JustThinking | God’s kingdom

… on earth as it is in heaven - beginning in me says Danielle Strickland

Ghandi suggested that we should be the change we wish to see in the world. But he borrowed all his good stuff from Jesus. Ghandi read the Sermon on the Mount every day and then tried to live it out, quite literally. He was the most disciplined man I’ve ever heard of… early morning prayer, fasting, simplicity, devotion and a whole day of silence every week (including the first day of talks with England on the emancipation of India). I tried silence for an afternoon and ended up talking to myself - out loud!

Ghandi was completely surrendered to world change starting within. He shifted some things, quite significantly, but not for long. Consider the violent events late last year between India and Pakistan - a land he lived for, to be undivided and peaceful. What a story.

So sometimes I wonder why Jesus would tell us to pray for something seemingly impossible. If He didn’t mean it, why did he tell us to pray for it? And is the message of Christ made manifest through discipline?

My husband and I used to have epic discussions about what came first, love or obedience. A seemingly fruitless distinction, I suppose, but at the time obedience without love seemed like a curse rather than a gift - a robotic sort of duty rather than an adventure of passion. But where does passion begin? Not the immature, thoughtless and reckless fire of youth but the steady, true kind of love that sticks with and keeps on and never gives up. It begins within. That’s where the revolutionary love takes root and grows and spills over into the world. It begins within - you can only give what you have.

Janet Munn once began a workshop on spiritual disciplines saying they could be summed up with a four-letter word. The only word I could think of at the time couldn’t be said out loud - but alas, it ended up being love. And I think she may be on to something. God is love. And love is proved true by her actions. And those happen on purpose in our day-to-day living. So, let God’s Kingdom come, as Albert Orsborne wrote:

No distracting thoughts within
No surviving hidden sin
Thus shall heaven indeed begin
Here and now in me.

Writer: Capt. Danielle Strickland is currently the Social Justice Director of the Southern Australia Territory. She digs traveling, reading, running, speaking, basketball and movies. Her passion is grace, mercy and justice… and all the stuff in between. Her favourite question is ‘how hard can it be?’ and most of her days are spent answering it.

4 Comments to JustThinking | God’s kingdom

1. How funny — I always thought he was Hindu! Thank you for the information.
   –Catherine W.
Catherine W. on January 24th, 2009

2. Dear Danielle,

   Not that you advocate this, but I get the idea that the road this sort of stance leads to is a kind of pietistic, private inward ’spirituality’ - a sort of Gnosticism even. What does the Kingdom of God’ become if we say it begins with us?

   Well it becomes a kind of abstract spiritual concept, one of the many that are floating around our shores in the form of ‘mind body and spirit’ categories of bookshop chains; another form of ’spirituality’ that we can try alongside kabbalah, horoscopes and reading tea-leaves. Please let me stress again I’m not suggesting that this is what you’re saying Danielle, because you very vividly articulated that one who is a ‘kingdom-bearer’ so to speak is called to pray, embody and enact a real, change in this world. A change for justice, love, beauty and grace that only the power of God’s Spirit can fuel and grow.

   But the general way of seeing God’s Kingdom as something that begins ‘within’ is like someone attempting to sketch a landscape picture with a wax crayon instead of the proper artist’s equipment - the outline of the picture might be comprehensible, but the the full glory of the landscape will most likely be missed.

   God’s Kingdom in other words is the Sovereign Kingship of God. The reign of God over the heavens and the earth, the true King of Kings and Lord of Lord’s covering this place ‘as the waters cover the sea’. Israel’s KIng was God himself, until ‘they wanted to be like the other nations’ and have a King for themselves. Eventually their fate which was bound up tightly with the many failed kings that they had led them into a physical exile and what seemed like a spiritual abandonment from God. But…

   There was always the promise that God would one day become King again over not just Israel but over the entire cosmos. All the nations would be blessed by his reign, he would bring comfort, healing, transformation to his land. He would judge evil, show it up for what it was and defeat its’ power once and for all. Some believed (not least many prophets) that he would do this through an earthly king, the anointed king (messiah) would be do what no other earthly king could ever do. His servant would usher in the new age.

   So when Jesus in Mark 1 says that ‘The Kingdom of God is upon you!’ he is announcing that through him, God is finally becoming King! The Good news of the Kingdom is a summons to everyone on the planet to give their allegiance to King Jesus, who of course is not just an earthly King, but as the early Christians would soon discover after his resurrection, he was the embodiment of the One True God’s return to Israel, God incarnate.

   You and I and everyone else who gives our allegiance to the King are called to die to ourselves everyday, and to enact upon that summons. God builds his Kingdom, as Tom Wright says, we ‘build FOR the Kingdom’. We each take our place in working for God’s grand project of new creation which was start with the death and resurrection of King Jesus and will be fulfilled when ‘God is finally All in All’ (1 Cor 15.) When he draws all things in heaven and earth under him.

   Being Kingdom-bearers means to work for all that is good, holy and just. To go out from our Corps energized to work and serve and love and heal and strengthen and on and on…

   I’m only just beginning to realize what a gift this is, but I will continue to do this for the rest of my life.

   Warm Greetings,

   Craig
Craig Gaudion on January 26th, 2009

3. Craig and Danielle,

   I would agree that the Kingdom of God is not simply interior. If I did not exist, the Kingdom of God still most certainly would. When Jesus says the Kingdom of God is upon is, another good translation would be “is at hand” - or, “you’re looking at him.” The Kingdom of God is the active reign of the King. The spiritual / material divides are not really helpful in this discussion (or perhaps in any!)

   But there is an experiential, interior aspect of this Kingdom. To be “poor in spirit” is to be aware of our poverty, our dependency, our utter lack, and this involves an inner transformation. The Kingdom of God does not begin with the inner life, perhaps, but for us to participate with it means that it will involve our inner life.

   It by no means stops there. Kingdom of God is a political, social reality, not just an inner heart reality.

   Grace,

   Aaron
aaron on January 26th, 2009

4. Great stuff here - both of you - thanks.
   I am reminded of an incident with Annie (a great friend of 614 Vancouver) when Rob Dolby and I were visiting her in a psych ward… we were walking the grounds and she was talking to me and said, ‘isn’t it great the way Rob turned into Jesus’. I had assumed that she really thought Rob WAS Jesus… so I tried to explain that although Rob was a lot LIKE Jesus that he had simply asked Jesus to come into his life and that he wasn’t Jesus. Annie looked at me in surprise and deep thought and then said, ‘but when Jesus came into Rob - didn’t Rob also come into Jesus?’

   Perhaps the Kingdom is so big, pervasive and small (at the same time) that the rightful reign of God includes massive blows to injustice and little ol’ me buying my fairtrade coffee in the hopes that God’s kingdom comes - in me, through me and in everyone else. Heaven simply begins in me by Jesus’ willingness to humble himself again to stoop to my level and invite me into the HUGE Kingdom Reign of God…

   transforming stuff.
   May His Kingdom come.
   Grace
   Danielle
Danielle Strickland on January 27th, 2009

Leave a comment