To Be the Kingdom
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
Sermon Note:
At the 21:51 mark in the sermon, I quoted from the following: Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2008), 76-77.
Scripture: Matthew 4:23 – 5:16
23 Jesus went all over Galilee. There He taught in the synagogues. He preached the good news of God’s kingdom. He healed every illness and sickness the people had. Read more…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
I had new internet installed in my apartment this week. I’m hoping those of you who join us for our worship service on Sunday will notice a difference. My old internet traveled across a phone line to get into my apartment. The new internet travels across something called a fibre-optic cable. Do you know about these? Some of you do, so please bear with me. I was fascinated as the man who took care of the installation in my apartment talked me through everything he was doing. He explained and showed me that these cables are threads of glass the size of a single strand of hair. I could barely see it even though he held it in front of dark background. Information travels along this hair-sized thread of glass as light that somehow my computer and television and phone can read as websites and music videos and television shows. At one point, I heard myself say to the guy in my apartment, “There’s a lot that sucks about our world these days, but then there are things like this!” I don’t know if those of you who are more technically savvy than I am would feel like I did, but it seemed like magic. I can’t even begin to imagine the kind of mind that dreams up something like this. Maybe there still are good things in our world after all.
I needed to be reminded of that. I’ve been feeling the weight of the pandemic and its fallout and of the centuries-old reality of racism and the too-frequent complicity of the Church in that reality. I’ve been praying the part of the Lord’s Prayer that reads, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” a lot.
In Christianity we talk of the now-ness of God’s kingdom. We remember that Jesus’ gospel (His good news) was that God’s kingdom has come near.[1] We also talk about the not-yet-ness of God’s kingdom, acknowledging that it is something yet to be realized in full. I’ve spent a lot of time in the not-yet-ness lately and not enough time in the now-ness. It’s not that I want to (or should) let go of the not-yet-ness. It’s important to be honest about the state of our broken world. For that matter, it’s important to be honest about the state of myself. But when that not-yet-ness isn’t balanced by the now-ness, my lament can too easily turn into despair. So beginning this Sunday we’re going to be considering the kingdom of God. We’re going to be considering it in terms of both something that has come and something that is yet to come. We’ll be inviting God to show us how we can be part of the now-ness of His kingdom, while at the same time not denying its not-yet-ness.
As you prepare for Sunday, I invite you to consider which direction you’ve been leaning lately. Have you been mostly focused on the not-yet-ness or on the now-ness? Whichever way you lean, I invite you to take some time to intentionally be in the other. If you see signs of goodness and hope all around – signs that God’s kingdom has, indeed, come near – spend some time acknowledging and lamenting where God’s kingdom is yet to come. If you find yourself, like I’ve been, leaning more into the not-yet-ness of God’s kingdom, I invite you to take some time to intentionally look for those places of goodness and hope in our world – places that evidence the now-ness of God’s kingdom.
[1] Matthew 4:17, Mark 1:5, Luke 10:9