The Kingdom of God - where is it?

The Kingdom of God - in this world?

What exactly is the Kingdom of God? Where is it? Ever since I became immersed in wanting to know more about Jesus (as a teenager), I would get an illumination about what the Kingdom of God meant, and it would spur me on to wanting to live more and more like a ‘Kingdom person’. 

In the early days I learnt that the qualities of the kingdom are love, joy, and peace; Or when we say ‘your kingdom come’ in the Our Father it is asking for these to be established in our homes, our societies; That Jesus said ‘my kingdom is not of this world’ and hence it is not one we can see and touch but live and feel.

As I studied more I came to know of the Beatitudes that spoke of Jesus’ new law of Love. I read with great interest the parables that explained what ‘kingdom of God’ is, with each parable different from one another as chalk and cheese; and like us, His disciples too needed them to be explained! In short, my understanding was this bits-and- parts picture that still eluded me in its entirety.

Often in my relationship with Jesus I’d refer to Him as my King and worship Him as I ought to, but most of the time He is my master, my guide, my comforter, my brother, my friend, my suffering Messiah and Redeemer. Living in this day and age we find the concept of king as a thing of the past, where most monarchical heads now are mere titular figures. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is PM of Canada but so far removed from my immediate circumstance as the distance of Ottawa to BC.

Never in all these years did all my experience of what the kingdom is make such complete sense to me as recently when I meditated on that particular day’s reading from the book of Revelation: 

“…You were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation, you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth.”  This was just before the feast of Christ the King on Nov 25 2012.  After spending some time in prayer and reading this passage, I suddenly came to see and believe from my heart–  YES! The Kingdom of God is truly among us!

The Kingdom of God is here and now!

WE ARE the people ransomed by the blood of the lamb for God from every nation, tribe and language and we serve Jesus as our king! Here and Now! It is not a concept out there, or in the air and never was. Even when the kingdom was as a little mustard seed Jesus said “Behold the kingdom of God is among you.” Luke17: 21 

The church – beginning as the smallest of seeds in the 12 apostles around the table,  then sown by the blood of martyrs and the evangelisation of nations and peoples through the centuries, grew “like the largest of plants and put forth branches so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade” (Mark4: 31,32). We are now a little over 1.3 billion Catholics world-wide; while one-third of the world’s total population is Christian: The largest religious group in the world. All the nations of the earth have heard the message of the Gospel and most people on earth have heard it too; (and if many have not then we still have work to do!)

How are we this kingdom?

In the Old Testament God called Abraham to be the father of a great nation – to be His people and He, their God and King. After crossing over into Jordan into the Promised Land in the Book of Joshua , God set Judges to protect and often deliver the people in their infidelity and captivity, while He was their King and would convey His decrees through the judges to His people. Later they saw how other nations had kings and they asked Samuel (the last of the judges) to ask God for a king to rule over them. God gave in to their request (in 1Sam 8: 7,8) saying, “Grant the people’s every request. It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their King.” and He gave them their first king, Saul. Thus began, from what was seemingly not His will, the third stage of his plan of salvation for the world - to send his own son Jesus as their king and a king for all humanity in the line of King David.

Many hundreds of years later, when the line of kings had all but a stump left, it was finally in “the acceptable year of the Lord”, that Jesus came to the world - as a little baby born to Mary and Joseph of the House of King David, a most awesome and wondrous event of history, when God entered humanity and became one of us to redeem us.

When Pilate asked Jesus (Jn 18:37), “So are you a King?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a King. For this purpose I was born and for this reason I came into the world, to testify to the truth.”

The Laws of the Kingdom: LOVE

Jesus established his kingdom, proclaiming it on the Mount, in the Beatitudes and throughout his ministry on earth, making known his powerful new Law of Love: “A new commandment I give you, love one another as I have loved you (Jn 15:12),” demonstrating it every moment of his High-Priestly life and finally with his suffering and death on the cross. Love God and love our neighbour as He loved us: Every other law emanates from, and is based on this Law of Love, whether it is honouring the Sabbath day and going to church every Sunday or loving our neighbour who ignores or insults us.

When Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world”, it is no wonder then that his Beatitudes entirely contradict the values of the world – which seem more like ‘blessed are the most beautiful’, ‘blessed are the rich and famous’, ‘blessed are the most successful and powerful’, ‘blessed are the most pleasured and contented’! In the values of the world then, don’t we find the Beatitudes completely opposing them?

The New Jerusalem

2000 years later ….this little mustard seed has truly become a great, big tree! Our great universal ‘Catholic’ church is the definitive New Jerusalem, God’s people; the Pope, bishops and cardinals, priests are the ‘priests serving our God’ (as the ‘judges’ of the Old Testament) and Jesus is our King, none else!  What’s more, every one of us of every language and nation is called to be a disciple, priest, prophet and king as we share in the Body and Blood of our King who died for us and become part of his mystical Body every time we receive the Eucharist at Mass.

It was awe inspiring to feel part of this universal family. In spite of the wrongs of the church over the centuries, the Reformation and breaking away of the Protestant churches,  in spite of the sins of today and the attacks against the church, as Jesus told St Peter “…the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” (Matt 16:18) this church, in all its imperfections, is thriving as ever before.

The unbroken chain of Popes down the centuries, the great good that is being done constantly to alleviate poverty, misery and pain of every kind in hurting societies by the religious communities and the laity, every act of mercy, the quiet (and in centuries before, unabashed) filtering of gospel values in every level of civilised society and governance, whether we now call it the more secular ‘human values’ or not, and the continuous growth of numbers testifies to it’s presence and vibrancy. The progress of humanity in every discipline of life is unparalleled in the history of the world as in the last 2000 years and history testifies to it being as a result of the existence of Christianity.

Finally, the obedience of the kingdom people far outweighs any rebelliousness, discontent, dissatisfaction or disobedience – and even in all of that God has his plan, turning every unseemly situation into something fruitful. ‘In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil caused by his creatures.’ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 312

Am I a ‘Kingdom person’?

I feel a sense of connection, if not oneness with every lover of Christ, Catholic or not, alive or not. We are all united in this great big tree of life, in heaven and on earth. We are this great big kingdom of people who are the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the leaven in the dough, all living in the world, not in a separate country and continent. We are very much part of society – “yet not of this world”, where how I live makes a difference for all of humanity. 

We are all connected, first through my behaviour at home, then in society, my workplace, market place, school and government, among my neighbours and down my road, in my church and in my car - I can choose to be a citizen of this kingdom, and believe that everything I do makes this world a better place or not, ‘Thy Kingdom come’ or not.

In one of his parables Jesus talks of the kingdom of God being like a field where both the good seeds and the weeds grow together. He tells his workers not to take the weeds out or else the wheat too would be destroyed, but that at the time of harvesting the good crop will be sorted from the bad and the bad thrown into the fire. Here we are assured that even though we see dishonest people or those who don’t care about God or other human beings thriving we are to continue doing the good that God wants us to do and live our lives like true disciples, not to be disheartened, for God ‘shines the sun on the righteous and the unrighteous’. All have a chance of hearing the good news of salvation through Jesus, to keep the faith and all face final judgement.

Food, Universal Spiritual Healthcare and Benefits

In this kingdom he has instituted for us the seven sacraments – through which his graces flow to us, much like how an earthly king would build roads, waterways, public utilities, healthcare, etc for its people to live well. He gave us the Holy Eucharist as food and nourishment along with His Word, and with Confession are sacraments that cleanse and nourish us, constantly replenishing our needy souls with forgiveness and his own Body and Blood. We also have the remarkable sacraments of Marriage and Holy Orders.

How many married couples are missing God given chances to become better human beings with enriched relationships with our spouses because we didn’t want to forgive, or see things from the other’s perspective or let go our will for the other. I have seen time and again how grace has flowed into my heart when I decided to forgive my spouse, sensing the love flowing back in and all hurt gone. This is grace in action. So many choose the opposite way of unforgiveness, grudge-harbouring and revenge that only causes more, and ever more, hurt and destruction.

Before he ascended to heaven Jesus promised us His Holy Spirit, the advocate. It is He who gives us these graces. He provides for us the gifts of peace, patience, gentleness and more – how we need them so! The Benefits? His loving presence! The promise of Eternal Life………

 My relationship with Jesus

What about my relationship with Jesus? I have finally made Jesus the King of my heart, my life. Not in mere words, but in mind and heart. He is not a monarch far away in his palace who would hardly even know my name. He is here and now my King, my personal King, who cares for my every need, every hurt, every pain and joy, for my past, my present, my future. Not only does he know me inside out, but better than I know myself. St Augustine in his ‘Confessions’ wrote, “He…is higher than my highest, the one deeper than my deepest, the one more intimate to me than my most intimate thought.”

My brother, friend, Redeemer is also Royalty by my side and I want to worship him every moment of the day. This is a great source of comfort to me. I want to live every moment in complete trust that he will see me through every struggle, no matter how low I reach or how difficult the task. I renew my commitment to choosing to live everyday in obedience to God’s will. Living in the freedom of His will above mine and loving Him above all else, is the great mystery that the ‘world’ will not believe is true or possible but is what I have discovered to be the source of constant joy and peace in my own imperfect world.