The Kingdom of God

Heaven has been much on my mind lately.  Last week we celebrated All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days – both of which invite the mind to consider heaven.  Yesterday we laid to rest a dear and holy member of this parish, whose death put me in mind of heaven.  So, thoughts of heaven have been very present to me this past week or so.

You might think that today’s Gospel reading is about heaven.  Today we hear Jesus responding to a question from a religious leader – which is the greatest commandment.  And Jesus gives an entirely uncontroversial answer.  He gives, in fact, the correct answer – for this was a question not of opinion, but of commitment to established biblical teaching.  The Jewish tradition already knew where in Torah the answer to this question was to be found – which is the greatest commandment.  It’s not even a hard question, it’s a little like asking what are the first two words of the Lord’s Prayer; even if you don’t know how it continues, you could probably come up with “Our Father.”

An interesting thing happens in this little discussion between Jesus and the un-named scribe.  Since the scribe asked the question, you’d think it would be him who evaluated Jesus’ answer.  But in the matter of just a few sentences, St. Mark makes it clear that in fact, Jesus is now judging the reaction of the scribe, and judging it quite positively, since the scribe agrees with Jesus.  And Jesus says to the scribe, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

In the Gospels we often hear the terms “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven” used interchangeably.  Because of this mix of terminology, it’s easy to reach the conclusion that Jesus is talking about that misty place beyond the clouds where we tell children people go after they die.  But this is not quite right.  When Jesus said to the scribe, “You are not far from the kingdom of God,” he was not telling him that death was imminent.  It’s more like he was telling him, “You’re getting warmer…”

You remember how we did this when we were kids and our brother or sister was looking for something that we’d hidden.  “You’re getting colder,” we’d say as they moved away from the concealed object.  “You’re getting warmer,” we’d tell them as they moved toward the closet where it was hidden, or under the sofa, or wherever.

Jesus’ ministry was always about the kingdom of God.  So many times in his encounters with religious leaders, he’d had to say to them, “You’re getting colder.”  But here, rehearsing the greatest commandment to love God and love your neighbor, and remembering its preeminence among all the other rules of Jewish law, it delights Jesus to say to the scribe, “You’re getting warmer, warmer, warmer… you’re boiling hot now!”

These days we have forgotten so much about the kingdom of God, we confuse it with heaven – and often think of it as nothing more than a great retirement community in the sky, where the food is better than average, and the weather is better than Florida.  But when we think this way, we are only getting colder.  Jesus is not teaching about what happens to us in the life to come, he is teaching about life in this world.  He is not talking about a reward that awaits us after death, he is talking about a way of living on this side of the grave.  And when we begin to suspect that this talk about the kingdom of God has something to do with how we live our lives in the here and now, then we are getting much warmer.  Remember that John the Baptist came proclaiming the kingdom of God, and Jesus did the same.  This was the message they both began with: the kingdom of God has come near.  But what does this mean?  What are we supposed to do about it?

These days the church cannot escape the temptation to speak of our work in terms of commerce.  We talk about church shopping, marketing, and we often say that we have to be clear about what kind of religion we are selling.  I don’t much like the analogies from which that language springs, but if we must borrow our language and thinking from commerce, then I think we’d do much better to think in terms of construction than selling.  (Oh, I know they are related, but work with me here.)  For we have been called to build up the kingdom of God in this world.  This is our mission and our daily concern in the church.  How can we build up the kingdom of God?

Please note that this is not a call to establish a theocratic state, nor an insistence that America is a Christian nation, nor an assertion of so-called biblical ethics, nor a demand that the Ten Commandments be hung on the walls of our courthouses.  In all these endeavors, I fear, we’d be getting colder.

There are two phases in building up the kingdom of God, but it’s OK if they happen out of sequence.  Phase One is to worship the one, true, and living God, that is, to love him with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.  Phase Two is to love your neighbor as yourself, which is to say, follow the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do for you.  When we do this, we are getting warmer.

You would not think these two phases would be hard to manage – especially since the order of them doesn’t much matter – begin with Phase Two and then move on to Phase One: it’s OK!  But the story of faith - for both Jews and Christians – has been a story of struggle to be attentive to these two phases of building up the kingdom of God.

I’m sometimes asked these days, about the state of health of the Episcopal Church – which has been rife with conflict, lawsuits, discord, and decline over the past few decades.  Will we survive?  Will the Anglican Communion, of which we are a part, also survive, since it, too, faces many struggles?

How can we answer these questions?  Who knows what will become of our institutions?  Not me.  These are tricky questions, that, I guess require tricky answers, which I sometimes feel able to take a stab at.  But there is a less tricky answer to be given in response to whether or not our church structures will survive and grow: that depends on how much we want to work to build up the kingdom of God.  Because the kingdom of God is very near you right now, and building it up is all about what we do in this life, not about what happens to us in the life to come.

It sometimes feels to us as though we ourselves or the church at large is getting colder about all this – moving further and further away from building up the kingdom of God.  And I think you know it when you feel it.  I tend to feel this way – as if we are getting colder – at committees, and meetings and councils of the church where talk is cheap and plentiful.  And I feel we are getting warmer whenever we are doing things that seem to echo with the great commandment to love God and love his neighbor.

Many of you know by know my recitation of the things we do that get us warmer:  when we are at prayer or worship, or our voices are raised in song; when we are caring for the homeless and the hungry; when we are taking old things and making them new, giving them new life; when we are feeding one another at our tables; when we are attentive to the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, and the dying.

This Parish was built to be a place that knew the kingdom of God was very near, not beckoning us beyond the grave.  It was built to be a place where people could get warmer, warmer, warmer, even boiling hot in their search for God.  And I pray that it will always be so.

Next week, I can promise you, when I stand in the pulpit, I will be talking about money – I have been reading ahead and I happen to know that the Gospel invites me to do so.  And besides, next Sunday is Commitment Sunday when we make our pledges of financial support to the Parish.  I am regularly encouraged – and there are times when I am sure that this encouragement is right – to follow the examples of professional fund raisers, since there is an entire industry of people out there who are trying to get you to give your money to various causes.  And there are times, when I think it is a good idea to take this advice, to follow the best practices of fund raising, so that we can be accountable and successful in what we do.

But more urgently, I am called to remind you of the kingdom of God, which we are asked to build up in the here and now.  This is holy work that you and I have been called to do, and we can only do it together.  It delights me to know that year after year we seem to be getting warmer and warmer as we work for the kingdom of God in this place, as we remember that it is not some distant cloudy land that we will wander through in robes of white when the last trumpet has sounded.  But the kingdom of God is near you – it is here, it is now.

Everything we do, we do for this kingdom, out of love for its king, who gave us every gift, and who lived and died for us and rose from the dead, that our lives might be shaped not by the forces of this world, but by the commandments of a greater kingdom, where we are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and with all souls, all our strength, and all our mind.  This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets, and on their foundations we are building the kingdom of God, by his grace!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

4 November 2012

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Move Along

You may listen to Mother Erika's sermon here.

I wonder how long he’d been sitting there. Had he been there all day, in the dust and the warm spring sun? I wonder if this was the spot he always sat in, his spot, the smooth stone of the city wall worn away into a comfortable curve by the leaning of his back, the smells and sounds of the city gate familiar and homey. I wonder how he found his way there. Did a friend or a neighbor lead him there at daybreak? Or did he find his way there himself in the dewy early-morning, the path made familiar by day after day of sleepy, heavy-eyed travel – walk slowly to the smell of Miriam’s freshly baking bread, turn right when you hear Hiram’s donkey braying in his stable, watch the step up near the bubbling waters at the mikvah, and finally slide yourself into your spot along the road, your place of begging business, your tiny crease in the busy world.

I wonder if, when he sat alone by the roadside, he spent time trying to remember what the world looked like. He hadn’t always been blind, you see. He had once seen the soaring starkness of skinny palm trees, the vastness of a solid blue sky, the infinite smallness of the first star on a dark, cloudless night. He had once marveled at the sights of the world and all that was in it – at the way his honorable father’s eyes had twinkled when teasing his mother, at the tiny wrinkles in the knuckles of his baby sister, of the brightness of a smile and the curve of a shoulder and the flash of sunlit hair. But all that had been years ago, and even though sometimes he was sure that his dreams had been full of color, when he woke he couldn’t quite remember green, or the rich ruby glow of wine, or the shade of his own golden-brown skin.

I wonder what they sounded like on that day. Surely he heard them coming – first the scattershot of voices carried by the wind, then the buzz and hum of a band of country pilgrims headed on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem for Passover. Did he sit up right away, arranging his face into just the right combination of kindness and need, draping his empty cloak over his lap to catch the coins tossed from generous hands? Or did he wait a moment, knowing that he would hear the difference in sound when the crowd rounded the bend in the road and could see him, taking those few extra seconds to linger in the cool curve of the stone behind him?

I wonder when he noticed the sound change, when he heard the buzz and hum grow into a roar. When did he realize that this was more than just a few families of pilgrims, that it was an enormous crowd – men and women and children, with accents from all over the land, their bodies buzzing with an excitement that made his own heart beat faster in his chest. I wonder how he knew that it was Jesus of Nazareth who was passing by. Did he hear snippets of conversation from the crowd, murmurings of dead children raised and live children embraced and bread broken and multiplied and shared? Did he catch the disciples still arguing over who was the favorite? Or did he just feel it when the Lord walked by – a stillness in the air that made his breath catch in his throat, a warmth like the sun on his upturned face?

I wonder what made him cry out. Where did that courage come from in the heart of this man who had always played by society’s rules, begged by the roadside like a good beggar should, lived in corners and darkness like a good blind man should? What did his voice sound like when he shouted down the road, his face turned to the place where that warmth had been? Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! Did he even hear the crowds telling him to shut up, or was all he could hear his own desperate rasp of a cry and the pounding of his own heart? Again and again, Son of David, have mercy on me, have mercy on me, stop, stop and come back.

I wonder what it sounded like when the crowd shuffled and slowed and stopped. What did it feel like to have hundreds of people hushed and quiet, their attention focused on him as he waited, his ears straining to hear anything, his face turned, his body leaning into the place where that presence had passed by, waiting, longing. And then, a whisper coming down the lane, he is calling you, take heart, take courage, get up, you blind man, get up and go.

I wonder what it felt like to move, to feel the scratch of his woolen cloak as it slid off his knees, to hear the thump and jingle of coins as they fell to the ground, unheeded and unnecessary. What did it feel like to move out onto the road, to hurry down the path, sensing the still, expectant bodies all around, drawn along only by that presence, that warmth, that something out there. I wonder if it felt good – stretching out his legs, stretching out his arms, searching for this new thing, fearless in the face of his faith in this Jesus, standing directly in the Son, feeling this calm, warm, holy presence right before him.

I wonder what he thought when Jesus asked him what he wanted. Was it a thousand separate images of father and mother and family and bread and sky? Or was it just one word: green? I want green again. I want to see again, rabbi, and then the sound of those words – go, go on, your faith has made you well, and suddenly a flood of colors, the road and the trees and the sky in a tumble of greens and blues and dusty brown feet and bright white smiles. And the man standing before him with dark eyes as rich as wine. I wonder what it felt like to watch that man smile, turn his face towards Jerusalem and move along down the road, to feel the crowds begin to move along with him. I wonder what it felt like to choose: to look back at his place of sitting and to then turn away – to leave his cloak and his coins and his comfy cool curve of stone and to move along, to follow this man wherever he was going, whenever he might get there, however his life might be forever and forever changed.

I wonder where we find ourselves in this story. I wonder if today this Gospel is inviting us to draw near to Bartimaeus, to find ourselves at his side, to recognize something of ourselves in the man who has spent his life sitting in one place. After all, we find our way to this place by the same old sounds and smells – wake up and walk straight until you smell the incense, turn right when you hear the rustle of choir robes, slide yourself into the comfort of your pew. We lean back into the curve of this familiar worship, of our familiar prayer practices and scripture study and stewardship and service, day after day. And that sitting still, that sameness, that little crease of faith in a hectic and busy world can feel stable and steady and reassuring. But I wonder if this Gospel is inviting us into more, encouraging us, too, to take heart, get up, and move along. I wonder if this Gospel is reminding us that discipleship is not really about sitting still.       

This is not to say that we shouldn’t fully embrace the familiarity of this worship, of our prayer and study and stewardship and service. How in the world could I stand in the pulpit at Saint Mark’s Church and say that? No, these familiar practices are critical to the life of discipleship. But just because our practices are the same every day doesn’t mean that our faith should be the same every day as well. In fact, these practices of discipleship are important not because they help us to sit still, but because they help us to move – to notice Christ’s presence, to summon the courage to call out for his mercy, to hear his voice calling us to something new. And he is always calling us to something new. Why would we ever imagine that God would call us only once? Why would we ever imagine that God’s process of transformation would simply stop? God wants more for us – more of us – than that. Our discipleship is a journey; it is “the way” not “the destination.” It is a path, a process, not a place where one hangs a plaque and says, Here I will sit from now until eternity. We are called by Christ again, and again, to come close to him, to learn to see the world anew, and to move along.  

I wonder what it would feel like to move – to leap up from where we are now in our faith, in our discipleship, in our stewardship, and to move along the road. Perhaps you already feel like you’re already there, that, like Bartimaeus, you’re being transformed daily, that you’re moving along each and every moment because it just feels too good to stop. But for those times when you feel like you haven’t moved in a long time, when you feel like your faith has been sitting steady but perhaps a bit stale, remember – God is making all things new. God is present, here, on this road, loving you and longing to transform you – your call, your eyes, your faith, your whole life, this whole world. So lean in. Listen for that whisper down the lane, “Get up! Take heart! He is calling you.” I wonder what it would feel like to hear that voice this morning and to spring up and to move.                

Note: I am much indebted to Jerome Berryman and the Godly Play curriculum for the language of this sermon. The "wondering" comes from him!

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

28 October 2012

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

They Cast Their Nets

You may listen to Father Phelps's sermon here.

Preached by Father Nicholas Phelps

21 October 2012

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia