The Kingdom of God

The Kingdom of God is like...

Attention

My favorite Star Wars Movie is The Empire Strikes Back. I think it is because the young hero, after his initial success, has to face his own fears and grow into the hero they need, not just going around blowing things up. The Empire who lost the Death Star in the first film still is in control of the galaxy and still has power to hurt people, worlds, and whole civilizations. It is the Empire.

Need

In Jesus' time, it wasn't a long time ago and far, far away in talking about Empires that control and dominate. Israel and all other nations were under the thumb of the Roman Empire which took over the Greek Empire. Everyone knew about the Roman Empire, even though Rome was a few moths journey, fraught with challenges for traveling. There was no freedom, there was no self-governance, there was only the rule of the Roman Empire. Into this, Jesus proclaims that there is another power, another king, another kingdom, another Empire, the Empire of God. This is maybe why Jesus spoke in parables, because he didn't want to rebuke or openly defy the Roman Empire, but hinted at, winked towards, and referenced there is another way to live in this world.

Satisfaction

Coming from rural America, where my parents didn't commercial farm, but we did have live on a 12 acre farmstead with over an acre of garden. I would have loved this type of farm, just plant the seeds and come back later and harvest. No weeding, no watching out for insects, deer, or birds. Just plant and reap. Of course, any farmer worth his salt would have laughed at Jesus hearing his speak so simply about farming. But it would be nice, sweating all day under the sun and then given most of your harvest to the Roman Empire in taxes and whatever else they came up with. And the second harvest, mustard seed, MUSTARD SEED is an invasive noxious weed that destroy any crop that it takes over. Jesus is praising mustard seed, MUSTARD SEED???? That is totally ridiculous!

But Jesus, not just opposing the Roman rule, wasn't about setting up another ruler or form of government. He didn't come proclaiming that the kingdom of God is like a democracy, a republic, a socialist or communist governance. He didn't come proclaiming in God's kingdom there would be no taxes or armies or religious police. He just used metaphors. God's kingdom, the Empire of God is like a mustard seed, scattering seed, a lost sheep, coin, or child. It was hard to come up with hard and fast rules or ideas with the different ways he talked about the kingdom. No wonder the disciples needed a lot of explaining on just what Jesus was talking about.

Vision

In our world today, we have a lot of meanings and associations with the word kingdom. It is the place were fairy tales take place a long time ago in a land far, far away. It is the country dominated by monarchy with little freedom of speech, thought, movement, or rights. It is a place dominated by men and armies and honor and war.

But Jesus takes this word, kingdom/empire/nation/economy/reign and tells stories about what God's kingdom is like. Some of them don't make sense, some are the exact opposite of what we would think, and some of them contradict each other. But he invites us to live in this kingdom, even while we live in our own nation whether it be good or bad. He points us to something better, something more compassionate, justice-filled, and one that centers in God's love, not in power, not in control, and not in rules.

Action

So how do we follow when we don't have hard and fast laws? We tell stories and we follow the commandments of loving each other and loving God. We seek community, help the least of these, and forgive extravagantly. The kingdom of God is like...

What have you got?

Selling Out

Last Fall, I read a book called, "A History of Burning." It is a multi-generational story about a family that migrates from India to Uganda for hopes for a better future to help the British build a railroad, whose children through education secures a government job, but then Uganda throws off their colonial oppressors and gains independence and turns against the Indians who live there, and they have to migrate again and start all over in Toronto, Canada. It is a sad story of colonial power of the British Empire bringing in foreign cheap labor to build their infrastructure that leaves out the local population. And once Uganda gets independence, the corporations still control much of the economy and fosters division between the Ugandans and Indian to keep the country unstable. It is a triumphant story of human determination in the face of adversity, but only a few make it. One of the first paragraphs in a Wikipedia search about Africa told me that Africa is politically unstab...

Contribute to the needs of God's People

On Aug. 28, 1893, Sen. James Kyle of South Dakota introduced S. 730 to the U.S. Senate to make Labor Day a legal national holiday on the first Monday of September each year. President Grover Cleveland signed the bill on June 28, 1894. By then, a fall holiday called Labor Day was already being observed. Beginning in the late 19th century, parades, picnics and other celebrations took place to support labor issues such as shorter hours, better pay and safer working conditions, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In introducing the legislation, Kyle said that labor organizations were united in asking that the first Monday of September be set apart as a holiday in order to make the observance uniform. This would result in workers enjoying vacation privileges on the same day, according to the Dec. 1, 1965, issue of “The Wi-Iyohi,” a monthly bulletin published by the South Dakota State Historical Society. Prior to serving as a U.S. Senator, Kyle served as pastor at the Congregati...

Nothing Outside Contaminates

First we start with the human traditions, not all of humanity, but Western civilization under the Doctrine of Discovery that basically states that any European explorer (especially from countries that were still Roman Catholic) coming upon any land and people that weren't Christian were able to claim the land and people in the name of their king and country. This created human traditions of enslavement and taking what isn't theirs which is still happening today in Sudan with diamonds, the Congo with lithium, and Palestine with natural gas. We continue to the 1980's were the wealthy were given massive tax cuts and the unions were routinely broken up and laws were put in place to make it very hard to create one in the 'Right to Work' states. Our human traditions have created once again a wealthy class that if they lost 90% of their wealth, they would still be the most wealthy people in the world. It probably started with philosopher Francis Bacon who helped begin th...

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