NEXT FROM LAST FRIDAY OF THE KINGDOM
22 November 2013
Readings:
Key Verses:
Isa. 65:17a, 19: “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth… I will rejoice in Jerusalem… and the voice of weeping and the voice of crying will be heard in her no more.”
Luke 17:20, 21: Jesus said, “God’s Kingdom doesn’t come with observation… God’s Kingdom is within you.”
Reflection
Today’s readings come at us from two ends of a spectrum. From Isaiah, we get a beautiful vision of paradise, a place where no one weeps, and everyone gets a chance at a full life. If, in the Season of Creation, we contrasted between the modern saying “You reap what you sow”, and the biblical saying “One sows, and another reaps” (John 4:37), that won’t matter here anymore. For in Paradise, people get to harvest what they themselves have planted—apparently instantaneously. They get to live in the houses they’ve built. Furthermore, prayer will no longer be necessary. God will answer his people before they even call. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, predators will eat beside their former prey: the wolf with the lamb, and the lion with the ox. (I wonder if that little child will be there with them too!)
Cut to Jesus who does the exact opposite and digs into two of the world’s worst catastrophes as recorded by ancient Israel: Noah’s flood, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah are eating, planting, and building just as the fortunate dwellers of Isaiah’s paradise do, but we know this is different. We know that, according to the Bible, the flood of the then-known world, and the destruction of the two villages were due to people’s wickedness and injustice towards each other. And that’s what Jesus wants his listeners to have in mind when he applies these stories to two pivotal moments of his own existence. For he likens the day of his rejection—his Passion and crucifixion—to the days of Noah, and the day of his being revealed—his Second Coming—to the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. Either way, there’s mass destruction and chaos, and we are cast far away from that idyllic Elysium of before.
I think the reason most of us hear the stories, and they go in one ear and out the other, is because they’re simply beyond our imagination. None of us has ever experienced paradise. And though tragedy and disaster occur even on the national scale, thankfully up to this point, we’ve never had to deal with the doom of worldwide mass destruction that cuts off absolutely all and any help and relief, no matter where you go. Neither paradise nor doom, therefore, can adequately provide us with a target to aim for, or a peril to flee.
But it would be a mistake to skip over these stories simply because we can’t look to them as a practical guide for living—because Jesus tells us where to look: “God’s Kingdom doesn’t come with observation… God’s Kingdom is within you.” If paradise and doom seem like two completely absurd ends of a spectrum, then maybe they’re calling us to explore more of what’s in the middle, what’s closer to our understanding, what’s in our power.
God doesn’t want his people to live in anxiety, in constant fear of tomorrow. But neither does God want us to live as though “the strife is o’er, the battle done”, for we still have much to do in the Creation we’re a part of. No, God wants us to be alert, to look within, hoping that when we do, we’ll realize that we already have the seeds of God’s Kingdom planted within us. Of course, only God can fully usher his Kingdom in, but when we start to look inside ourselves, maybe we’ll understand our role in bringing a piece of that Kingdom to earth. And we’ll finally move along on that spectrum towards what we’ve never had: paradise.
Prayer of the Day
O God of power and might,
your Son shows us the way of service,
and in him we inherit the riches of your grace.
Give us the wisdom to know what is right
and the strength to serve the world you have made,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.
—Collect for the Last Sunday after Pentecost in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 53
Hymn: “‘Your kingdom come!’ on bended knee”
(Words: Frederick L. Hosmer, 1891; adapted by Joseph A. Soltero, 2013
Tune:
‘Your kingdom come!’ on bended knee
The passing ages pray,
And faithful souls have yearned to see
On earth that kingdom’s day.
The slow-paced watches of the night
Not less to God belong.
And for the everlasting right,
The silent stars are strong.
Lo, on the hills in breaking skies,
The flags of dawn appear,
Stand up, you prophet souls, arise,
Proclaim the day is near.
The day in whose clear shining light
All wrong shall stand revealed,
When justice shall be throned in might,
And every hurt be healed.
When knowledge, hand in hand with peace,
Shall walk the earth abroad,
The day of perfect righteousness,
The promised day of God.
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