(The Nationalist, 18 November 2005)
The central theme of the teaching of Jesus was what he called the kingdom of God. It means that God rules, God is involved in the world. It can also mean ‘the world as God would like it to be’. It looks to the future with purpose.
Who is in the kingdom of God? Jesus said, ‘Anyone who does the will of my Father in God is my brother and sister and mother’. Anyone who cares about truth, goodness, freedom, justice or beauty, anyone who cares about people, especially those in need, regardless of race, class, colour, creed or sexual orientation, anyone who is compassionate – they are in the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is wider than the church. The church does not exist for its own sake; it is not an end in itself. It points to the kingdom, like a signpost. Saint Augustine, wrote: ‘There are many whom God has and the church does not have. And there are many whom the church has, and God does not have them’.
Some examples come to mind: a journalist who cares enough about the truth to be politically incorrect; those who listen well, enabling someone to talk out their problems; those who work for community, where there is only individualism; those with the moral courage to go against the flow; those who try to create beauty in the middle of ugliness, such as planting a tree in an industrial slum. Jesus said of such people that they ‘are not far from the kingdom of God’.
The future lies with those who can give hope to humanity, with those people of all faiths, and of none, who care about their fellow human beings. In one of his parables, Jesus three times makes the point that the basis of our judgment by God is whether we have, or have not, recognized and respected the humanity of the other. Those who unite rather than divide, build rather than knock down, include rather than exclude, give rather than take –they are all part of God’s kingdom.
The fulfilment of human needs is a sign that the kingdom of God is present. I think God will more readily forgive our sins against him, whom we cannot see, than against our fellow humans, whom we do see. Most of our sins against our neighbour are sins of omission – not the wrongs that we do but the good we leave undone. ‘Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen’. (1 John 4.20)
Many bemoan the state of the church today, but the kingdom of God is alive and well. God, rules, OK?
For those in a hurry: ‘People must be restored to themselves before they can be restored to God’. (Saint Augustine)