Matthew 4:17-22
17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
What did Jesus want for the world? What did Jesus want from us? Here is how Mark summarizes his message, in one sentence: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
The “kingdom of heaven” was Jesus' driving passion. After experiencing an ecstatic vision of God and then spending 40 days in mystical solitude, Jesus emerged from the wilderness like a man on fire. He was consumed with a vision from God, and for the next 3 years he fought tirelessly to bring this vision to life, challenging the powers-that-be until they ultimately crucified him for it.
But what was this vision? What does it mean that the kingdom of heaven is at hand?
If you take the word of most evangelical churches, this message is primarily about the next life, not this life. For some, the “kingdom of heaven” means that Jesus wants us to turn away from our individual sins (as defined by their conservative sensibilities), and put our trust in his saving work on the cross, so that we can go to heaven when we die. If this is what Jesus meant, then many of us can’t be bothered. A disembodied, otherworldly message like that trivializes the pain of this earth.
I’m writing this after having watched the first presidential debate of the 2024 election season, between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It was a shit show! A maniacal fascist versus an ancient relic of a broken political system. A clown who is likely to start WW3 versus an octogenarian who bragged about how many bombs he provided for a genocide against a marginalized people group. In a world of climate disaster, racial violence, income inequality, and child poverty, Jesus’s message of “the kingdom of heaven” sounds trite to many of us. Does Jesus have anything to say to a world on fire? Or is he only offering us an escape plan?
The word “heaven” causes many evangelicals think Jesus was primarily talking about the afterlife. The other Gospels use the phrase, “the kingdom of God.” Matthew’s Gospel, which was written to a Jewish audience, substitutes “heaven” for “God,” as a Jewish custom out of reverence for God’s name. Whatever we call it, Jesus’s kingdom message was a declaration of God’s rule and reign on this earth, not about where we go when we die. Jesus’s passion was to see God’s will done, “on earth as it is in heaven.”
“Kingdom” language is political. The “kingdom of God” is what this earth would be like if God was in charge, and the domination systems that rule this world were not. It is God’s dream for the world. It is what the world would look like if it was governed by Love.
When I think about a modern example of Jesus’s “kingdom of God,” I think of Martin Luther King Jr’s expression, “the beloved community.” The beloved community was a political idea, but it was also a deeply theological idea. Like Jesus, King was not speaking of the belovedness we will experience in heaven one day with God. He believed we were supposed to be working towards a world where people experience their belovedness right now. King said, "there is nothing to keep us from remolding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. This is the only way to create the beloved community."
The Kingdom of God is about building a better world, right here and now.
Many conservative Christians believe it is NOT the job of the church or Christians to build a better world. They scoff at “utopian thinking.” They call socialists naive and idealistic, and say that because we are all sinners, we can’t change this world. And yet, both Christians and non-Christians, all moved by God’s Spirit, have changed the world in countless important ways throughout history, urging us all closer to the beloved community.
Abolitionists were called naive and idealistic for wanting to abolish slavery, but they fought for a better world.
Suffragettes were laughed off for wanting equal access to education and professional opportunities for women, but they fought for a better world.
Social Gospel Christians in Canada fought for universal health care– they were called impractical, but now Universal health care is normative throughout the developed world (In America, many conservative Christians still call it idealistic and impossible)!
The end of segregation was once seen as a utopian pipe dream, but following the Spirit of God, the civil rights movement ultimately triumphed over Jim Crow.
At this moment in history, I believe “the kingdom of God is at hand” in the way LGBTQ+ people are being acknowledged and celebrated as equally beloved children of God, without the need to hide who they are or conform to majority cultural scripts of heteronormativity. Although many Christians have stood in opposition to this advance of liberation and human rights, it is clear that they are standing against a move of the Spirit, and they will fail.
Jesus calls us all to repent– to turn around, and join in on the liberative move of the Spirit. Just 4 years ago, I was non-affirming of LGBTQ+ identities and relationships. I heard Jesus’s call to repentance from witnessing the pain that harmful theology had done to God’s beloved queer children. I turned around. I repented. At any point, we can repent! We can begin working towards the beloved community.
God’s dream for the world is marching forward wherever love and liberation are advancing. The kingdom of God is always at hand. The beloved community is being realized in every place where we are acknowledging our common dignity and humanity.
The question is, what side are we on?
Inhale: I repent for maintaining the status quo (4 seconds)
-HOLD- (4 seconds)
Exhale: I am listening for the Spirit at work (4 seconds)
Inhale: Let love be done (4 seconds)
-HOLD- (4 seconds)
Exhale: On earth as in heaven (4 seconds)
Yessss, yes, yes!!! The kingdom is here, and now. Jesus didn’t preach escape from this world, he preached heaven and earth as one… here! We can help bring heaven to this earth (or we can choose to make it hell…here, and now). Loving this series, thank you Brian.
Yes, Biden is old, but Trump is WAY more dangerous to everything we want to accomplish in Jesus' name. Please stop this false equivalence. We cannot have another Trump presidency. But don't stop pressuring President Biden to stand for justice in Palestine, either. In any case, Trump would be even worse for Palestinians (and every other vulnerable group in the world).