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.” (Luke 17:20-21)
I think most of us would like to have a yellow brick road… the bigger and brighter – the better! It’s nice when it’s easy to tell what is the road and what isn’t… even better if it’s clear where it leads and has a nice, obvious destination. Dorothy had a yellow brick road… she had companions for her journey and she had a clear objective – the Wizard of Oz in the Emerald Tower.
The problem with wizards, towers, and clear paths – is that they are all illusions. Oz’s answers are only cleverly worded deceptions, the tower is more about allowing awe to overcome your perception of truth, and the clear path – well it clearly got Dorothy nowhere… and when all is said and done it was in the ambiguous trials of the journey that Scarecrow, the Lion, the Tin Man and Dorothy realized that they had what they needed all along.
“The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed… in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
Karl Marx called Christianity an opiate of the people… and in fact it can be, and often is one. We make Christianity an opiate when we think the kingdom of God is an end of time destination. We make Christianity an opiate when we presume that social justice is only a God agenda… and things will be made right by God in the “end”. We make Christianity an opiate when we make it a simple, clear pathway to heaven.
Christianity is not a yellow brick road.
Heaven is not an Emerald Tower.
God is not the Wizard of Oz
And yet… how often do we try to make it that way? How often do we say things and act in ways that take away the transformative power of God’s grace… and turn our faith into palliative care? The kingdom of God is among us… and a great amount of Jesus time and energy in his ministry is spent trying to help us realize that and see it for ourselves.
Heaven is not God’s kingdom… or at least heaven alone isn’t. Earth… this world, our lives – with all its muck and grime, all its ambiguity and brokenness, all the good, the bad, and the ugly… it is all God’s kingdom too! When we let the idea of an Emerald Tower (or pearly gates) allow us to think that we don’t have to worry about the grimy road were traveling… than all we’ve done is turn God into a wizard of illusions – and delusions.
Discipleship is a journey following Christ… but we are not following Christ to some “other place”. We follow Christ to learn and be formed in the journey, we follow Christ to the cross – and to resurrection, where our eyes are opened, and we realize that God is redeeming God’s kingdom... here and now!
Are you paying attention to the kingdom of God around you?
Is your faith transforming you and the world around you in the ways of Jesus?
Is your journey helping others see and know God’s love in their journey?
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Lord God,
This world is your kingdom.
Help us to have kingdom eyes and kingdom lives –
that all we say and do testifies to your grace and love.
Amen.
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We are always on this journey...Barbara Brown Taylor says, "Gosh, you are never where you are supposed to be. What a shame. Be where you are".
ReplyDeleteshe says we need to think about bringing lovingkindness to any relationship even the crabby or painful ones. I don't think we have to hit people over the head with our religion but if we are really faith filled and have a Christ like attitude surely others will notice.