The Kingdom of God

This is the message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church Sunday night, September 13, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Mark 15:42--16:8.

            Tonight we’re ending our look at the Lord’s Prayer.  The last sentence of the Lord’s Prayer, as we commonly say it, says, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and glory forever”.

            Now, if you remember back when we read the versions of the Lord’s Prayer that appear in the Bible, you may remember that this line does not appear there.  It’s not in Matthew’s version, and it’s not in Luke’s version.  We think this line was added to the prayer later on, simply because the prayer the way Jesus said it felt unfinished.  It was common, in the early days of Christianity, to say a line like this at the end of a prayer.  And so, the line got added to the Lord’s Prayer and tradition has kept it there.

            There’s certainly nothing wrong with it.  We do believe, as Christians, that the kingdom belongs to God.  We do believe that all power and all glory belong to God.  So, it’s perfectly all right to end the Lord’s Prayer this way, talking about God’s kingdom.

            You know, while Jesus walked on the earth, he talked a lot about the kingdom of God.  He compared it to all sorts of things.  He said the kingdom of God was like a man sowing seed on the ground--some of it would take root and produce and some of it would not.  Jesus said the kingdom of God was like a mustard seed--something really small that would grow into something really big.  Jesus said the kingdom of God is like yeast--just a little of it can work through a whole lot of people.

            But Jesus said other things about the kingdom of God.  Here’s one of them.  Jesus said, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

            The kingdom of God is in your midst.  Think about that.  Jesus was telling them that the kingdom of God was right there.  It was right in front of them.  It was not something that they had to go running around and look for.  It was not something that they had to wait for.  It was right there, right now, in the form of Jesus.

            They could not see it.  Why not?  Well, they looked around and saw things that were not the way they thought they should be.  In particular, they saw that the nation of Israel had been taken over by the Roman Empire.  Remember, they were supposed to be God’s chosen people.  God had promised to give them this land forever.  And now, they’d been taken over by someone else.  That was not right.  How could the kingdom of God be in their midst when things were not the way they were supposed to be and there was no sign that anything was changing?

            And probably, if someone was to come to us now and say that the kingdom of God is in our midst, we’d react pretty much the same way.  We’d look at all the things that we think are not the way they should be.  We’d look at this pandemic, that’s lasted for over six months now and we still have no idea when it’s going to end.  We’d look at rioting and violent protests.  And we’d look at other things.  We’d look at poverty.  We’d look at crime.  We’d look at illness.  We’d look at broken relationships.  We’d look at the number of children who don’t have God in their lives.  And we’d think, “How can the kingdom of God be in our midst when things are not the way they’re supposed to be and there’s no sign that anything’s changing?”

            That’s why Jesus told us all those things about what the kingdom of God is.  The kingdom of God is not something that happens BOOM, all at once.  It something that takes time.  

When you go out to plant, you don’t expect the crop to come up the next day.  It takes time.  A mustard seed grows into a large plant--but not all at once.  It takes time.  Yeast will work its way through a whole batch of dough--but not instantly.  It takes time.

The kingdom of God is here.  We don’t have to go running around looking for it.  We don’t have to wait for it.  The kingdom of God is right here, right now.  It came in the form of Jesus.  But it’s not fully developed yet.  It takes time.

How much time?  I don’t know.  More time than I’d like, quite frankly.  Jesus came two thousand years ago.  To me, that seems like an awfully long time to wait.  That’s a lot of people who’ve died, who’ve lived in poverty, who’ve suffered from loneliness or broken relationships or all kinds of things.  I would not have chosen to make it take this long.  I don’t like it that it’s taking this long.  I’d like all those things to be over with.  I’d like the kingdom of God to be fully developed now, this evening.

But that’s not the way it is.  So, we have to trust that God has plans that are better than ours.  And, when the kingdom of God is not developed in the time we’d like it to be, we have to trust that there’s are good reasons why not, even if it we don’t understand what those reasons could, and even if we cannot understand how there could possibly good reasons for it.

Or, we don’t.  We don’t have to trust God.  We don’t have to trust God’s timing.  We can choose to think this is all nonsense.  We can choose to think there’s no “kingdom of God” at all, or that if there is it’s still a long way off.  We don’t have to believe or trust any of it.

That’s why we read the story of Jesus’ resurrection from the gospel of Mark.  What we read today is the end of the gospel of Mark.  The gospel of Mark ends with the women at the tomb being told that Jesus has risen, and with those women running away from the tomb, scared and confused, not knowing what to make of it, having more questions than answers.  

Now, if you look in your Bible, you may see some more verses after that.  Those verses were added years later, because people were uncomfortable with this ending to the gospel of Mark.  But personally, I love it. 

I love it because that’s how life is.  Life is not something that’s all nice and neat.  Life is not something that always makes sense to us.  Life is not something that always leads to a completely logical and satisfactory conclusion, like our favorite stories do when we’re kids.  Life is something that leaves us with a lot of loose ends and a lot of unfinished stories.  Life is something that sometimes confuses us and sometimes confounds us and sometimes even scares us.

I also love it because if we really think about the kingdom of God, our reaction is likely to be exactly like the reaction of those women.  We don’t know what to make of it.  We have more questions than answers.

Jesus told us that the kingdom of God had come.  It started coming when Jesus came to the earth.  It came some more when Jesus rose on that first Easter morning and appeared to the women.  It came some more when he appeared to the disciples, and they believed.  It came some more when those disciples shared the story of Jesus with others.  And it has kept coming in the two thousand years since. Every time someone makes a decision for Jesus, the kingdom of God comes a little more.

But, again, it’s hard to see it.  It seems like it should not be taking this long.  And so, it’s hard for us to believe it’s still coming.  It’s easy for us to start to wonder.  It’s easy for us to doubt.  It’s easy for us to think the kingdom of God is not truly here, because we cannot see it coming.

But here’s the thing.  The fact that we cannot see things happening does not mean that nothing is happening.  It just means we cannot see them yet.  God works in all kinds of ways, large and small.  God works in all kinds of people, too.  God is touching hearts, and touching lives, every single day, in all kinds of ways.  The fact that we don’t see God at work does not mean God is not working.  It just means we cannot see it right now.

That’s one more thing about those examples Jesus gave us.  Think about planting seeds again.  When we plant seeds, at first we don’t see anything, do we?  We hope something is happening, we think something is happening, but we cannot see it.  It’s only when the plant breaks through the surface of the ground that we know for sure that something was happening.  Until then, we have to trust.  We have to have faith.  We have to believe.  Or, again, we don’t.  It’s up to us.

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is in your midst.”  It’s right here, right now.  God has planted seeds.  And God continues to plant seeds.  And those seeds are growing.  We cannot see them yet.  But they’re growing.  They’re growing right here in the Wheatland Parish.  And someday, those seeds are going to grow into large plants.  It may take a long time.  Or, it may not.  But it is going to happen.  It will happen at a time of God’s choosing and in a way of God’s choosing.  But it is going to happen.

Jesus brought the kingdom of God to us.  And because Jesus rose from the dead, we know the kingdom of God will never leave.  It will continue to grow until it is fully developed and Jesus comes again.  And then, the kingdom and the power and the glory truly will be his, now and forever.