On a couple of occasions, after worship, I have been given a picture drawn by a child in the congregation depicting me or something I said in worship. Once, I even received such a picture from an adult. This seems to be something that happens to most ministers from time to time. Martin Thielen tells of such an occasion. He had preached a sermon on the Kingdom of God. After the service, a nine-year-old boy came up to him and presented him with a drawing of a castle. At the top of the castle he had written “God’s Kingdom,” underneath which he added the words, “Jesus’ kingdom.” In the middle of the castle, the boy drew a large heart. Below it all, he wrote “God and Jesus Rule.” Thielen says that at 9 years old, the boy had already grasped the essence of the kingdom of God: “the kingdom of God is what the world would look like if God ruled the world.”
I would agree. This child already grasped the heart of the kingdom: God’s love for the world. He already knew the spiritual truth expressed by the great Christian writer Thomas Merton: “The kingdom of God is not the Kingdom of those who merely preach a doctrine or follow certain religious practices: it is the kingdom of those who love.”
The Kingdom of God was an essential part of Jesus’ life and message. He preached it and he lived it. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that “Jesus’ primary passion in life, the thing that most motivates him, is God’s coming kingdom.” Indeed, in a lecture, New Testament scholar Gordon Fee, stated the centrality of the Kingdom of God for understanding Jesus’ life and work, by boldly declaring, “You cannot know anything about Jesus, anything, if you miss the kingdom of God.” Jesus begins his ministry with declarations of the Kingdom of God. In Mark, Jesus returns from his time of prayer and testing in the wilderness and delivers what Adam Hamilton calls first sermon: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Those few words sum up the heart of his message.
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus inaugurates his ministry by preaching in his hometown synagogue. There he declares, quoting Isaiah, that he has been sent by God to declare good news to the poor, release to the captives, freedom to the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.. Thus, he traveled about from city to city, declaring the good news of the kingdom of God, explaining, “I was sent for this purpose.”
Having established that Jesus was all about the kingdom of God, we need to understand what that Kingdom is and isn’t. It is not a place, not a territory or a particular land. It is not a political structure which can be enacted by Jesus’ followers—this was the mistake of the 4th century Christians who, following Constantine’s conversion, thought that the Roman Empire was coterminous with the Kingdom of God, only to have that illusion come crashing down when the Visigoths sacked the so-called “eternal city” in 410. This is also the mistaken notion of Christian nationalists who believe the United States was divinely ordained as a Christian nation (it was not) and that Christians should control all the levers of power (this is not our mission or our method). To see the Kingdom of God as a place or a political entity is to reduce it to a kingdom of men. But every human state is just that—human. And thus they are all subject to the same human fallibility, finitude and sinfulness which beset all states and prevent even the best from ever truly reflecting the glory of God.
The term Kingdom of God is rooted in Old Testament declarations of God as king over all creation and thus over all people and nations. Our reading from Psalm 99 is representative of the many passages in the Hebrew scriptures which emphasize God’s authority over the world—indeed over the whole universe—an authority that is manifested in the establishment of justice and equity and the care of the widows, orphans, poor and resident aliens. This means that in the Jewish tradition to which Jesus was heir, Kingdom of God refers not to a place but to an action: the reign or rule of God. The Kingdom is God’s just governance, God’s benevolent, gracious care and nurturing of the world. Thus, as Fred Craddock and Eugene Boring point out, when Jesus calls us to “seek first the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness,” we are being called not to seek a place but “to strive for the righteous will of God to happen,” in our lives and in our world.
It was this sense of the “rule of God” which Jesus declared. Sometimes he spoke of the kingdom in parables, comparing it to a tiny mustard seed that grows into something far greater than its humble start or to a feast to which the most unexpected guests are invited. Sometimes, he told his listeners that they must have child-like trust in God to enter the Kingdom.
Sometimes, he enacted the kingdom: the one who said that many “will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God ” is also the one who ate with tax collectors and sinners and hung out with women and fishermen and prostitutes. He lived out the kingdom by treating second class citizens as equals and welcoming outcasts as full members of God’s family. Indeed, Ida Maria Isasi-Diaz has suggested that the “Kingdom” might be more accurately called the “kin-dom of God,” because Jesus is welcoming people into a new family, God’s family. The “kin-dom of God” is centered in and built upon the recognition that we are, all of us, brothers and sisters, fellow children of God. It’s ethics, it’s lifestyle, is one of mutual care, of compassion, of sharing and helping, of seeking the good of one another. In other words, the kingdom of God is the kingdom of those who love, just as God loves. It is, in Martin Luther King’s term, the “Beloved Community.”
Or, as Martin Thielen puts it, “the kingdom of God is what the world would look like if God’s will was ‘done on earth as it is in Heaven.’” If this were so, then, Thielen continues, “wars and terrorism would come to an end; hunger would be a distant memory; broken relationships would be healed; pollution and global warming would vanish; illnesses would be banned; and love, mercy and justice would prevail for all.”
Of course, that’s a tall order, and it’s a very different world from the one we live in. As we’ve already heard, humans are all sinners—we all fail to love and trust God with totality of our beings and we all fail to love and care for each of our neighbors. Thus, we cannot establish the Kingdom of God; we cannot bring it into being. Ultimately, the kingdom of God is the work of God. Jesus tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world. It’s values are not those of Rome, or America, or any other earthly kingdom. It does not come about by the normal means of political, economic or military power. It is not accompanied by pomp and circumstance. Indeed, it does not come by earthly means. The kingdom of God will only fully come when Christ returns and all things are made new by God. The kingdom is “not yet” fully here; it is the future reign of God for which we wait in hope.
And yet, the kingdom has already begun. Jesus declares, “the kingdom of God has come near” (Lk. 10.11) and “the kingdom of God is among you.” The kingdom is inaugurated by Jesus, who humbles himself and becomes a servant. Jesus, says Jürgen Moltmann, is “the Kingdom of God in person.” In his life, he embodies the Kingdom by keeping the commandment to love God and neighbor. In his ministry of forgiveness, healing, feeding and community building, we therefore see the beginnings of the kingdom. “Anyone who gets involved with Jesus,” says Moltmann, “gets involved with the Kingdom of God.” So, Jesus commissioned his disciples to carry on his work, sent them out to preach and heal during his lifetime and commissioned them to go to the ends of the earth after his crucifixion and resurrection. That work is being done even now by those who seek to follow Jesus today. As Hamilton observes, “The reign of God expands and is experienced on earth as people do the will of God as Jesus preached it; when we love God and neighbor, live mercifully, act as peacemakers, when we serve others, welcome strangers, and care for those in need.” The kingdom has not fully come, but those with eyes to see can catch glimpses of it in the midst of this world.
Our call to participate in this “already” and “not yet” Kingdom requires us to “close the gap” between the current state of things and God’s vision for humanity. We don’t have to fix everything, indeed we can’t. We don’t have to bring about the Kingdom by our own efforts—it’s not ours to establish, its God’s. As Ron Heifetz contends, “our task tis to close the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be.” We have to take a hard, honest look at our world--and at ourselves—and identify places where we see gaps. Hamilton likes this to the “fearless moral inventory” called for in Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12-step program. Alongside honesty, we need openness to the guiding and empowering work of the Holy Spirit. Reflecting on the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast, Hamilton observes that “the heart that is yielded and impregnated with a vision of the Kingdom cannot help but produce a life-giving bush, or transform and enliven an entire batch of dough.”
Ray, Kevin and Greg were members of Hamilton’s congregation in Kansas City. They were all involved in the church’s hunger ministry and this led them to discern and discuss some of the gaps they saw in their community. They knew very well the extent of hunger and the existence of food deserts in the city. In addition, Ray had been reading about how children were growing up deprived of experiences of nature. Kevin’s brother worked for a group in Portland, OR which was establishing urban gardens. And Greg, as an architect, was very aware of the thousands of vacant lots throughout Kansas City. Their awareness of the gaps between the reality around them and God’s kingdom vision opened them up to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
A vision began to coalesce. Vacant lots could be converted into small orchards where local children and adults could experience nature as they worked together. The orchards would beautify the neighborhoods while providing folks with access to fresh fruit. They began to envision a project which would bring a little bit of Eden, a little bit of paradise to the residents of impoverished and neglected neighborhoods.
According to Hamilton, “They pulled together twenty people with different types of expertise to brainstorm and test the idea. They opened their first community orchard in 2012. They called it The Giving Grove. They involved volunteers from various organizations, but ultimately their aim is for neighborhoods to own the orchards and take care of them. Since 2012 they’ve planted 300 orchards in Kansas City and 250 in other cities across the U.S. The orchards provide fresh food, opportunities to bring neighbors together, a chance for children to experience nature, and a way for people to beautify their communities. That,” says Hamilton, “does sound like a taste of Eden to me.”
This is but one example of what can happen when God’s people seek to join Jesus in doing the work of the Kingdom, just one glimpse of what the Kingdom of God looks like.
I saw a glimpse of the Kingdom at Angel of Hope Christian Church, which Nancy and I attended during seminary. It was the most diverse congregation I have ever been a part of: white, Hispanic, black; male, female, transgendered; gay, straight; wealthy, poor; well-educated, and under-educated. I saw the kingdom of God each week when we passed the peace: I saw it in the warm hugs, and heard it in the joyous greetings. Oh, it was a struggle to get us all back in our pews. And I saw the kingdom again, when we, in all our diversity, shared in the Lord’s supper, partaking of one cup and one loaf. That was a congregation which embodied and enacted the idea that no matter who someone was, or where they were on their journey, they were all welcome in that place—for it was God’s church, a little foretaste of heaven, a preview of the Kingdom coming.
I have seen the kingdom of God at Habitat for Humanity work sites. I have seen it in people packing bags of food to get hungry children through the weekend. I have seen it in people giving of their time to help children learn to read. I have seen the Kingdom at Hunger Meals when we provide our hungry neighbors not simply with a little soup and a crust of bread, but with a proper, dignified meal, complete with some of the best cakes you can find anywhere. I have seen it in our collections for needy families at Christmas, for the folks in hospice care at Malachi House, and for immigrants who have a place to live, but no proper place to lay their heads. I have seen it at monthly distributions of free produce to needy folks down in Wadsworth and monthly grocery distributions at Parma Christian. I have seen it in the way two churches of different denominations came together to establish a Helping Ministry. I saw the kingdom in the way those congregations made the ministry a priority in their budgets, in the way extra money was spontaneously given when the monthly budget ran low, in the way volunteers treated those seeking help with dignity and love, and in the grateful faces of those who had come to the church in despair but left with renewed hope.
The kingdom of God is God’s dream for the world. It is the vision that motivated Jesus and the reality which he embodied. It has yet to come in all its fullness, but it already among us. It is breaking out all around us. As the poet says, “every bush is aflame with the glory of God.” May we have eyes to see and hearts to join in, so that God’s kingdom may come and God’s will truly be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
