After Jesus is baptized, he is driven into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted, tested and tempered. After that he begins his ministry, and his first ministry action is to proclaim through the countryside: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."
I hate that. I don't want God's kingdom, the kingdom of peace and justice, to come near. I want it to be here. Why can't what I long for be in my grasp?
Most theologians think that when Jesus says the kingdom has come near, he is saying that the kingdom has come, in some sense, with his coming and will come fully in the near future. Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher. He believed that God's rule, the supernatural interruption of the natural order, was coming quickly, so people should get ready. The early church got the message and believed the same way. Jesus who had died and was resurrected and ascended would return imminently.
Maybe it's just my way of trying to understand Jesus' words 2,000 years later, but I think he's talking more than about time. I think he's speaking to the human longing for God's presence which is never fully satisfied. Our finite selves daily bump up against the infinite, the great mystery of existence, and we are frustrated, figuring there must be some method for experiencing the great Shalom, unity with God. But we can't find it. We are left with our craving and brokenness. Getting up for work in the morning. Helping the kids with homework.
The kingdom is near. Or to continue the U2 theme from last week: "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
The Message has a bit of a different message - "Change your life. God's kingdom is here." Interesting difference. I'm liking this interpretation. Love the U2 allusion!
ReplyDeletePerhaps it being "near" or "here" isn't as much a point as "change your life" or "repent" as the RSV puts it.
ReplyDeleteWhat might be the importance of repenting? If you're not living right when the kingdom gets here, you'll be in trouble so you better change? Or, changing your way of life (the beatitudes are in the next chapter)will allow you to more fully experience a kingdom or reality that you're now missing but is so close?
ReplyDeleteThe former sounds more like a response that our more conservative friends might have. A do or die kind of thing. The latter resonates a little more with me. If some form of the kingdom is here now perhaps we have to work on recognizing it better. Maybe it takes on the form of everyday things like paying for the coffee for the person behind you in line or helping someone cross the street or helping to get fresh water to a village somewhere. Perhaps repenting or changing your life happens over and over again until one day the new heaven and new earth become a reality.
ReplyDeleteI like Todd's response to whether the kingdom of God is here or near. I think it is here already. We don't know what to look for or sense what the kingdom of God is really all about. Jesus has given us a lot of hints. He truly knew what the kingdom of God is. But we, as flawed humans, do not know where to look or what to do to see it. I don't know how I would even begin to figure this out. All I know is that God has given us a mission for our lives on Earth. To love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. That may be what the kingdom of God is all about.
ReplyDeleteI appologize beforehand; I'll be plagiarizing your insightful comments mercilessly in my sermon tomorrow :).
ReplyDeleteAs long as we get proper billing in your forthcoming book.
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