“Thy Kingdom come…” This term ‘kingdom’ is used not only in the Lord’s Prayer/Our Father but also throughout the New Testament. It is the term Jesus himself uses when he proclaims the gospel. “The Kingdom of God is near,” Jesus says. Now, this ‘kingdom’ terminology might create some misunderstanding on our part. I can at least think of one case. That is, it would limit our understanding and imagination of God’s Kingdom if we consider it merely as a spatial concept. We might think that it is a place somewhere in this world or life after death.
This way of looking at the kingdom of God, however, doesn’t sit well with the Lord’s Prayer. Let’s not forget that Jesus never taught us that we go to the kingdom of God. He taught us, “Thy Kingdom come.” God’s Kingdom that Jesus talks about is supposed to come to us, not that we go there. It’s the other way around. A helpful way of perceiving this kingdom language from its original Greek ‘βασιλεία,’ I would like to suggest is that we see it as “the Reign of God.” This rather different perception of the kingdom language invites God, not just God’s Kingdom somewhere out there, into our very reality. So that God reigns in every single moment of our lives. It’s about not only God’s Kingdom coming, but essentially God’s Reign coming and breaking into this world, into our lives. This, my friends, is not just a change of translation. This is our way of inviting God to reign, to govern, to lead our lives according to God’s will. This guidance of God is not coercive or oppressive but gentle and loving. In this Reign of God, our reality completely changes. G.K. Chesterton, an English writer, poet, philosopher, and theologian, can provide us some helpful insight about what this Reign of God might analogously look like. Here’s what he says in his piece on St Francis about the world turning upside down. It’s a bit lengthy but I believe it’s definitely worth listening: “...If a man saw the world upside down, with all the trees and towers hanging head downwards as in a pool, one effect would be to emphasize the idea of dependence. There is a Latin and literal connection; for the very word dependence only means hanging...If St. Francis saw in one of his strange dreams, the town of Assisi upside down, it need not have differed in a single detail from itself except in being entirely the other way round. But the point is this: that whereas to the normal eye the large masonry of its walls or the massive foundations of its watchtowers and its high citadel would make it seem safer and more permanent, the moment it was turned over the very same weight would make it seem more helpless and more in peril. It is but a symbol; but it happens to fit the psychological fact. St. Francis might love his little town as much as before, or more than before; but the nature of the love would be altered even in being increased. He might see and love every tile on the steep roofs or every bird on the battlements; but he would see them all in a new and divine light of eternal danger and dependence. Instead of being merely proud of his strong city because it could not be moved, he would be thankful to God Almighty that it had not been dropped; he would be thankful to God for not dropping the whole cosmos like a vast crystal to be shattered into falling stars. Perhaps St. Peter saw the world so, when he was crucified head-downwards.” (The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Volume II, pp. 72-73) This image of the world upside down standing in a ‘new and divine light of eternal danger and dependence’ hanging by God and so thanking God is what the Reign of God is really about. In this state, we solely depend on God, realizing that our existence comes from God and is up to God. We don’t idolize ourselves to be a god of our own image. When our reality is upside down by the Reign of God, whatever is great, tall, heavy, or magnificent is in danger. It’s about to fall. The heavier, higher, and greater it is in this world, the more it is about to fall from hanging in the Reign of God that is the world upside down. This analogy applies to jesus’ teaching this morning. Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. A little child is closer to God than those who are considered by the world as successful, wealthy, and powerful. In the world upside down, it is certainly true that “Whoever welcomes one such child in the Reign of God welcomes Jesus, and whoever welcomes Jesus welcomes God the Father.” We Christians are the ones who live in this world upside down. This must be our new transformed reality of the Kingdom of God. But we seem to suffer greatly from a type of spiritual amnesia, our habitual forgetfulness of the world upside down in the Reign of God. Our world is not yet upside down. We keep forgetting that our being, existence, and life itself is hanging downward, as God is holding us. When we forget this divine hanging, the Reign of God, we don’t realize that the heavier and greater we become, the closer we get to being dropped. We might unconsciously feel the danger of falling. This instinct of danger creates anxiety and fear of death, fear of not being heard, recognized, and loved. St James talks about all the symptoms of this spiritual amnesia. There’s dispute and conflict among people. There’s disorder and wickedness of every kind. There’s envy. There’s selfish ambition. We want to be greater than others. Our hearts are at war, arguing against one another who is the greatest. There’s no love for one another. There’s no beloved community. There’s no life together with others. What would be the remedy for this spiritual amnesia which creates conflicts and disputes? The only remedy that can help us remember the world upside down in the Reign of God is Jesus himself. He is the only way to the reality of God’s Reign. He is the way of self-offering love for others. More specifically speaking, his way of love is explicitly revealed through his death and resurrection by which we are cured of this spiritual amnesia. When we enter into this reality of Jesus’ death and resurrection, which we sacramentally do through baptism, we no longer forget our true reality of God’s Reign in which we are called to live. Jesus’ command, “Do this in remembrance of me” shakes off all our spiritual forgetfulness. Jesus’ death wakes us up from our deep spiritual amnesia. It shocks us and reminds us of our true reality of God’s Reign that brings the world upside down. We by default want to walk around it to avoid facing our mortality and finite nature, our own death, but we must walk through it. Because for us Christians, death is never the end of everything but really the beginning of the resurrected life. I recently came across this powerful saying while I was watching some TV show. (If you would like to know what show this is, you can ask me privately after Mass.) The saying goes like this, “When you think you’re gonna die yesterday, today is sweet.” In other words, keep death near to you. Keep death in your life to live out the resurrected life of Jesus. St James in this light adds in the second lesson, “Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” May God’s Kingdom reign in every moment of your life now and forever. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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