by E. Louise Williams

Imagine that you are a fish — just doing your thing and suddenly caught up in a swirling, disorienting motion. You are turned head over heels — no, fin over gills. It is at the same time exciting and scary, being dragged in a net that sweeps up you and everything else in its swath. The net gets fuller and fuller — of fish of every kind, yes, edible and inedible, clean and unclean, healthy and sick. But it is also full of all kinds of other things —  pieces of boat hulls, old sandals, and tools — things broken or lost or thrown away. Flotsam and fish are all together in there with you in the net, caught up in this powerful movement toward the shore.

The kingdom of God, Jesus said, is like that net.

Imagine that you are a lump of dough, flour and water mixed together, a big lump of dough just lying there. A woman comes and hides a little yeast right in your middle. You feel yourself changing and growing, expanding and becoming big enough to feed a lot of people.  The kingdom of God, Jesus said, is like that yeast.

Imagine that you are someone, maybe a hired farm worker, going about your work, digging in a field. To your surprise, you unearth a beautiful treasure. You are completely taken by it. You tuck it back under the soil. You can’t get it out of your mind. It possesses you. You go and sell everything you have in order to buy the field and have the treasure to enjoy.

The kingdom of God, Jesus said, is like that treasure. Imagine that you are a pearl, formed over time in the deep, dark sea inside a mollusk trying to protect itself from an intruding irritant. You have been painstakingly brought to the surface and pried loose. You find yourself to be one among many pearls until a merchant picks you up and sees your great beauty. "Ah, I have been searching far and wide for just this pearl," the merchant exclaims. "This one is worth everything I have."

The kingdom of God, Jesus said, is like that merchant.

Imagine that you are a poor, ordinary person, walking down the highway. Suddenly someone grabs your arm. It’s the king’s servant. "Come, you are invited to the wedding banquet for the king’s son." You go and are amazed. You could never have imagined the scrumptious feast — food and wine, music and dancing. Surprisingly most of the guests are your kind of people and worse — people who ordinarily would never have been invited to such a party. Still your host seems so pleased that you are there.

The kingdom of God, Jesus said, is like that king

Signs of the kingdom
Jesus came proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. "The kingdom of God has come near," Jesus said. But Jesus knew that people could not comprehend the meaning. Jesus tried to give glimpses of the kingdom of God through the way he behaved — accepting everyone, paying attention to those least valued, healing people from every sort of disease. These were signs of the kingdom that Jesus ushered in. Jesus tried to help people catch some of the meaning by telling parables — almost like riddles that some people got, and others did not.

The Greek word translated kingdom in the New Testament can mean a place where the king rules. It can also mean the power or authority by which one rules. Some suggest that a better translation is reign of God or God’s power or rule. The Gospel of Matthew prefers the phrase "kingdom of heaven" to" kingdom of God." Some speculate this is because Matthew was written for a Jewish audience among whom it was improper to speak the name of God.

If the sense of the kingdom of God was incomprehensible for people of Jesus’ time, it is even more so for North Americans today. We don’t know much of kings and kingdoms — except perhaps being curious about "the royals" as we are of other celebrities. We don’t have firsthand experience of living under the absolute power or authority of someone. Rather, we know about democracy — about sharing power and authority.

It might help us to back up a little — to start at the beginning when God created the world in the first place. Remember the creation stories in Genesis? There we see God’s good intention for the whole creation — for God and people and all created things to live in right relationship with each other. Shalom is the Hebrew word that captures that intention. It’s a word impossible to translate into English with only one word. We often say it means peace, but it so much more — health, wellbeing, wholeness, salvation, blessedness. It is fullness of life as God intended.

That shalom was shattered as a consequence of what we know as the fall into sin. The relationships were broken. People were estranged from God—hiding, trying to cover up their true selves. They blamed each other for their predicament. And they found themselves at odds with the plants and animals and even the earth itself.

Hope for restoration
It is possible to read the Hebrew Scriptures (what we often call the Old Testament) as the story of God’s attempt to bring people back into that life of shalom. Again and again the people misunderstood. God invited, wooed, and pursued. Again and again the people went in opposite directions. Even when God allowed them to suffer the full consequences of their actions, they still didn’t get it.

God sent the prophets to spin the vision once more of God’s good intention for creation. The pictures they painted were vivid. Creation once more in harmony — the lion and lamb lying down together, a child playing over the hole of the asp. People no longer at war with one another — turning their swords into plows and spears into gardening tools. God bringing wearied, exiled people — limitations, failures, and all — home by the way made smooth and straight in the desert. Even the desert itself is filled with pools of life-giving water and blooming plants.

Hope for the restoration of God’s good intention came to rest in the promised Messiah. The Messiah, they believed, would usher in a new age when God’s rule would be reestablished. In the Messiah, God’s kingdom would come. Enter Jesus of Nazareth — not quite the Messiah many expected — not quite the kind of king who would bring to mind the glory days of King David or King Solomon.

This King Jesus was born in a stable, worshiped by fringy shepherds, and adored by outsider Magi. This King Jesus touched unclean lepers, received worthless children, and honored powerless women. The modus operandi of this King Jesus was to forgive sins, heal diseases, restore relationships, and bring fullness of life.

A pearl of great price
The kingdom of God that Jesus brought near was a different kind of kingdom indeed. There was no powerful overthrow of oppressive regimes. There was just the quiet working in human hearts, expanding them the way yeast leavens a lump of dough. There was no privileged place for the religious leaders who did everything right. There was just the day–to–day dining with sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors — welcoming them to the table as if they were royalty themselves.

There was no coercion or power plays to bring people in. There was just invitation and rejoicing at everyone who was caught up in God’s movement in the world. No tax was extracted from subjects in this kingdom. In fact, quite the opposite happened. Jesus gave up every possession, even life itself, for the sake of the "pearl of great price"— to show the extent of God’s love, to open the kingdom to all.

Then a miraculous turnaround occurs. When someone "gets it," when someone glimpses a bit of the kingdom, they can become so taken with this treasure that they are willing to give their all for it.

It is this different kind of kingdom that Jesus ushered in. It is this different kind of kingdom that has come near already in Jesus. We have, by God’s grace, glimpsed it with our own eyes and perhaps even experienced it in our own beings, in our own communities.

We also know well that the reign of God has not yet fully come. There is still too much war in the world. The rich and famous and powerful still have the most honored places. The strong still oppress and abuse the weak. We see brokenness everywhere — even in our own families and relationships. People still get sick and die and grieve. We know inside ourselves the sense of being out of sorts and out of sync with creation. The kingdom has not yet fully come.

The reign of God in our midst
But the reign of God is not just something to be experienced in heaven. It is something experienced already now in Jesus.

Already now we have glimpses of the reign of God, we have foretastes of the feast to come, we see signs of the kingdom.

Sometimes these bits and pieces of the kingdom are so little and so quiet that we hardly notice. Right in the middle of an argument, someone says, "I’m sorry. Let’s try another way." Deep inside a person’s heart, resentment is slowly turned to appreciation. Someone faithfully cares for a loved one who has a debilitating illness. Sometimes we read about them in The Lutheran or Lutheran Woman Today.

We remember these stories: People give up their free time to knit prayer shawls for hospice patients. Groups gather outside government buildings to pray for peace. Youth and adults meet to discern places they might serve in their own communities and to discover the gifts they have for that ministry.

Sometimes the signs are so routine we scarcely notice. Young and old, rich and poor, friend and enemy gather at the same communion table. The words are proclaimed every Sunday: "Your sins are forgiven."

We are invited to notice and name the signs of the reign of God in our midst. Bit by bit we begin to uncover the treasure. And soon we find we are willing to give ourselves in word and deed to the task of sharing the good news that the kingdom of God has come near.

E. Louise Williams is executive director of the Lutheran Deaconess Association and part–time adjunct professor of theology at Valparaiso University. She is the president of DIAKONIA World Federation, an international ecumenical organization for associations and communities of deaconesses, deacons, and diaconal ministers.