An Exciting but Scary Kingdom
[Slide 1] At the start of the Gospel reading for today in what he says not only with his words but with his actions Jesus says something revolutionary and political, scary, life changing and exciting. “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness.” (Matthew 9:35, NRSV) Later he tells the newly commissioned 12 disciples ... “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’” Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. ....” (Matthew 10:7–8, NRSV)
Indeed that’s how Jesus starts his Ministry in both Matthew and Mark “From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”” (Matthew 4:17, NRSV) cf Mark 1:15 ““The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”” (Mark 1:15, NIV) And there’s a parallel passage in Luke 4 where Jesus says : ““The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”” (Luke 4:18–21, NIV)
In church many of you will heard these passages and references to “the Kingdom of Heaven” and the “Kingdom of God” hundreds if not thousands of times and so for you and me these phrases lose a lot of their power.
You may think I have gone too far in saying that what Jesus speaks of is “revolutionary and political, scary, life changing and exciting.” So I want to take each of those terms and ideas and hopefully show you how astounding Jesus was when he first appeared and how even today what he says and does is still astounding.
[Slide 2] So how is Jesus revolutionary, political and scary. Now I don’t want you to think that Jesus ever advocated violent revolution, or following a particular faction whether it be Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots, Essenes, Liberals, National Party, Labor, One Nation, Republican or Democrat. It is true that Jesus did overturn the tables of the money changers, and he did say that he had not come to bring peace but a sword. It is also overwhelmingly true that in all his other actions, in his Sermon on the Mount, in his saying that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword (Matt 26:52)and in his words to Pilate that “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If [it did], my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”” (John 18:36, NRSVue) In these words and the vast majority of his words and actions Jesus is advocating politics and revolution which are about peace, love, healing, forgiveness, wholeness and reconciliation not about violence and crushing of division.
So how is Jesus revolutionary and political? When he says the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God has come near he is speaking about himself and his mission and those who follow him. He is saying my movement and I are the authority, the ultimate reality in the Universe. He is attacking the authority of the Law and the Pharisees; he is attacking the authority of the temple and the priests; he is attacking the authority of Herod and his kingdom and he is attacking the authority of the Roman Empire and the Emperor.
To see what is happening think of the 12 disciples Jesus has chosen. Peter, Andrew, James and John leave their boats and their nets. They leave one of the six fishing syndicates on Lake Galilee to follow Jesus because he is more important than family or wealth. Matthew leaves tax collecting because Jesus is more important than money, power, the king or the emperor. The other disciples make the same choices. One, Simon the Zealot probably gives up radical violent revolutionary politics. The Bible doesn’t tell us what the others did but tradition says farmers or fishers or tradesmen. Judas looked after the money so he might have been a scribe or a steward for a wealthy family. All of them in a time where what you did in life was always what your father did, chose to abandon that tradition which was so central to their way of life because Jesus and his movement (the kingdom of God) was more important.
Consider too what it must mean that Jesus is saying that the Kingdom of God is at hand, or near, or here or among you and all the parables he tells about it. Consider that he asks and has disciples, men and women, to follow him as he proclaims this kingdom.
And Jesus is called the Christ or the Messiah. These Greek & Hebrew words literally mean ‘anointed one’. It is only priests, prophets and kings who are anointed. The people of Israel expected a King like David, and a Prophet like Moses, an anointed one, a Messiah, a Christ to come and bring in the rule, the Kingdom of God. Right through the New Testament Jesus is called Christ and Messiah and sometimes king and prophet. This includes the earliest writings of the New Testament, the letters of Paul.
Given that Jesus was teaching that he and his movement was the Kingdom of God come near and his first followers called him the Christ or the Messiah, I personally can’t see Jesus could possibly see himself as anything other than that promised King, and prophet, the anointed one, the Christ, the Messiah. Not a King of this world ruling by violence and fear, lording it over his subjects, a very different King but still with authority.
He was claiming an authority greater than that of family, of the priests and the high priest, an authority greater than the Law, greater than kings like Herod and the Emperor of Rome the greatest Empire in the history of the middle East, Central Asia, Europe, and Africa up to the time of Jesus.
He was a real threat. He respected the Temple but said it wasn’t needed because he and not the temple was the way to God. He had no desire to sit on Herod or the Emperor’s thrones or form and army, but he commanded a band of followers. He had no desire to do away with the Law and commandments but said that he was the completion or fulfilment of the Law.
The Emperors, priests and kings, would not lose their positions or their lands but if what Jesus claimed about himself and his movement was true they would have to bow the knee to him and accept that the loyalty of their people was ultimately to the Kingdom of God, not to the temple, Empire or kingdom. Relying as they do on power, and/or violence and privilege, Rome and the Jewish authorities cannot understand or accept Jesus, and that is why he ends up nailed to a cross.
[Slide 3] What does this mean for you and me? It means we should love our family, be loyal to our nation, follow our calling, or faithfully do our job, but Jesus and his kingdom, the Kingdom of heaven, the kingdom or rule of God is more important than money, possessions, power, our nation, our Prime Ministers, Kings, Queens and presidents, the institutional structures and rules of the church, and even our families. Our ultimate meaning, loyalty and community are found in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and the community of the Holy Spirit.
Can you see how radical and scary this is. If you live under communism or Islamic State, the Taleeban or Ancient Rome before Constantine it could have you ostracised, thrown in prison, or put to death. Even in our culture it can lead to you being made fun of, or thought of as strange.
If you are a follower of Jesus, part of his Kingdom, if you trust yourself to him, what is the evidence? How is your life different to the lives and values of those around you? For you and me these are challenging questions, as challenging as they were for Jesus’ followers and for the Jewish and Roman authorities. This is especially true when Jesus expects you and me as a church and as individuals to go and proclaim that “‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, [and] drive out demons....” (Matthew 10:7–8, NIV) We are not called to only be nice or believe or be personally pure we are asked in the power and with the commission of Jesus to bring a foretaste of the Kingdom of God to the world for whom Christ died and was raised to new life.
[Slide 4] It is scary and revolutionary and small p political but I hope that you can see and I hope that part of the reason you are here is because it is also life changing and exciting.
For yourselves as Paul says in today’s Romans reading from romans 5(:1-8) we have been put right and have peace “with God through our Lord Jesus the messiah”, “We boast in the hope of the glory of God’ “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” And we know even though we are sinners, imperfect, Jesus the Messiah died for us.
Moreover in ways that are both miraculous and easier to understand in mortal terms you are part of a movement, the church or the body of Christ including our bit the Uniting Church, through which the sick have been healed, the dead raised, the scourge of leprosy has been radically reduced and in some places wiped out, and demons, oppressive powers and systems have been driven out. The hungry have been fed, the prisoners have been visited, the naked clothed and sheltered and the Kingdom of God has been proclaimed. As the agnostic writer and historian Tom Holland has pointed out in his book Dominion, the West has been radically transformed and shaped mostly for the better by the Christian faith, by the church, the imperfect expression of the Kingdom of God in the world. And you, right here today, gathered in this building, and online are part of that exiting story, a perfect and holy, and flawed and human story.
[Slide 5] And you are still called to that mission. Until the end of time, until the new heaven and the new earth come in their fullness, until Christ returns, you and I are called to be workers for the harvest. Jesus says you are to “... proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. [for] Freely you have received; [so] freely give.” (Matthew 10:7–8, NIV)
This is revolutionary, it is scary, it is small p political, but it is life changing, world transforming, and incredibly exciting because as Jesus said to his cousin John the Baptist, “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”” (Matthew 11:5–6, NIV) Amen.