Kingdom 101, Dude!

your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven. ~ Matthew 6:10

Bro! Broseph! Where you been, man? Dude, you have missed so much. He has been pouring the work on. Surfing in Crete? Dude – that’s so cool. Are you going to be ready for the final? It’s going to be tough. Yeah, I don’t care if it’s Kingdom 101, Jesus has been killin’ it. A few days ago he took the whole class outside, told us to put away our phones – something about “he who has ears to hear let him hear” – whatever! Anyway he took us outside, sat down and the mind blowin’ began. Check this out – I called it the lecture of awesomeness. Everybody’s using it. But you’d better get it in gear because he moved up the final. It’s tomorrow. I know, you’re in big trouble because if you fail this you can’t take the next class on parables, which I’ve heard is brutal! Yeah, I’ll help you study but only if you help me get the number of the blonde girl who sits on the side. Yeah she’s from some  place called Gaul. Okay – that’s later. Notes. Okay. Here’s my sense of what Jesus was talking about – Kingdom 101.

1.    Lesson One: The kingdom of God is confounding. We don’t get it. And when we think we’ve got it, listen to Jesus, we probably don’t.

Right off the bat you should know that Jesus never gives a straight answer. He gives hints, analogies, parables and images but never a definition and only brief explanations. Jesus asked us what the kingdom of God would look like and a couple of the smart kids from Jerusalem were like, “An overturning of affairs in which God would come and reinstitute Israel’s political and spiritual fortunes by raising up Jerusalem.” That new kid, Simon the Zealot, whips out a knife and says, “Killing Romans.”  Dude, he’s my room mate. And others talked about “reestablishing a godly order with righteous people.” And Jesus was like “well those are good answers but still miss the point and he starts tell stories and giving examples which made no sense: down was up, tax collectors and sinners before priests and saints, poor over rich, peace beats war, small takes big. And I just raised my hand and said, “I don’t get it.” And you know what he said back, “Good. You’re not far from the kingdom of heaven.” What the heck is that supposed to mean?!

So here’s what I think. With Jesus, he doesn’t tell stories to explain truths in interesting or even helpful ways but to call attention to the unsatisfactoriness of previous explanations and understandings. Robert Capon says that the purpose of parables is “to pop every circuit breaker in their minds.” I don’t know what a circuit breaker but it sounds powerful and painful. It’s like the first response he wants from us is to say, “Wait! What?” He wants us to unlearn our faulty assumptions, to first admit we don’t understand. And Dude – he gets after it. Do you know that he told some of the other professors, the Pharisees, that prostitutes would be entering the kingdom before they would. We were like, “what?”

Someone asked Jesus why he spoke in such difficult ways, bizarre stories, strange analogies, unexplained metaphors and he answered by quoting from the book of Isaiah that he does that so “seeing they might not see and hearing they might not understand.” (Mark 4:12). Dude, this guy quotes Scripture so strangely. He claims authority over it. One of the smart students asked, “Who do you think you are, God?” Some people at this point dropped the class. They were like, “This is too hard and he’s too weird.” But I think they’re missing the point. What Jesus wants it seems concerning the kingdom is to first create an unmade up mind. He is not trying to confuse us, not simply interested in playing with us, but he wants to confound us, even to infuriate us. 

It made me think of the lyrics of one of my favorite singers, Jason Isbell, who sings about the mysteriousness of everyday life. In one song he offers what I think is a Jesus’ point about the kingdom:

You thought God was an architect, now you know
He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow
And everything you built that’s all for show goes up in flames.

Jesus’ stories are often like pipe bombs blowing up our own ideas of how the world is supposed to work and what it looks like when God comes. It’s going to be way different than what we thought. Dude – no, you can’t use that on the test. That’s my idea. You don’t even like Jason Isbell. 

So the first bit of homework was to pay attention to what bothered us, to carefully consider those places where we felt pushed and shoved and rather than dismiss what was being ask what needs to blow up. And then he said to us again, “He who has ears to hear let him hear.” And I was finally like (mimic explosion around your head) “mind blown.” 

2.    Lesson Two: It’s not about heaven. It’s heaven on earth. It’s godly rule meets earthly realm. 

 

As Jesus lectured and took us on field trips, we begin to get the impression that the goal of the kingdom was not to fill us with enough spiritual hot air so that we float above the earth, like the Pharisees. His goal seems to be to teach us to pray in such a way that material matters like what we wear, what we eat, and how we treat others ARE spiritual matters. 

We had this pop quiz and the question was, “What does it mean to inherit the kingdom of heaven?” And so many people put it means going to heaven when you die. I wrote, “Jesus is talking about the kingdom of heaven, the place we’ll go when we die. And at the end of the Gospel, he will do something radical so that we can go there.” And when I got it back he gave me a D and then wrote that he was being gracious. I went during office hours and asked if he could bump the grade since he said that we wouldn’t really understand the kingdom and he laughed. He didn’t change my grade but asked,. “What did I say about prayer?” And then I remembered him teaching us to pray, “Your kingdom come; Your will be done, on earth as in heaven.” The phrase kingdom of heaven is not so much about a place but the establishment of God’s rule. The place, Jesus always point us to, is earth and he’s always telling us that the kingdom story is that God is reclaiming his sovereign authority over the earth. That the earth is the place of God’s kingdom assault and that the things of this earth remain the very territory over which the battle is being waged. Basically, we learn that the kingdom wants us body and soul, which is why he cares how we spend our money, invest our time, treat those who are poor, or who we choose to eat with.

The two images of Jesus’ kingdom message revolve around God’s sovereignty (his rule) and his role as Creator. So kingdom spirituality is not simply about hearts but also bodies that God made. Not merely about prayer but also bread. It’s about paying attention to birds and flowers and finding nonaxiousness. Or encountering enemies and handling them without violence. It’s about words and works, dispositions and deeds, salt and light. So, you can’t say it’s not political (as if human well-being is purely an interior decision) nor can you say the kingdom is merely voting to better ensure our rights or to promote better social programs (as if the problems of this world are simply organizational ones).

The kingdom of God is not simply about a relationship with God or loving God but also about a relationship with our neighbor, the stranger, the sick, even the prisoner. Jesus says – “as you did it to one of the least of these . . . you did it to me” (Matt. 25:31-46). He’s constantly reminding us that one cannot worship and serve God or follow him and not be concerned about justice here and now. 

The homework for this lesson made me uncomfortable. Jesus told us, “I’m not really interested in your story of faith. I want to know about your story with money.” He talks a lot about money. He then asked us to come by and show him our checkbook stating, “That will show me what you believe and who you worship.” Dude!

The next lesson is one which I have been puzzling over which is always swirling around these discussions, “Who is Jesus? What’s his relationship to God’s rule?” Okay, call me crazy but this is what I’m coming to believe. 

         3.    Lesson Three: Jesus is the very kingdom itself in person.  In Jesus we have a parable of what the kingdom looks like. 

In one of our study sessions someone asked, “Is Jesus a revolutionary?” Well, in a sense, we all agreed, he was. Jesus was similar to revolutionaries we had encountered who claimed some sort of Messiah status and announced the kingdom of God, like Judas of Galilee (remember?), who led an open rebellion against the Romans and Jewish collaborators. But someone else then said that Jesus was a double revolutionary because though he shared a revolutionary spirit with many other Jews, the means by which he believed this revolution would happen was radically different. We still expect that to make the world right God needs to send in the tanks. The whole point of Jesus is that when God wants to change the world he doesn’t send in the tanks but the meek and the merciful, the peacemakers and people with a passion for justice. We need to see this from the inside out. It’s not the point that if I am one of these persons God is going to bless me. It is people like this through whom God is reclaiming his rule over the world.

But it’s even more than this. The kingdom also revolves around who Jesus is in a particular way. He is the one who is above the Scripture, who could do what only God could do like pass judgment or offer forgiveness for sins – only God can do those things! 

And a thought hit me. Maybe Jesus isn’t simply a revolutionary who is trying to bring the kingdom. What if Jesus is also the revolution? And this is why many of the stories, parables or actions that Jesus tells are not so subtle references to himself as the king and that it is these stories that infuriate his listeners the most. And this means something very important. It means that the kingdom of God is first and foremost God’s work, mission, initiative, and victory. So we live into this Jesus life, kingdom activity, with gusto because it’s end is secured not by us directly but by him. Which means that even as a follower I can weep, grow weary, and seemingly suffer defeat and the kingdom will still come.

Homework: And so the last homework assignment makes so much sense now. Jesus told us to pray that God’s kingdom would come. 

I have to admit that his teachings gave me a terrible paralysis thinking that it’s all up to us. If the fate of the world, the outcome of the future is solely on my doing, or even yours, then we are screwed – Peter’s world history convinced us that we are without hope. 

I’m realizing that the kingdom coming is not some stating some silly notion that everything that happens occurs because God planned it that way. To talk about the inevitability of the kingdom is stand upon the amazing resilience of God’s purposes. God’s intent for the world isn’t stumped by our plans. God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God’s kingdom, His will being done, is a declaration of what God is doing before it implies anything that we ought to do.

In seeking out the God’s kingdom and praying that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, I’m schooling myself to want what God wants, to receive not what my heart desires per se, but rather to become so enthralled with a vision of what God is doing on earth that I forget the story that the world has told us – that we have nothing better to do than to satisfy our desires. I am teaching myself to look forward to, and be, God’s kingdom come.