Kingdom of God

camel-shutterstock-970

One of my lasting memories from seminary comes from the daily worship services. On occasion, when communion was being offered we would follow a liturgy derived from John Chrysostom in the way back days of the christian church. At some point the celebrant (that is the person offering up the prayers for the bread and cup) would say “Holy Things for Holy People.” I remember this because I was very fond of my liturgics (study of worship) professor Dr. Stanley Hall; and– though he was suffering from a rare condition that deteriorated his lungs — Stan would fill the chapel with his sonorous voice from the back of the hall with the response of the people: ONE is HOLY, ONE is LORD, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God.

The purpose of the response is to direct the attention of those in attendance to God alone. Even though the communion is considered holy (because the bread is set apart) and the gathered church can be called holy (set apart from other communities of people), God and God alone IS the only, truly holy thing.

Jesus does somethign similar when approached by a wealthy man in this reading from Mark. After being addressed as “good teacher” Jesus quickly sidesteps the complement saying that God alone is Good. In a world conditioned to consider every little hang up and fetish a lifestyle choice demanding special recognition and community acceptance it can be jarring to hear that only God is good. Before we rationalize that Jesus was either having a bad day or displaying false humility we should accept that maybe he really meant what he said. Limiting actual goodness to God alone is consistent with what we heard Jesus saying about the human heart earlier in Mark.

This is not to say that people cannot do good things or exhibit good character. The young man speaking with Jesus at least claims to be doing those things himself. The initial question that the man asks is what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus directs him to the commandments to which the man says that he has studiously kept them. “You only lack one thing then,” Jesus suggests, “go and sell all that you have and give to the poor. You will have treasure in heaven and come and follow me.”

We are told that the man walked away dejected because he had a lot of things.

dejection

Jesus laments “how hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Many times this episode is preached all by itself divorced from the rest of the Gospel of Mark. Some folks point to it as proof that wealth is bad. “See! the rich will get theirs in the end because rich people cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” Although Jesus doesn’t actually say that. Other preachers, perhaps apologetically for their wealthy members, will teach that the episode is absolutely limited to this particular wealthy man. This was the particular problem for this guy because he was just like Ebeneezer Scrooge and loved his possessions more than others. “Fear not generous members of (insert name of wealthy church) so long as you are here in this moment and tithing you can rest assured that you have a place in the house of the Lord.”

The truth is in neither of these interpretations although there is a particularity to Jesus’ charge to this young man. As always reading and interpreting this passage by itself prevents us from considering what Mark is communicating to us. In the verses right before this young man appears we see Jesus playing around with little kids. He seizes the moment to teach his disciples that only those that receive the Kingdom of God like a child will enter it at all.

Do you see the connection now? The episode with the rich man is illustrating the point about entering the Kingdom of God like a child. Mark is giving us a way to understand what Jesus meant by demonstrating how Jesus taught this one particular grown man what it would mean for him.

Apart from age, what was the difference between the young man and the children? What makes a child different from an adult? Self-sufficiency. Children are dependent on others to care for them and to protect them. Whenever a child loses a parent at an early age we say that they had to grow up too fast meaning that they had to take on adult responsibilities.

The problem for the rich man was not that he had wealth. Resources are just resources to God. Abraham had wealth. Jacob had wealth. David had wealth. Jeremiah, Elijah, and Paul not so much. The problem was not in the possession of the property. The problem was that the availability of means left the rich young man deluded into thinking that he didn’t have to rely upon God for eternal life. He was doing the right things and keeping the commandments. He wanted to know from Jesus what else he needed to do. Goodness for him was about merit and merit was about accomplishment. The path to the Kingdom of God must surely be marked with road signs indicating how close you were along the way he thought. In this he demonstrated at least one child like quality: “Jesus, am I there yet?”

When I was a child we had gold stars in school. You got a gold star at the end of the day if you were well behaved and did your work. I have heard of some schools today using a color chart (red, yellow, green) in a similar fashion. At week’s end we could get a little surprise or treasure if we had a sufficient number of gold stars. As I recall, some teachers expected perfection while others gave a little more grace. Some had treasure boxes with trinkets while others were sure good behavior was its own reward. Had I known then what I know now I could have psycho-analyzed my teachers based on these things. The rich young man was using the wrong child like approach to the Kingdom of God. He was trying to gold star his way in.

It cannot be done that way.

It is telling that Jesus instructs the young man to follow him. In the Letter to the Hebrews we are told that Jesus is the author and pioneer of our faith that he has provided a more perfect way to God through the veil of his own flesh, a reference to the veil in the tabernacle and temple that separated the people from the presence of Yahweh. Following Jesus is not just following Him at the end to the presence of God but it is also following him along the path to the Kingdom of God.

God wants to be a part of all of our lives: our work, our parenting, our relationships, our inner selves. To live the most abundant form of this life and the life of the world to come, we have to recognize and live a dependence on God. A daily dependence on Him. If faith is an expression of trust then self-sufficiency is a debilitating condition.

first-15-minutes

This year I have taken up a charge from my pastor, Eric Waters, to practice “The First 15”, beginning each day with 15 minutes that belong to God. It is deceptively simple. I read a few lines of scripture and offer a prayer. My prayer in the first moments of my day tends to be very simple as well because I am not awake enough to flourish it with useless extra words. So I tend to just thank God for the morning, for another day, offer up someone or something else for God to bless, ask Him to handle something in my life and end it with the Lord’s prayer. It is certainly simple and once the habit forms it shapes the day, the week, the life in a different pattern than not starting each day with God. I admit that I also sometimes forget. If you try the “first 15” for yourself understand that you will achieve imperfectly as well. When I do miss my day is more frustrating. While my days are not perfect when I do start with the “first 15”, I find that whatever the day brings I am more in tune with the peace that Jesus promised us.

The Kingdom of God is open to those who approach as a child, dependent on the Lord to provide, to teach, to protect, and to guide.

Ask yourself:

What is keeping me from trusting God more completely?

Now is the time to give it up.

Where in my life am relying more on my own abilities or power than God’s help?

Invite God into all of it through prayer and meditation today.

Are you seeking to earn God’s favor rather than respond to God’s acceptance?

All I can remind, gently, is that the first never works. If you ask, God will show the second, more perfect way.

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Thank you for reading.

Read Mark 4:26-34

Christians are always concerned about the Kingdom of God and how long it seems to be taking to arrive. Do you suppose it has always been this way? Could it be that Christians in the West have become so conditioned for instant gratification that they more impatient for the Kingdom of God than their predecessors? The anecdotal evidence is that every generation of Christian from the beginning have been anxious for the ultimate fulfillment of the Kingdom just read Acts 1:6-7.

In North America, denominations are very focused on the Kingdom of God albeit in very separate ways. The more conservative a Church / Christian the more focused they seem to be on teasing out the signs of the imminent return of Christ. Like “Preppers” storing up for the downfall of civilization, their bug-out-bag is their zippered, handle-covered Bible and instead of a sign indicating they reserve the right to shoot trespassers they warn the trespassers they will be “left behind” that their cars will be driver-less in the event of the rapture through a thoughtfully placed bumper sticker. Their counterparts in the more liberal arms of the Church have seemed to have forgotten that Jesus promised to return at all, focused instead on doing all this hard kingdom work themselves through political rallies for the justice issue du jour. In case your curious they often decorate their car with bumper stickers encouraging coexisting religious faiths / sects as though the true arrival of the Kingdom of God will look like a joint summit meeting.

These two short parables in Mark suggest where the Kingdom of God is concerned patience is required.

Jesus told them that the Kingdom of God was like a man who cast seed on the ground. At first, we may naturally think of the parable of the sower we recently looked at but here the emphasis is not on the action of the sower but rather on the seed itself. Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like the person who casts seed on the ground and while they sleep the seed sprouts and grows “– HOW; he himself does not know“.

Maybe this parable has lost some of its strength in a world where so many people have looked at pictures of a bean sprout plant growing in schoolbooks. There are even a select few people who really do understand how it all works. But it seems the point Jesus is trying to make in his pre-scientific method world is that it just happens over time, and it seems almost magical.

Coupled with the Parable of the Sower, we have been given some simple instructions. We are to scatter the Word of God and then let the Word do its thing. Apparently even while we are sleeping the Word of God is at working sprouting and developing into a great big crop ready for harvest. When the harvest comes there is more work to be done.

This parable although short works on two levels. On the one hand it is a reminder to Christians that their efforts do not end with the sharing of the gospel but that they also need to be ready when the harvest is evident. So, if you have been demonstrating the truth of Christ through words and actions you need to be ready when the one with whom you share is ready for the next step be it accepting Christ, attending worship, or being baptized. The parable also works on the cosmic level. Jesus will return when the harvest is ripe some day in the future. Patience fellow Christ-followers, the Ancient of Days, like a seasoned farmer, will know the right time.

The second parable is another call to patience. Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is like a Mustard Seed though it is small it grows into a tremendous plant. There are some critics out there that mock Jesus because as they point out the mustard seed is neither the smallest seed nor is the mature plant the largest on Earth. C. S. Lewis once commented that it was incumbent upon us to read the scriptures like adults. I suspect this is the sort of ill-conceived criticism he was referencing.

Allow me to update the parable imagery so that anyone can understand Jesus’ point.

Sequoia-Seed-on-Fingertip

Then Jesus said, “How can we picture the Kingdom of God or to what can we compare it to? The Kingdom of God is like this seed on my finger that breaks off from the seed pod on the ground and although it is so tiny and insignificant grows to become an awesome and amazing tree like this:

sequoia

a tree so large that it can’t be captured on film in its entirety, and it would take more than a classroom of children to encircle its trunk.

The point of the parable isn’t about the literalness of the seed or the plant, but the fact that the Kingdom is growing all the time, slowly, unseen into something massive and beautiful and only God knows when the harvest will be complete.

The mustard seed, or Sequoia seed, is Jesus. A poor builder, a crucified criminal, in the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire two millennia ago couldn’t be more small and insignificant; yet, the 2.2 billion Christians alive today all trace their lineage back to this one man and his Resurrection around 34 C.E. (AD). Not only that, but the estimated 13 billion confessing Christians of the past 2000 years — a Giant Sequoia indeed!

And the Kingdom of God is still growing at its own divinely ordained pace until that promised day when every knee will bow and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is the LORD to the glory of God.

What to do between now and then? Well, one don’t smugly look for signs of THE RETURN and forget to do the work of sowing the gospel. To do so is to risk a self-righteousness that awaits the judgment of the neighbor without practicing the love of neighbor God requires. Two, don’t go about trying to rework the whole world into the Kingdom of God as you think it should look because the outcome is guaranteed to be a vision of justice viewed through sinful eyes. Third, focus on living out Romans 12:9- 13:11 as best you can individually and collectively seeking guidance always first and foremost through scripture, prayer, and confession.

And be patient for the Kingdom is both growing and coming.

Questions:

Do you pray regularly for the return of Christ? If so, why? If not, why?
When you pray for THE RETURN are you secretly hoping that it come so others will face their comeuppance?
What is the kingdom working balance in your life between prayer and study and good works?
Do you read the Bible regularly? Pray daily? Are you looking for the chance to spread the gospel?
How are you harvesting the growth that is ready until THE RETURN?
What are you or your faith community doing to serve God by serving others?

As always the above reflection is given freely. If you choose to share it in a group bible study of your own or as a devotional before a small group meeting, etc. please let folks know where you got it. It is written with fear, foreboding, and prayer by a fellow hypocrite who is just trying to figure out the road ahead.

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