May 10 - Mother's Day & Family Day
Deborah Laforet Mark 1:4-15
May 10, 2020
“YOUR Kingdom Come”
There once was a man who did such wonderful things and who said such amazing things that people followed him. This man was an ascetic, which means he was very strict with himself and others. He fasted, he only ate locusts and honey, he did not cut his hair; he was a bit of a wild man. He believed that God’s kingdom was coming and that if he baptized enough people, he could usher in God’s kingdom. He believed that if he could get a large amount of people to turn from their evil ways, seek forgiveness, and be washed clean in the river Jordan, that God would come and, with a winnowing fork in hand, clear the threshing floor, gather the wheat, and burn the chaff in the unquenchable fire, or cut down the trees that do not bear fruit and throw them into the fire.
From our scripture reading you may have guessed that I am referring to John the Baptist. The Christian faith has somewhat adapted this story of John and has seen him as someone who was preparing for Jesus, the Messiah, but John was actually preparing people for the coming of God’s kingdom. He believed that it would happen at any moment, that it was imminent, and that God would take down this corrupt Roman Empire and all those who collaborated with that Empire, including temple authorities.
John Dominic Crossan, in his book, The Greatest Prayer, writes that,
“John was wrong, terribly, tragically wrong. He announced an immediate advent of an avenging God and what came was the immediate advent of an avenging local ruler. Herod Antipas, the Rome-appointed governor of Galilee, arrested and executed John. And God did nothing - no intervention and no prevention. John died in lonely isolation in Antipas’ southern fortress of Machaerus, east of the Jordan. And God did nothing - no intervention and no prevention.” Then Crossan writes, “Jesus watched, Jesus learned, and Jesus changed.” (pg 88)
Jesus had been a follower of John’s, but when he saw that John’s vision hadn’t worked, he radically separated himself from that vision. Crossan offers three of those radical differences that Jesus made.
First, an imminent verses a present God. As I mentioned earlier, John believed that God’s great clean up of the world was coming. He believed that this was happening very soon but that it was a future event. Jesus, on the other hand, preached that it was here, already present. The very first words he speaks in Mark’s gospel are, “The time if fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:15) Jesus did not say that God’s kingdom is coming; he said it has come.
Imagine people hearing this from Jesus and wondering, if God’s kingdom is here, where is it? Rome still occupied their land, and the world was filled with poverty, injustice, and oppression. If God’s kingdom is near, if God is here, where? John’s message seemed to make the most sense, the idea that God would soon intervene and bring justice to the earth, feed the hungry, and judge the good from the wicked. How could God’s kingdom be present?
Crossan then explains this second difference between John and Jesus’ message, which helps explain how God’s kingdom has come near. Rather than an interventionist God, Jesus spoke of a collaborative God. Followers of Jesus were more than just followers; they were participants in his ministry. They were sent out to heal the sick, comfort the afflicted and preach the good news. It wasn’t about waiting around for some future time for God to intervene; it was about collaborating with God now and participating in the work that needed doing.
The third difference Crossan points out is violence versus non-violence. On this third difference, Crossan feels quite strongly that Jesus was a proponent of non-violent resistance. As we heard before, when John spoke of God, it was of a vengeful God, one that would separate the wheat from the chaff and throw the chaff in the fire. The Israelites believed at that time that a Messiah would come as a warrior and would violently defeat the Romans and bring peace to their land.
Jesus, on the other hand, preached of loving your enemies, praying for those who persecute you, doing good to those who hate you, and blessing those who curse you. One point of proof that Crossan offers of this non-violent movement was the fact that Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, executed Jesus for treason to the emperor, but did not round up his disciples. They were not hunted down, they were not arrested, and they were not executed, because there was no fear of a violent insurrection from this non-violent movement. In John’s gospel, when Jesus is being interrogated by Pilate, he says, “If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over…But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” (John18:36b)
Today, we look at the second phrase from our Lord’s prayer, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Today we wonder what God’s kingdom might look like if it was present, collaborative, and non-violent.
I want to share with you a video that shows what a kingdom might look like if it was present, collaborative and non-violent. It’s a vision of a world post COVID-19.
Do we believe in John’s kingdom, a kingdom some time in the future, which relies on God’s violent intervention, or do we follow Jesus’ vision of a kingdom that is now, a kingdom in which we participate, and a kingdom created non-violently, through loving our neighbours and our enemies. Is this kingdom only the stuff of storybooks or can we work together and with God and bring about this new world, a world where God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven?
Today is family day, a day when we honour our families, by birth or by choice. Our church is family of choice and I believe it can be a microcosm of this present kingdom, a place where we gather as a community, where we share our resources, a place where we accept one another, where we can be one in our differences, and one in our love for Christ and his dream of a loving and just world. May this community be a place where we can practice loving our neighbours as well as our enemies, a place where we can participate with God in feeding the hungry, comforting the afflicted, including at the table all those who are excluded, a place where God’s kingdom can be felt and from which we can truly say that God’s kingdom has come near.
May it be so. Amen.