From the Daily Lectionary for Thursday in the Twenty-Fourth Week after Pentecost
Luke 17:20-37
The Coming of the Kingdom
Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
Then he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, ‘Look there!’ or ‘Look here!’ Do not go, do not set off in pursuit. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from heaven and destroyed all of them —it will be like that on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, anyone on the housetop who has belongings in the house must not come down to take them away; and likewise anyone in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it. I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken and the other left.” Then they asked him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”
Much of Jesus’ teaching is classical Torah, summarized in the practice of love of neighbor individually and collectively. But some of Jesus’ teaching is radically different from classical Judaism. This passage is one example. For Jews the final consummation of heaven and earth was a decidedly future event. It is only at the end of time when all would be revealed, when God will be “all in all.” We western Christians, in the main, have projected this final consummation into the next life, this mortal earthly existence being mere preparation.
Luke is a Gospel of reversals; that is to say, that Luke turns conventional wisdom on its head: the poor and the shamed will be raised up to dignity; the rich and powerful will be cast down; peace, not violence, is the means of ordering society. In Luke’s world women speak with authority; the sick and mentally ill, outcasts and foreigners, even enemies, receive God’s favor. Here Jesus refutes the apocalyptic ethos of his day which held that God, sometime in the future, would usher in a new age in dramatic fashion, establishing a new kingdom in which all would be held in mutual regard.
Not so, Jesus tells his disciples. The kingdom of God is “among us” he says. It is not a future event, a founding of a utopian ideal; instead it is manifest in the present, upon this mortal earth. Its ways can only be seen through the eye of the enlightened imagination. Perhaps that is why Luke puts such an emphasis on prayer, prayer being artfully mindful of the world around us.
Moreover, this present kingdom is not what we’d call a utopia. The kingdom, along with enlightened joy, includes suffering and death. The kingdom is the very process of life itself, just as it is, though its subjects practice the awareness of its mysterious goodness, its beauty, its mysterious symmetry, that evoke the necessity of change and transformation. The “darkness and the light are both alike.” Beauty and joy cannot exist without pain and suffering. Birth and new life do not come about without first the pangs of the birth canal. The kingdom is not utopia, but it is good.
Perhaps a better description of the kingdom of God is that it is the world just as it is in the presence of love. It is love that gives us the vision to see the goodness all around us. Love gives meaning and purpose to an otherwise random sequence of events and decisions.
To live our lives under the auspices of love shapes the world into a new reality forever possible. Love is the artist, the world, artifice. That is why the practice of the faith is so very important. To practice compassion is to see that compassion is among us; to strive for justice is to see justice among us; to welcome the stranger is to know that all are welcome; to love is to know that the world is made for love.
The process, not the end, is the thing. In the beginning, as it is now, God creates the world… and God calls it good. To see it as such is to see the kingdom of God in all its royal splendor, worthy of myth and metaphor… but now, not then.
A Prayer for the Stewardship of Creation (BCP p. 208)
O merciful Creator, whose hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature: Make us, we ask, ever thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your bounty; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who with you and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
