It's hard to believe that the year is half over already and that the first decade of the 21st Century is over. When I was going to grammar school, one of my classmates was saying that the Bible said that the world would exist for 1000 years after Jesus, but not for another 1000 years. That would mean that the world should have ended at the turn of the century. Unless, it meant that the time started counting when Jesus died on the cross, or it could have been that the starting time was at the Ascension or some other starting point. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we do not really know when the end of the world as we know it is going to happen.
This liturgical year, the Gospel readings are primarily from the Gospel of Luke, especially now during "Ordinary Time". Luke has several themes that run through the Gospel as threads which tie his whole narrative together. The major theme is that the Kingdom of God is near. Of the 52 times that this phrase appears in the four Gospels, it is in Luke’s Gospel 28 times. Other themes that appear in Luke's Gospel include Jesus looking with compassion upon others and the fulfillment of the promised Messiah in Jewish Scriptures in Jesus. Keeping these themes in mind when reading individual passages from this Gospel helps us to understand the passages better.
In Jesus' view, the ways of the Kingdom of God are not the same as the ways of the world. For example, in the Gospel on June 27, James and John urged Jesus to burn down a Samaritan town that didn"t welcome them, much like Old Testament times. However, by rebuking James and John, Jesus is telling us that things are different now that the kingdom has come near. How would we act if we fully embraced that idea, as individual, as communities, as nations and globally? For example, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico would probably have been different. It may not have happened at all or there would have been an adequate disaster response plan in place before it happened so as to minimize the spill. Another example would be the immigration issue. In the kingdom of God, we be would working for a solution to why people are desiring to come to the United States without going through the "proper channels" to find work instead of looking for ways to keep them from entering the country or sending them back once they are exposed as illegal aliens.
Most simply put, we see that the kingdom of God strives for justice for all people. Whereas the "kingdom of the world" strives to take from others for the benefit of a few. There are many parables in the Gospel that illustrate how God treats everyone the same, the workers get the same wage regardless of how long they worked in the fields; the total debt is forgiven of the two debtors; the first being last and the last being first. There is no distinction among those who belong to the kingdom of God. The ways of the world looks to get power and uses that power over others so that the power can be kept and even expanded. A power that has the fear of being lost by those who have it so they take drastic steps to keep it. This power can be seen in militaristic forms of dominating others; it can be economic forms where people are kept in poverty, barely able to survive; or it can even be where there is psychological or physical abuse that is used to diminish the worth of a person.
It should be clear which kingdom we prefer to be in. However, as we know, it is difficult to move from the kingdom of the world to the kingdom of God, we keep reverting back to the old ways. However, with the help of the Holy Spirit and a willingness on our part to submit to the ways of Jesus, we can make that transition and show others how wonderful it is to live in the light of God's kingdom. May we open our hearts to this transforming power of Jesus.
May God bless,
Pastor Dave