Public theologian Rachel Held Evans (1981–2021) recounts the many ways Jesus talked about the reign of God:
Jesus didn’t talk much about the church, but he talked a lot about the kingdom….
In contrast to every other kingdom that has been and ever will be, this kingdom belongs to the poor, Jesus said, and to the peacemakers, the merciful, and those who hunger and thirst for God. In this kingdom, the people from the margins and the bottom rungs will be lifted up to places of honor, seated at the best spots at the table. This kingdom knows no geographic boundaries, no political parties, no single language or culture. It advances not through power and might, but through acts of love and joy and peace, missions of mercy and kindness and humility. This kingdom has arrived, not with a trumpet’s sound but with a baby’s cries, not with the vanquishing of enemies but with the forgiving of them, not on the back of a warhorse but on the back of a donkey, not with triumph and a conquest but with a death and a resurrection….
When we consider all the messes the church has made throughout history, all the havoc she has wreaked and the things she has destroyed, when we face up to just how different the church looks from the kingdom most of the time, it’s easy to think maybe Jesus left us with a raw deal. Maybe he pulled a bait and switch, selling us on the kingdom and then slipping us the church.
Evans names how the church is called to manifest the kingdom of God:
This word for church, ekklesia, was used at the time of Jesus to refer… to the people of God, assembled together. So church is, essentially, a gathering of kingdom citizens, called out—from their individuality, from their sins, from their old ways of doing things, from the world’s way of doing things—into participation in this new kingdom and community with one another….
The purpose of the church, and of the sacraments, is to give the world a glimpse of the kingdom, to point in its direction….
In this sense, church gives us the chance to riff on Jesus’ description of the kingdom, to add a few new metaphors of our own. We might say the kingdom is like St. Lydia’s in Brooklyn where strangers come together and remember Jesus when they eat. The kingdom is like the Refuge in Denver, where addicts and academics, single moms and suburban housewives come together to tell each other the truth. The kingdom is like Thistle Farms where women heal from abuse by helping to heal others….
And even still, the kingdom remains a mystery just beyond our grasp…. All we have are almosts and not quites and wayside shrines. All we have are imperfect people in an imperfect world doing their best to produce outward signs of inward grace and stumbling all along the way.
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5 For Friday John Chaffee
1.
“Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.”
- Carl Jung, Swiss Psychologist
Holding two, opposing truths at the same time is not easy. Paradox is not something that ordinary logic and rationality can comprehend or control. This is especially true when we consider one another. It is possible for me to both be kind and a jerk within the same day. Which one is true? Both. The internal tension we feel around paradoxes can be so great that we dismiss reality and make broad-stroke assumptions about the world to do away with the complexity.
Lord, have mercy. Help us to live in the tension rather than judge one another.
2.
“I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”
- Dorothy Day, Founder of the Catholic Worker
This quote frequently pops up in my mind. Teresa of Avila also says that it is impossible to know if we love God, but that our love for God is best examined/qualified by how we love people around us. It is entirely possible that Dorothy Day knew the works of Teresa of Avila but for now, let us ask who we love the least, and what we can do to rectify that.
3.
“Don’t just teach your children to read. Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything. The value of an education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.”
- George Carlin, American Comedian
This may be controversial, but I never found George Carlin as particularly funny. Every one of his standup specials, while crude, I felt as though was the work of a philosopher who was looking to deeply examine everything.
Education for the purpose of “copying and pasting” information from one source into the mind of a student is not education. I agree with Carlin that proper education invites people to be formed into fully autonomous and independent thinkers.
4.
“Those persons prove themselves senseless who exaggerate the mercy of Christ, but are silent as to the judgment.”
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies Book IV
Whenever I have conversations with people about the “restoration, reconciliation, renewal of all things in Christ”, they tend to bring up the same objections. Often, they push back because they believe that the reconciliation of all things means no accountability for anyone.
In response, I bring up how the early Patristics taught that within God’s final plan, there is both full accountability and full amnesty. The paradox of both of those things being true is distressing to our dualistic and either/or understanding of the world. On the other hand, I believe that Divine Love is capable of making the paradox true.
Irenaeus, with the quote above, is trying to correct a misconception that some people believe in the absolute mercy of God but have little ability to understand, let alone continue to preach, the judgment of God. For myself, once I allowed myself to submit to the possibility that within God there is unavoidable grace and unavoidable judgment, then the Bible began to make more sense.
After all, it is not that God’s mercy conflicts with God’s judgment, it is that it is God’s judgment to be merciful to all (Romans 11:32).
5.
“The entire cosmos is one vast burning bush, permeated by the fire of the divine glory and power.”
- Kallistos Ware, Eastern Orthodox Theologian
A few years ago, I was fixated on the story of Exodus 3. It is the famous chapter in which the shepherd Moses inadvertently runs into a burning bush. From within the bush, God called out to him and gave him the divine task of setting the Israelites free.
What I enjoy most about Exodus 3 is that it is the reversal of everything that happened in Genesis 3.
In Genesis 3, God is out walking in the wilderness (Eden) while humanity is hidden in a bush. God asks a question and humanity replies. Meanwhile, in Exodus 3, humanity is out walking in the wilderness, while the Divine is hidden in a bush. Humanity asks a question and the Divine answers.
There is even more Hebrew brilliance to these two corresponding passages, but for now, let us take the story to infer that God is hiding everywhere within nature and waiting for us to give a second and deep enough look to find him. Perhaps this is the truth of what happens whenever we spend time near rivers, mountains, shores, plains, or beneath starry skies. God is ever-present within our physical realm.
