Your Kingdom Come!

Homily for Sunday, July 27, 2014    Graves Chapel

Once upon a time, some seekers from the city went out into the wilderness to find a holy man who lived as a hermit. When they arrived at his small hut, they said to him, "Help us to find God."  But the old hermit shook his head and said, "No one can help you there."  The astonished seekers demanded, "Why not?"

And the hermit replied, "For the same reason that no one can help the fish to find the ocean."

            We may identify with the seekers in this story.  Where is God in our daily lives?  Why does God often seem far away?  How do we properly ask for help in getting closer to God?

            The first words of petition in the Lord's Prayer are "Thy kingdom come."  We are so much in the habit of repeating the familiar words of this prayer that we may not think about what it means. I'm sure we don't consider exactly what we are requesting when we ask God to bring his kingdom to reign on earth. Since both the petition and its verb are in the present tense, we ask God to bring his kingdom right here, right now, whenever we repeat the words, "Thy (or your) Kingdom come."

            And what is that kingdom?  The words "the kingdom," "the kingdom of God" or the "kingdom of heaven" are used 150 times in the New Testament, most often said by Jesus himself.  When I made a Google search of the phrase, the resulting document was ten pages long!  Clearly, what Jesus calls the kingdom is of major importance to Him, as evidenced by the words he placed so prominently in the prayer which he taught his disciples--"Your kingdom come." Here are a few more examples:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

"As you go, preach this message: "The kingdom of heaven is near."

"The time has come. The kingdom of God is near."

"The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say 'Here it is' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you."

Is it possible that thinking about heaven as something we have to wait for and earn is not what Jesus had in mind?  How many times does Jesus have to tell us that the kingdom of God is nearby, even within us, before we believe him?  As the resurrected Lord departed from his disciples, he told them, "I will be with you always, to the end of time." When we make ourselves present to God we find that God is very much present with us.  Doesn't that sound like the kingdom that has come?  I'm reminded of the old saying about not being able to see the forest for the trees. Or, as in the story of the hermit and the seekers, we are like the fish in the ocean. We are in the middle of heaven every minute and we fail to recognize the place.

            Jesus alludes to this very conundrum--of our not seeing what is all around us--in the gospel parables for today. He speaks metaphorically about the kingdom, and in each case, the kingdom of heaven is compared to something contained within a larger entity as we are contained in God, like a fish in the ocean or a treasure buried in a field. On behalf of his disciples, and we should count ourselves in that number, Jesus made this request of God: [John 21:17]:  "As you Father are in me, and I in you, so also may they be in us..." Being contained within God was a difficult concept for the disciples to grasp, as it is for us, so Jesus made some interesting comparisons.

            He tells of the mustard, the tiniest of seeds, planted within the soil--and from that small, enshrouded beginning, it grows into a tree large enough "for birds to come and roost among its branches." The mustard seed enters the soil, which contains and nurtures it, just as we are contained in and nurtured by God. If that relationship is fruitful, anything can be possible, like a tree growing from that minute seed and making a welcoming home for birds.  Once the seed sprouts and the roots extend in all directions, can we imagine the plant without the soil?  So it is for us, as we are planted in God.

            And then there is this parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."  Ah, the making of bread, and the fragrance of yeast bread fresh from the oven!  What can be more heavenly?  Yeast, however, is a microscopic organism, much tinier than a mustard seed.  When yeast is dissolved in water and thoroughly mixed into flour, only then will the bread rise. Again, something that seems small and inconsequential is contained within an agent that transforms it. Once again, it is impossible to imagine the bread without the yeast. Jesus says that in this very way, like yeast in a loaf of risen bread, we are contained within God.  Not only are we contained in God, but it is God who gives our lives purpose and meaning.

            The New Testament has also been called the New Covenant, and a covenant is a legally-binding promise.  The words of the promise Jesus made to his disciples--that he would be with them always--is the same promise He makes to us. The message of this promise is powerfully illustrated for us by Paul in today's memorable verses from his Letter to the Romans: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

            Nothing can separate us from God's love. Sometimes we may feel there is a vast distance between us and the powerful deity who parted the waters of the Red Sea. Sometimes we don't feel worthy of God's love, and we feel we have not earned it. When we feel distanced from God, we can remember that we are the ones who have turned our faces away.  When we refocus our attention on God, we find that God has been there all along. As Paul says, the Spirit is even there to teach us to pray when we don't know how and need some coaching. The message of the New Covenant is that all distance has been erased by God's loving mercy and grace. God and his Kingdom are right here with us...right now.           

           

The Collect:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.