Public theologian Rachel Held Evans (1981–2019) 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.
Reference:
Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church (Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2015), 252–253, 254–255, 256.
Image credit and inspiration: Harli Marten, untitled (detail), 2016, photo. Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. The reign of God is peace, even today, between two people and a tree at sunset.
Story from Our Community:
I rejoice in the opportunity to “scratch in the dirt.” I like finding seedlings from plants I want to propagate, but more importantly, I simply find joy in being in the moment in the dirt of my garden. The kingdom of God is all around us—we just need to be still to see and hear it. I have only recently been able to do this. I am so grateful for the experience.
—Finlay M.
