuri man Adam Gowen considers what God’s Kingdom looks like in practice: the re-establishment of right relationships.
A transcript of Adam Gowen's reflection can be downloaded here.
Throughout his ministry Jesus points to God’s kingdom, proclaiming God’s kingdom come near (Mark 1:15), prepared for us from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34), a blessing given (Matthew 5:1-12). In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray for this kingdom to come. Wiradjuri man and Aboriginal Chistian Leader Adam Gowen invites us to consider this vision of God’s kingdom, and what it looks like in practice today. “We’re asking for God to bring back that right relationship that existed at the beginning of time…right relationship to ourselves…right relationship to our people, all people…and ultimately to God, our Father, our Creator, the original author, the perfecter of our faith.” As we call and pray together for God’s kingdom to come, we ground ourselves in the truth, goodness, justice, and compassion of God and his kingdom, as Adam reminds us, a kingdom where the restoration and reconciliation of right relationships “will really bring forth flourishing”.
We invite you to pray and continue reflecting on The Lord’s Prayer today.
Read: Isaiah 11:1-9, Matthew 13:44-46 and Colossians 1:15-23
Reflect: What do these passages tell us about God’s Kingdom?
How has God answered our cries, as Adam puts it, to “bring back that right relationship that existed at the beginning of time…get back to where all these things worked as they were intended to”?
Pray: Join us in prayer today, led by Jess Smith as together we call ‘your kingdom come’.
Our great Father, Creator, Redeemer and Friend,
May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
May you restore your beautiful broken world,
May you return a peace and rightness to our relationships with you, with ourselves and with each other,
May you heal Country and answer the longings of your creation,
Thank you that in Jesus you have begun this work and that by your Spirit you invite us into your work of renewal.
We hunger for you to restore and renew all things,
and so we pray 'your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’.
Amen
Act: Think of a local community you are a part of - are there ways this community is out of sync with God’s kingdom? What are some ways you can take part in healing and restoring the fractured relationships in this community, so it may come closer to that place of ‘right relationship’ we yearn for as we pray ‘Your kingdom come'.
Adam Gowen is a Wiradjuri man and Aboriginal Christian Leader. He currently lives on the land of the Murramarang people of the Yuin nation (South Coast NSW) with his family. Passionate about relatedness, he seeks to understand all things in the context of their relationships. He is a Christian minister and holds a postgraduate qualification in theology and a first-class honours degree in Indigenous studies. The thesis component of his honours degree examines concepts of Aboriginal identity, settler colonialism, and sovereignty. Adam is passionate about social justice and committed to working at a grass-roots level to see large scale change.
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