O God, help us to treasure the gift of your Kingdom
☩ in the name of
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Over
the past couple of Sundays, our Gospel texts have been Jesus’ teaching about
the Kingdom of God. One of the refrains that I’ve been repeating is that the
Kingdom is not a place, it is a reality in which the love of God rules our
lives. And because the Kingdom is an event and not a place, it means that the
Kingdom can and does intersect with every aspect of our lives. With Jesus’ teaching
this morning in mind, we see that the Kingdom transforms our priorities.
It’s
a rather obvious point, but we still sometimes overlook it – the Kingdom of God
isn’t only about the King. Christians are fairly good at remembering that Jesus
Christ is our King, we mark this belief on both Ascension Day and Christ the
King Sunday. In the Creed each week, we proclaim that he is seated at the right
hand of the Father. We get that Jesus is a King, but sometimes we forget that
he has a Kingdom. And just like the kingdoms and nations of this world have
identities, customs, and laws, so, too, does the Kingdom of God.
Whereas
nations have flags as a uniting symbol, the Kingdom has the Cross. Nations
celebrate things like festivals and independence days; in the Kingdom, we mark
the calendar with celebrations that reveal God’s grace – like Christmas,
Easter, and Pentecost. Nations have all sorts of laws, but the Kingdom’s only
law is that of love. Nearly 1,600 years ago, St. Augustine said in a sermon, “Once
and for all, I give you this one short command: love; and then do what you
will. If you hold your peace, hold your peace out of love. If you cry out, cry
out in love. If you correct someone, correct them out of love. If you spare
them, spare them out of love. Let the root of love be in you.” That’s it –
you’re now caught up on the legal code for the Kingdom of God.
So
often though, we forget that the Kingdom of God has these sorts of
characteristics. We focus on the King and praising the King, so it’s easy to
overlook that if we say that Jesus is our King, then that makes us subjects.
Indeed, as citizens of the Kingdom, we are subject to the law of love. In the
Kingdom of God, there are customs and practices that are normative, and if we
don’t follow them, we are out of step with what it means to live in the
Kingdom. And because the Kingdom is a reality and not a place, it’s all the
more important to have Kingdom priorities. Living in the Kingdom isn’t as
simple as acknowledging the King, it’s about sharing his priorities.
This
is what the prophet Isaiah is railing against in today’s first reading. These
are harsh words – “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of
fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats… Your
new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden
to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide
my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your
hands are full of blood.” In other words, stop telling God how much God is King
and start acting like a subject of the Kingdom.
With
all the discussion in the last week about gun violence, I can’t help but hear
those words of God from Isaiah ringing out – “Even though you make many
prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.” What if, in response
to all of our thoughts and prayers, God is turning a deaf ear? What if God is
expecting us to do something about this uniquely American form of violence that
plagues our country? What if God really doesn’t care about the Second Amendment
but just wants the bloodshed to stop? This is the power of Biblical prophecy,
it still speaks to us today.
This
is, I know, a rather unsettling prophecy – that God will turn a blind eye to
our needs, but it’s right there in Scripture. God very clearly says that
worship, and liturgies, and sacrifices are not the point of religion. One theologian
has noted that the “Nowhere does the devil tempt so successfully as on the very
steps of the altar.” Sometimes we confuse attending church with being the
Church, which is what it means to live in the Kingdom.
The issue isn’t that
people aren’t showing up for worship, it’s that God isn’t because what we are
worshipping is not God. Worship that does not lead to justice is obscene. Singing
hymns without speaking out is just noise. Prayer without action is
superstition. Baptism without commitment is meaningless. Grace without mercy is
perverse. Praising the King without living in the Kingdom is corrupt. And God
will take no part in such worship. Perhaps the greatest heresy ever devised is
the one that says that Christianity is about your thoughts, your beliefs, and
your relationship with God. It’s not. Our faith is about the Body of Christ –
it’s about our thoughts, our beliefs, and our relationships with God and just
as importantly, our relationships with each other. God is not a private deity.
God is the King of the Universe and we are subjects. And certain things like
selfishness, like greed, like putting up with mass-shootings, like trashing the
planet with pollution, like racism are simply incompatible with the Kingdom.
It’s time to stop pretending that as long as we say “Jesus” that everything is
ok because as we heard in Isaiah, God doesn’t have time for that.
Instead
of a faith that is just about words, God says, “Cease to do evil, learn to do
good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the
widow.” That’s what it means to be a citizen of the Kingdom because that’s the
law of love. It’s always worth repeating that love is an action, not an
emotion. When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, to love our neighbors, to
love ourselves, and to love God it is not a command to have certain emotions,
it’s about doing love. Jesus warns the citizens of his Kingdom, “Be dressed for
action and have your lamps lit.”
The
way that Jesus tells this short parable, there is a master who is at a wedding
banquet. The master is at a party and is going to bring the party to his
subjects, giving them food to feast on. And so the subjects need to be ready
for the feast. The way Luke presents this parable is that readiness is about
paying attention to where we put our treasure, because that is where our heart
will be. If our heart is going to be ready for the King, it needs to be about
the work of the Kingdom.
Now,
it’s really hard, if not impossible, to make yourself into something you’re
not. Maybe you’ve always had a difficult relationship with money because of how
you were brought up and you find it stressful and scary to give money to the
church and to those in need. Jesus doesn’t tell us how to feel, he tells us to
give alms. Maybe you worry that if you give money away that something might
happen to you and you’ll need it. It’s hard to control your feelings, so Jesus
suggests that we instead control our actions. Next time you’re out at a
restaurant, leave an outrageously large tip. I’ve been a waiter before, I’ll
tell you, it absolutely makes your day when that happens. Not only will it be
great for that person, but it will put your heart in a different place, for
where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And so giving is a means
of training our hearts. Give to the Church, give to the poor, give to those in
need, for your heart will soon follow your money into the Kingdom.
The
Kingdom is about how we live, where we put our treasure, how we align our
priorities with the King’s priorities. Often when we speak about the Kingdom,
we speak of the New Creation, and that’s what makes prioritizing the Kingdom
such a challenge. The Kingdom is not about making a few minor adjustments to
the world. The Kingdom does not come by tweaking the Constitution, or Wall
Street regulations, or your budget, or our calendar. No, the Kingdom is as
radical as Creation itself. So often what we try to do is live as
dual-citizens. We want to live as citizens both of the world and the Kingdom of
God, but that’s not how Baptism works. Baptism, which is what makes us a part
of God’s Kingdom, is about death and new life – it is dying to self, dying to
the ways of the world and being reborn as a part of the New Creation. So we
can’t cling to those old ways and old priorities. Remember a few weeks ago in
the Gospel, Jesus told a man who wanted to bury his father before following
him, “Let the dead bury their own dead.” Yes, that seems harsh, but it’s about
this insistence that the Kingdom radically transforms our priorities and
allegiances.
Instead
of Christians being courted by politicians and interest groups, we really ought
to confuse society. It's right at the top of our parish identity statement - come and see the difference, emphasis on difference, but Christ makes. People should look at the Church and say “I really don’t
understand you people.” The priorities of the Kingdom, priorities like selfless
love, a burning passion for justice, forgiveness, really are shocking. But
instead of living in the Kingdom with these priorities, so often the Church
just says nice things about the King; which is a start, but it’s only a start.
There’s
a modern-day parable that you’ve perhaps heard before. Imagine that being a
Christian has been deemed to be an illegal activity and the government has
identified you as a potential Christian. You are arrested and put on trial, and
the evidence is staggering. There are bank records that show you’ve given some
money to St. Luke’s, they find a Bible and Book
of Common Prayer in your home, you’ve been spotted attending worship
services. When the judge delivers the verdict of “Not Guilty,” at first you are
relieved. But then you become indignant – “How dare you tell me that I’m not a
Christian!” But the judge says to you, “Call yourself whatever you like. Your
church attendance and Bible reading aren’t a threat to us. We’re not worried
about people who engage in superstition; we have no laws against free speech or
free assembly. What concerns us are people who follow Jesus, who live by grace,
who give themselves to loving at all cost, who challenge the status quo, who transform
society. Your faith isn’t a thorn in our side, and so you are no enemy of
ours.”
Or, as Jesus puts it,
“where your treasure is, there your heart will be.” Jesus tells us that it is
the Father’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom. Indeed, God has given us the
treasure of love for us to flourish in, and so it is ours to invest in the
Kingdom with our all our soul, all our mind, all our strength, all our lives, and
all our heart.
