These days have turned out to be great! After some time trying to adjust and trying to fill up this awkward time, I have been able to read more, pray some more and write a little. Even the Sunday readings are speaking more and more to me. In past weeks for example:
“Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way……. Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.’” Or in today’s Gospel – Teach us to pray . . . “Your Kingdom come.”
John Michael Talbot had a song we use to sing. It went something like “Behold now the Kingdom. See with new eyes.” The Kingdom is becoming more and more central to me as I have had some time to wait, listen, reflect - see. And it seems like the Kingdom of God – like so many things about our God - is always a matter of sight, a matter of being able to see. Being able to see a Kingdom that is “now” and that is “not yet” and dancing in between that paradox of understanding the Kingdom. I am no scripture scholar but it seems as though “The Kingdom of God” is paramount in Jesus teaching and the object to which He points consistently. It is mentioned, I read, 100 times in the New Testament.
But I don’t live there (in the kingdom) – at least I don’t think I do and I don’t know how to get there – although I am finding some maps laying around and I am going to attempt to use them, I do believe that the Kingdom is an alternative, someplace other than where I am now. Living in the kingdom gives you a different frame of reference. Jesus seems to always “proclaim it.”
What I have is the Kingdom of Ed, which is very nice, but far from the Kingdom of God which is offered to me. I read that it is difficult for rich people to get there. (Again, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it is hard to see the Kingdom with stuff in the way.) Jesus must have known that. He told us that the Kingdom belongs to the poor and the persecuted. (That’s not me.) I am rich and run from conflict! I know that we are supposed to seek the Kingdom first – and all the rest will follow. Well maybe that’s the clue for me – at least try to seek the Kingdom. Thy Kingdom come – my kingdom go. According to Jesus, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are getting into the kingdom ahead of me. (Maybe another career change is in my future!) The Kingdom is not readily available to the elite, the wealthy, the smart but given to the lost, the poor, the vulnerable. Again, it makes one cautious when judging who’s “in” and who’s “out” of the Kingdom.
E. Stanley Jones writes:
“What happened to the Gospel of the Kingdom? It was too great for the disciples small hearts. After his resurrection, Jesus spent 40 days with them Talking about what? Talking about the affairs of the Kingdom. The affairs of the state seemed trivial compaired to those of the Kingdom of God. “Get this straight,” he was saying to them, “for if you get this Kingdom straight, all of life will go straight with you.” Did they get it straight? No, they reduced it: “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?” (Acts 1:6) They reduced the universal Kingdom (the Kingdom of God) to a nationalistic mode, the restoring of self-government. They didn’t reject it. They reduced it. That is what we have been doing ever since – reducing the Good News of the Kingdom to the good news of nationalism. “The American Way of Life”; to the good news of the church – the denominational way of life; to the personal way of life – peace of mind; to the corporate church life – the ecumenical movement.” (A Song of Ascents)
If the Kingdom is central to Jesus teaching; if it is the pearl of great price; if it truly is the Reign of God; if the Kingdom – and my place in it - is a foundational concept in Christianity, and a central theme of Jesus’ message in the Gospels; if it is to be entered through acceptance like a child, spiritual rebirth, and doing the will of God – then I need to get busy. I need to open my eyes. I need to see better.
I also have to say that I am 53 years old and feel, once again, shortchanged by a church which does not demand that we at least investigate the kingdom and how far we as a church have strayed from it. We have not been encouraged to seek the Kingdom but have been taught to “reduce” it and make it “fit” into the American way of life. I feel sometimes deprived of a journey of faith – but have been given instead, a journey of precepts and morality. Clearly Jesus is less concerned with morality and more with being able to envision and enter the Kingdom – now. My kingdom passes away. It dies and I am left grasping at its trappings. God’s Kingdom is now, and not yet, in the present but also to come.
My friend preaches that “we become what we love.” God became what He loved – us! He wasn’t satisfied to remain at a distance. He became a man. I think He continues to become what He loves – me. And my response should be to try to become what I love – God. What I think I have become instead, is my stuff, my way of life, my false self. I became what I loved which was all the things I have, what I continue to accumulate and “worship” I have not been able to believe that those things all pass away. I read that they do. I saw first hand that it all ends when my friend John died. I thought about it for a while when he died. “Wow, live now because it will end – maybe soon like John.” But my enthusiasm for living in a new way quickly disipated and I went back to “building my tower” and following the “American dream.” I exchanged life with my invisible God for what I could see and feel and taste. I exchanged it for what clearly does not last – though I pretend that it will – as if it matters a bit about what I drive, wear or where I live. What lasts? What remains when I am gone, dead and buried? Love and only love.
