re-interpreting the kingdom of god

7/29/2019 Re-Interpreting the Kingdom of God

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J ESUS' SPIRITUAL VISION:RE-INTERPRETING THE K INGDOM OF GOD

AS A SPIRITUAL PARADIGM

Carol RichardsonAugust 26, 1993

Introduction

The message and actions of Jesus Christ conveyed a vision of the primacy of spiritualreality. The term that Jesus used to convey the meaning and significance of spiritual realitywas "the Kingdom of God." In the history of the church, however, spirituality has oftenbeen intrepreted apart from the Kingdom of God metaphor; this has led to myriads of

inadequate ways of interpreting spirituality throughout the history of Christianity. To some,spirituality has meant a rejection of the "natural" world. To others, it has meant communingwith God, the saints, erc., while living within the constraints of the physical world. To stillothers, emphasizing spirituality has meant having faith in a powerful, orderly, monarchicalGod, to whom one must submit by trying to force one's individual behavior to reflect the"holiness" of that powerful God through strict adherence to divine law. In this latterinstance, spirituality becomes "holiness," which is narrowly conceived of as legalisticobedience to divine command and literalistic adherence to divine revelation. All threeapproaches emphasize spiritual reality as alien to this "fallen" world in which we live, and


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thus conceive of spiritual salvation as an act performed once in history by an otherwisetranscendent, other-worldly God. The spiritual vision of the Christian church has becometunnel vision, as what Jesus emphasized about spirituality has largely been overlooked ormisunderstood, as layer upon layer of tradition and human culture progressively cloakedthe words and actions of Jesus. My thesis, then, is that Jesus' vision of spiritual reality canonly be understood by re-examining his vision of the Kingdom of God, which conveys aholistic view of earthly reality as containing the seed of spirituality within itself, as well aswithin the context of human relations.

The task which I have undertaken here, then, is to look faithfully at the way Jesusemphasized spiritual reality in order to see what Jesus affirmed and what he denied. Whilemany people have assumed that the spiritual reality that Jesus affirmed was only, orprimarily, some other-worldly eschatological vision, my central theses is that Jesus'message affirmed that spiritual reality exists both eschatologically and existentially in thepresent, with an ethical unity between the eschatalogical and existential domains. This

ethical unity, furthermore, can only be construed as relational ethics, which is characterizedby love of God and love of neighbor. Indeed, the mysterious unity of these two types oflove is the central theme of Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God.

In order to demonstrate my central thesis, we shall first have to demonstrate a correlatedthesis that Jesus never deprecated the natural world; rather, what Jesus regarded as inferiorto spirituality was human preoccupation with material well-being as the source, sustenance,and goal of life. While the tendency has been for Christians to oppose the physical to thespiritual, Jesus opposed materialism to spirituality.

The difference here may seem subtle, and it is not enough simply to say that is it just amatter of people's attitudes. Attitudes are important here, but one's attitude cannot becorrect unless one's assumptions are also correct. The assumption in question is whetheror not one sees spiritual reality as pervading the natural world, or the question of God'spresense in and through physical being. In order to demonstrate Jesus' affirmation of thenatural world, I shall draw a distinction, albeit my own, between the words "physical" and"material." What I propose is that the word "physical" can suggest something whole, agestalt, a natural entity with its own intentionality, while the word "material" suggests

merely the finite, non-spiritual building blocks of physical reality. A physical or naturalentity can be construed, then, as a unity of the material and the spiritual. Indeed, as weshall discuss later, what Jesus affirmed through his parables was, in fact, a unity of spirituareality and natural, or physical reality.

What Jesus impugned was materialism, which affirms material reality as both the sourceand goal of life. When the physical world is considered to be dependent only onmateriality, then one is blind, or living in illusion. Instead, when one realizes that thephysical world, including human beings, depends primarily on spirituality as its source of


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life, then one is recognizing the spiritual possibility of God's Kingdom here on earth.

The third thesis which we will explore is that Jesus' vision of God's reign on earthnecessarily entails a questioning of the dominant cultural paradigm of one's day. While ithas often been considered that Jesus' message primarily called into question the Jewishlegalism prevalent in his day,(1) Jesus actually called into question the materialistic attitudesthat gave rise to the legalism. Indeed, the legalism which had become dominant in Jewish

culture at the time of Jesus was tied to materialistic values as well as to materialistic powerstructures. The pervasive materialistic adherence to the law was what Jesus decried, whilehe affirmed a spiritual adherence to the intent of the law. The intent of the law wassummarized by Jesus as the commandment to love God and to love one's neighbor. Thisunified ethical command equates spirituality with embodied expressions of love,hospitaility, faith, and generosity. This unified command of love constitutes the core of

Jesus's spiritual paradigm, that is, the spiritual vision which he called the Kingdom of God.As an ethical and earthly understanding of spirituality, the Kingdom of God calls into

question more than just legalism. Wherever and however materialism has become integralto the dominant cultural paradigm of any place and time, Jesus' message of a spiritualparadigm challenges the values, relationships, and power structures of the dominantculture.

The Gospel of the Kingdom of God

In order to understand Jesus' proclamation about the Kingdom of God, we first need anunderstanding of Jesus himself. How did Jesus understand his own spiritual role? As

Rudolf Bultmann has pointed out, "the dominant concept of Jesus' message is theReignof God."(2) This prioritizing of God's Reign suggests that it would be a mistake to focuson, or to emphasize any particular understanding of Jesus himself. Rather than seeing

Jesus as the Christ who reigns at the right hand of God, ruling over the earth, Jesus askedus to focus on God and God's Reign on earth. Indeed, as Bultmann has also observed,"the historical Jesus of the synoptics does not, like the Johannine Jesus, summon men[sic]to acknowledge or 'believe in' his person."(3) Furthermore, although some scholars haverejected Bultmann's suggestions that Jesus referred to the "Son of Man" as being someoneother than himself, I would suggest that such apocalyptic variations on Jesus'

eschatological theme are not essential to the salvific core of Jesus' message. If myunderstanding of the synoptic gospels is right, then I must conclude that Jesus did notequate belief in him with salvation. Instead, I assume that Jesus himself assumed that hismessage of the Kingdom of God was in itself salvific. For Jesus, the spiritual goal facinghuman beings was not to worship Jesus himself, but to worship God in such a way as tousher in God's Reign here and now, in the midst of the world in which we live.

While I do not want to dwell on apocalyptic themes, I would simply point out thatapocalyptic expectations were part of the cultural world view in Jesus' day, and Jesus


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occasionally made use of such expectations to convey some of his own ideas. However,for Jesus, no apocalyptic events were in themselves salvific; rather, his message about theKingdom of God was, by itself, potentially salvific.

The first step in recognizing the salvific potential of God's Reign is to perceive that "theKingdom of God is among you." (Luke 17:21) Jesus made this statement in response to anapocalyptic query as to when the Kingdom of God was coming! In other words, Jesus de-

emphasized apocalyptic concerns in favor of emphasizing the contemporaneous presenseof God's Kingdom within the context of the secular historical process. In addition, Jesus'assertion that the Kingdom of God is among us connotes the ethical dimension of my firstthesis. That is, the idea that the Kingdom of God is among us suggests that ourrelationships with one another can manifest God's Reign. Human relationships, though,only manifest the Reign of God when individuals allow God to Reign within them and intheir relationships. Such a willingness to perceive and to serve God requries theassumption that God's Kingdom actually can be found "among us" as a real spiritual

presense made manifest through our own physical, embodied actions. This assumption, inturn, can lead to ways of relating to others as though we are all children of God, dwellingtogether in a new order. Thus, the first challenge of Jesus' vision is to perceive the invisiblepresence of God's Kingdom among us during our earthly life. This is the first step tosalvation in Jesus' spiritual paradigm.

Some of Jesus' parables suggest the inconspicuous, ever-present nature of the Kingdom ofGod, thus characterizing it as a spiritual reality embodied within physical reality. Forinstance, in the parable of the mustard seed, (Mark 4:30-32), Jesus contrasts the seeming

insignificance of the mustard seed's size with the bountiful size of the shrub which growsfrom it. What is contrasted, then, is not only the size of the seed and the shrub, but alsothe seeming insignificance of the seed with the bountiful hospitality the shrub provides forthe birds. Metaphorically, what this parable implies about the Kingdom of God is thatGod's Kingdom on earth is so inconspicuous that we may not know it is there, eventhough it is truly an inviting and hospitable Kingdom. Spiritually, what this parable suggestsis that the seeming insignificance of the material nature of both the mustard seed and theKingdom of God is irrelevant to the spiritual results. Because of the gracious hospitality ofthe mustard bush, one can further infer that the spiritual reality of God's Reign is

inconspicuous until one becomes aware of the gracious hospitality that it offers to all.Finally, the fact that Jesus extolled a shrub and its hospitality to birds implies hisaffirmation of the natural world and God's presence in and through the natural world.

Jesus' parable of the woman hiding leaven in some bread (Luke 13:20-21, Matthew 13:33)also conveys the incongruity between the inconspicuousness of God's Kingdom and thepowerful, pervasive results of its spiritual presence. Here, I think Bultmann's interpretationis helpful but partially missed the mark. While Bultmann was correct in pointing toward asense of the miraculousness of the process(4), he missed the emphasis on the hiddenness


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of the spiritual side of reality.

Another theme is evident in this parable, for by comparing God's Kingdom to the womanwho makes bread, Jesus is not only affirming physical reality, but also suggesting byanalogy that God takes an ongoing, active role in creating the physical world that sustainsus. We shall explore this theme more at a later point.

In most of Jesus' parables, the inconspicuous, yet effective presence of God's Kingdomexists right here on earth, not in some other-worldly realm. Virtually all of Jesus' parablesprovide very earthy metaphors for the Kingdom of God. This affirms the idea that Jesussaw a unity of the physical and the spiritual, while deprecating only the materiality of thephysical, rather than the wholeness of the physical in union with the spiritual. Jesus thusbelieved in a dualistic world, but in a holistic sense that is neither precisely Western orEastern, but perhaps uniquely Jewish. Jewish thought had always entailed belief in a Godwho was active in history and who could become physically manifest to human beings.

Thus, the approach to the divine presence in Judaism and in Jesus' message exhibited aholistic dualism that falls somewhere between the radical, distinct dualism of someWestern thought and the yin/yang approach of Eastern thought. Needless to say, as Jesus'message was preached in the West, the dualistic tendency was exaggerated andmisunderstood until it no longer represented Jesus' original holistic thinking.

Having examined how Jesus' message did not devalue the natural world, but insteadfocused on the Reign of God within the natural world, I have in essence asserted that

Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God consists of an existential dimension; that is, the

Kingdom of God begins to exist in and through life events here on earth. The seconddimension of the Kingdom of God is the eschatological dimension, or the salvation that isyet to come. This eschatological dimension is tied to the existential dimension by relationalethics, or spirituality.

Once again, Bultmann came close to hitting the target, to capturing the central core ofJesus' message. Bultmann states that "Jesus' eschatological message and his ethicalmessage constitute a unity."(5) He goes on:

The unity of the eschatological and the ethical message of Jesusmay be so stated: Fullfillment of God's will is the condition forparticipation in the salvation of His Reign. The Reign of God,demanding of man[sic] decision for God against every earthlytie, is the salvation to come. Hence, only he[sic] is ready for thissalvation who in the concrete moment decides for that demandof God which confronts him in the person of his neighbor ...Both things, the eschatological proclamation and the ethicaldemand, direct man[sic] to the fact that he is thereby brought


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before God, that God stands before him; both direct him into hisNow as the hour of decision for God.(6)

Bultmann did recognize the unity between Jesus' eschatological vision and the ethicalcommand to love one's neighbor, with an emphasis on the necessity of deciding and actingin the here-and-now. However, because he did not recognize the Reign of God as beingpotentially present already here on earth, Bultmann reduced the existential dimension of the

Reign of God to an ethics of obedience to God, without the spiritual affirmation of God'spresence in earthly things, and without recognizing that the unity comes throughrelationships rather than through obedience alone. Because of God's presence in creationand in us all, the unity of the Kingdom of God comes through the spiritual presence ofGod's grace, which is the source of life for all things. A more holistic sense of God'sKingdom comes, then, when one recognizes that the unity between the existentialdimension of God's Reign and the eschatological dimension of God's Reign lies infulfillment of the spiritual-relational unity of God and humankind. What creates the unity

between the eschatological and existential is precisely our ethical relationships -- not just anethical demand and corresponding obedience, but a spiritual relation to God which canonly happen through our spiritual relation to our neighbors. This spiritual relation is onlyfulfulled when we see God, or Christ, in our neighbor.

Just when did Jesus say any of this? In the story of the final Judgement, (Matthew 25:31-46) Jesus makes the point that our ethical relationships with one another are precisely whateither will, or will not, save us in the end: to some people Jesus declares "I was hungry andyou gave me food ...," while to others Jesus states "I was hungry and you gave me no

food ..." Jesus concludes: "As you did it to one of the least of these, you did it unto me."The primary message of this text is that there is a connection between our faith, or, morebroadly, our spirituality, and our relationships with other human beings. Thus, our faith, ifit is Christian, cannot be solely in some distant God in heaven, nor in some other-worldly,princely Christ; rather, Christian faith must be in a God and a redeemer who are everpresent with us on earth, and who come to us in need in the form of our earthly neighbors.

The test of our faith, then, is not the purity or rightness of our belief, but the actions towhich our faith compels us. The test of our faith, though, is not just any action we performas individuals, it is ethical action in relationship to others. This is what I term relational

ethics -- how we relate to the "least of these," especially the ones we do not like. Ourrelational ethics, thus, is the measure of our faith; more precisely, our relational ethics isour spirituality, for spirituality is the holistic connectedness of God's Being within andamong the beings of our universe.

Jesus elsewhere made the same connection between our faith in God and our relationalethics when he pronounced the priority of just two commands:

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one


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another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him,"Which commandment is the first of all?" Jesus answered, "Thefirst is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; youshall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with allyour soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'

The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'There is no other commandment greater than these." "You areright, Teacher; you have truly said that 'he is one, and besideshim there is no other;' and to love hime with all the heart, andwith all the understanding, and with all the strength, and 'to loveone's neighbor as oneself,' -- this is much more important thanall whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." When Jesus saw that heanswered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from thekingdom of God." After that no one dared to ask him anyquestions. (Mark 12:28-34, NRSV)

In this passage, the two commands are inseparable. As the Interpreter's Bible remarks:"When there is the love of God as here portrayed by Jesus, love of neighbor has deepenedand intensified. So also, ... when love of neighbor has become a real experience, the loveof God has been lifted up from confining walls, and filled with ethical and spiritualcontent."(7) Again, we find unity between the ethical and the spiritual, because both ethicsand spirituality are understood in relational terms.

Beyond this, it is important to note that Jesus tells the lawyer, or scribe that he is "not far

from the kingdom of God." Out of three sources of exposition on this text that Iexamined(8), only one notes the possible significance of this remark:

But in this context is "You are not far from the kingdom ofGod" being understood in some future, eschatological sense, ordoes Jesus mean it to be understood as a present or almostpresent reality? ... the present writer finds it impossible to resistthe conclusion that the Reign of God is presented by Jesus as apresent reality. The scribe is not far from the kingdom in two

senses: he recognizes the total claim of the sovereignty of Godand morally has submitted himself to its demands, and also hestands ready for its manifestation. Of considerable importanceon a different level is Jesus' own understanding ... We are faced... with yet another saying which carries plain implications of"realized" eschatology.(9)

Once again, the difficulty of interpreting this text seems to result from a reluctance toaccept the idea that Jesus might actually have meant that the Kingdom of God is already


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here, among us. While few scholars dispute the authenticity of that remark in Luke17:21(10), the implications of accepting the veracity of Jesus' assertion that the Kingdomof God is among us have not heretofore been adequately thought out.

In reference to Jesus' remark to the scribe, one can better understand this text if one relatesit to the judgement passage in Matthew. In other words, if one assumes not only that Jesusperceives the possibility of God's Reign in the present, on an ongoing basis, but also that

it is an ethical imperative to perceive the familial unity of all of God's children and to lovethem as such, then one can realize that to accept one's place in God's family is to acceptone's place in God's Kingdom. In the final judgement passage, Jesus referred to the "leastof these" as "members of my family," (NRSV) and so we are to recognize everyone asGod's children, as our own family, as our neighbors. One can only do this through God'sgrace. That is, one can only experience oneself as a child of God if one recognizes thatonly God's grace makes us worthy to be God's children. Likewise, one can only recognizeothers as children of God by extending to them that same grace which one has already

received from God. To receive God's grace for oneself is to accept one's place in God'sfamily. To extend God's grace to others is to accept one's role in God's Kingdom.

Indeed, Jesus' remark to the scribe may have really been a challenge to accept God'sReign in his life by relating to others out of love, while relinquishing his loyalty tonationalistic interests and to religious factions. This dialogue is recognized as containingelements of controversy(11); since the scribe was obviously part of a particular Jewishsect, perhaps Jesus considered the controversy to be between loyalty to human rule andacceptance of God's rule. In other words, Jesus may have been challenging the scribe to

see his neighbors as being also outside of his own little group, for God's rule extends toany and all human communities, all of which are part of God's family. We shall discussthis point again under the thesis, that that the Reign of God calls into question everycultural paradigm. For now, the main point to recognize is that Jesus' comment to thescribe about being near the Kingdom of God is linked to the scribe's understanding theKingdom both spiritually (i.e. in relation to God) and ethically (i.e. in relation to one'sneighbor) as necessarily entailing loving relationships. The scribe was close to theKingdom of God because he recognized the unity between loving God and loving hisneighbor, and accepted that unity as the highest ethical command.

While this passage defines loving God partially in terms of loving one's neighbor, andwhile the judgement passage entirely defined loving Christ in terms of loving one'sneighbor, we have not focused on identifying one's neighbor nor on how one is to lovethat neighbor. At this point, we may conclude that loving one's neighbor is like lovingGod, but who is the neighbor whom we are to love? In the pericope about the final

judgement, neighbors who are in need are the ones we are to love. In the pericope aboutthe greatest commandment, our neighbor is someone whom we are supposed to love aswe love ourselves. So far, then, we know we are to love those in need as we love


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ourselves.

In the parable of the good Samaritan, there is a double message about who our neighboris. Indeed, Luke places the parable of the good Samaritan directly following a shortenedversion of the pericope on the two greatest commandments, as if to highlight theconnection between the two:

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said,"what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What iswritten in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "Youshall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with allyour soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; andyour neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have giventhe right answer; do this, and you will live."

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is myneighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from

Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, whostripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when hesaw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, ...But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he sawhim, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged hiswounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him

on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to theinnkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, Iwill repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three,do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the handsof the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy."

Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." (Luke 10:25-37)

This passage entails a double definition of neighbor, for the assumption is clear that the

man in need was accepted as a neighbor by the good Samaritan, as evidenced by his ownwillingness to be a neighbor to this man. Secondly, however, the Jews who were listeningto Jesus tell the story would have been shocked to accept the Samaritan as their ownneighbor because of the ethnic rivalry and historical animosity between the two groups.

The Jews considered the Samaritans to be inferior because of their mixed racial heritage. Inour own culture, we often consider people inferior when they are different from us, asthough being "different" is necessarily bad. We also often consider people to be inferiorsimply because they are in need and cannot take care of their own needs by themselves.When others are in need, we often label them "needy," as though their victimization were


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their own fault. In the parable of the good Samaritan, however, Jesus refutes suchungracious attitudes towards others. Clearly, the message here is that we do not get tochoose our neighbors, for our neighbors are anyone and everyone in need, regardless ofwhether or not we like them or respect them. And if our neighbors are not near at hand, weare to "go and do likewise" in order to be a neighbor to them. Again, everyone is part ofGod's family on the basis of God's grace alone; no one earns family status with God. Yetwe cannot receive God's grace for ourselves alone; grace is something we must share, fordivine grace, like divine kinship, is a shared event, and everyone is our neighbor.

The third thesis which we will explore is that the Kingdom of God calls into question everycultural paradigm that does not operate out of spiritual values. Three major culturalassumptions are challenged by Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God: (1) the idea that oneearns one's rewards both on earth and, by analogy, in heaven; (2) the materialistic worldview that presumes that life depends solely on material well-being for sustenance, and thatsuch well-being is the major goal of life; and (3) that power structures -- political as well as

economic -- are acceptable methods of serving the needs of the few, even at the expenseof many of our neighbors. As we have previously discussed, it has been argued that Jesusprimarily opposed the legalism of his day, I think Jesus' message was larger than that in itscritique of the mix of cultures in which he lived. In fact, I think he critiqued cultureprecisely on these three central issues, and that, for Jesus, the legalistic tendency in

Judaism was only a problem when it stood as an obstacle to loving one's neighbor. To testthis assertion, let us look at some of the texts to examine how Jesus' message oftenimplicitly critiqued culture.

We have already looked at how Jesus' definition of neighbor in the parable of the goodSamaritan called into question his followers' cultural and religious assumptions about whowas their neighbor. Again, the Jews would have assumed on cultural grounds that theSamaritan was not their neighbor, but this cultural assumption was backed up by religioustenets on ritual and cultic purity. A second cultural assumption was called into question:that no one wanted to help a victimized stranger lying by the roadside. The figures of thepriest and the Levite represent the best of the religious and political culture of Judaism in

Jesus' day, yet even they would not stoop to be a neighbor to the hapless traveler. Animplicit message in this parable, then, is that the cultural and religious asumptions of who is

one's neighbor fall completely short of the definition of neighbor in the Kingdom of God.

Part of the cultural context which Jesus challenged was the nationalistic and religiousloyalties which also interfered with loving one's neighbor. We saw this in the controversydialogue about the two great commandments, where I suggested that what wascontroversial to Jesus was the nationalistic and religious loyalties of the scribes, becausethis loyalty to exclusive, humanly determined social groups precludes the possibility ofliving in the Kingdom of God. Thus, Jesus' comment to the scribe, "You are not far fromthe kingdom of God" is meant to point the scribe in the right direction: away from divisive


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human institutions and towards the inclusivity of God's Reign. What Jesus seems to besaying applies beyond his own cultural context; that is, none of our social concerns aboutbeing acceptable to the "in" group or to the people with power matter at all. Rather, for

Jesus, all that matters is living in love, and thereby truly letting God reign among us. Now,the gospel writers were careful to present this controversy dialogue in such a way as tomake Jesus look good(12), but presenting himself admirably was not Jesus' main goal inthe controversy. Jesus was not trying to "look good;" instead, he was opposing thecliquish and legalistic concerns of the scribal culture. Jesus was trying to emphasize to thescribe that earning social status and political power interfere with living in the Kingdom ofGod, precisely because social status and political power prevent the egalitarianism that isnecessary for sharing grace.

The materialism that may be prevalent in any culture was also something to which Jesusstood opposed. Notice, first, that his parables of the mustard seed and the leaven comparethe Kingdom of God not to something "precious," or expensive and glorious like gold and

jewels, but to things that are precious for the sustenance of everyday life. While this notionis understated as a thematic detail in these parables, Jesus' emphasis on the natural worldand its simple, sustaining beauty is made more explicit elsewhere.

Consider the following passage:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you willeat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you willwear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than

clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reapnor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you byworrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why doyou worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, howthey grow; they neither toil now spin, yet I tell you, evenSolomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But ifGod so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today andtomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe

you -- you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'Whatwill we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' Forit is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed yourheavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strivefirst for the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all thesethings will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:25-33)

Both Mathew and Luke surround this pericope with other passages that berate materialisticconcerns, a characteristic theme of Q (and we wonder why it was destroyed?!). Both


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authors include nearby the admonition not to "store up for yourselves treasures on earth ...but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven ... for where your treasure is, there yourheart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21; cf. Luke 12:32-34)

Now this remark about not storing up treasures on earth clearly conveys the anti-materialistic theme of Jesus' spiritual paradigm; however, the phrase "store up foryoruselves treasures in heaven" has overshadowed this anti-materialism because of its

other-worldly image. Through the years, the church has promoted this other-worldly imageof heaven due to the fact that few people have truly understood Jesus to have claimed thatthe Kingdom of God is truly among us here and now. As a result, what has beenunderstood of this passage has not been simply anti-materialism but also a supposedpolemic against this physical world and our earthly life. What has been overlooked hasbeen, in addition, the connection between storing one's treasures in heaven and striving"first for the kingdom of God and its righteousness." When we are mindful of the idea that

Jesus considered the Kingdom of God to be relationships of grace in which God's love

reigns right here on earth, then we can realize that the treasures we store up in heaven arespiritual relationships, or relationships which share divine grace. Secondarily, striving forspiritual relatedness is our work, our task here on earth, and we do not have to worryabout material well-being because God will provide for our physical needs out the thebountiful goodness of God's creation. Finally, Matthew adds to this section Jesus'directive, "No one can serve two masters ... You cannot serve God and wealth." (Matthew6:24, NRSV). The point made by all of these texts put together, then, is that materialisticgoals and concerns conflict with spiritual goals and relationships, and only by truly strivingto love God and our neighbors can we serve God rather than the temporal wealth that our

social world has to offer.

The third issue that Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God called into question was thetendancy in human culture to assume that people can as well as must earn rewards, notonly on earth, but also in the hereafter. Bultmann has noted that one of the problems with

Jewish legalism was that it motivated ethical behavior on the basis of reward andpunishment, and that Jesus opposed such legalistic regulation(13). Indeed, this is true, yet,what Jesus opposed was first, how such legalism interfered with loving one's neighbor (aswe have already noted); second, how such legalism presumed that people earned their way

into God's Kingdom; and third, as Bultmann noted, how such legalism "governs therelation of the individual to God."(14)

Bultmann asserts: "What counts before God is not simply the substantial, verifiable deedthat is done, but how a man[sic] is disposed, what his intent is."(15) Yet Jesus' message ismore subtle, more mysterious, and more complex than this, for his message is full ofparadox. On the one hand, Jesus seems to say that we cannot enter heaven if we have notfed and clothed our neighbors. On the other hand, Jesus proclaims:


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"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children,you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomeshumble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me."(Matthew 18:3-5)

It is important to note that Jesus made this pronouncement in response to the disciples'

query as to who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. In other words, Jesus' messagewas that no one can earn a place in God's Kingdom, for what governs our relationship toGod is grace. When we consider this text in light of the seemingly paradoxical message ofthe passage on the final judgement, then we realize that our intentions are what is called intoquestion. If we seek to earn our way into God's Kingdom, then God's Reign of grace haseluded us entirely. However, if we focus on our relationships, especially on our mutualdependence on others and on God, then, just as children recognize their dependence ontheir parents, we will recognize God's Reign as already among us, for all of us depend on

God's grace for our whole lives, the same as children depend on the grace of their parentsin providing for them and raising them.

What governs our relationships to God then, are not legalistic regulations, but grace thatwe must share in humble relationships with others. This idea flew in the face of Jewishcultural assumption about earning respect and status, both socially and religiously. In fact,the most successful people in any materialistic society, that is, the wealthy, are told by

Jesus that they cannot earn a place in God's Kingdom. As Jesus proclaimed:

"Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter thekingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to gothrough the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enterthe kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they weregreatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?" But

Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, butfor God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:23-26, NRSV)

Obviously, salvation is not something we accomplish on our own. Salvation is an act of

grace. More than that, salvation is a shared event, for we are saved only insofar as weshare this gift of divine grace with others. If, through lack of faith, we hoard materialisticwealth, then we may be depriving others of physical sustenance, and thus our greeddeprives them of the physical bounty of God's grace. We cannot be saved if we worryonly about our own physical and spiritual well-being. No, we must give life to our faith bysharing God's bountiful grace in order to care for both the physical and the spiritual well-being of others. As a wise person recently remarked to me: "We are not saved forourselves; we are saved for others."(16)


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All in all, Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God called into question numerous culturalassumptions and practices; moreover, the universality of Jesus' message trancends hisown culture to critique all other cultures as well. Whenever and however social structuresinterfere with loving people who are in need, Jesus' vision of the Reign of God insists onrecognizing God's Reign as existing here-and-now in the command to love our neighbor.Whenever the dominant cultural paradigm values people's social status and rewards certainbehaviors with power and wealth, Jesus' image of the Kingdom of God focuses instead onthe life-giving reality of God's grace, which can only be experienced as a shared treasure, agift open to us all. Whenever cultural values prioritize material well-being, Jesus' vision ofthe Reign of God among us emphasizes in its place human interdependence based on Godlove and grace.

Conclusion

In the synoptic gospels, then, Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God forms an egalitarianmodel of community, one in which people are sustained by networks of interdependence,with people interacting out of genuine love. Such love is based on the freedom andegalitarianism that truly result only from God's grace. Thus, Jesus' message did not rejectthe natural world; rather, Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God rejected the human culturalworld insofar as it is guided by a materialistic paradigm rather than a spiritual paradigm.

In conclusion, this spiritual paradigm is our salvation, for to dwell in the Kingdom of Godmeans to realize that spiritual reality consists, quite simply of our kinship to God and toone another. No one can earn family status with God: God's grace makes us equal, and

interdependent. Thus, our salvation consists of an existential dimension in which we mustlearn to share God's grace with the other members of our family. Our salvation consists ofan eschatological dimension as well, in that God's grace unites us with God and with oneanother beyond this earthly life. In the meantime, Jesus calls us to live and to share thebountiful hospitality of God's grace here on earth. Jesus calls us to live in a spiritualparadigm rather than in a materialistic, cultural paradigm. Jesus calls us to live in God'sKingdom, a Kingdom of love and grace.

ENDNOTES


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1. See, for instance, Bultmann, Rudolf. Theology of the New Testament, (New York:Charles Scribners Sons), 1955, p. 11.

2. Ibid., p. 4.

3. Ibid., p. 9.

4. Ibid., p. 8.

5. Ibid., p. 19.

6. Ibid., pp. 20-21.

7. The Interpreter's Bible, Ed. George A. Buttrick, (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury

Press), 1951, p. 849.

8. See The Interpreter's Bible, p. 849; The Anchor Bible, "The Gospel According toLuke" (X-CCIV), Joseph A Fitzmyer, S.J. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday andCompany, Inc.), 1985, p. 1157; Harper's Bible Commentary, James L. Mays, Ed.,(San Francisco: Harper and Row), 1988.

9. The Anchor Bible, p. 482.

10. See FORUM, Vol. 7, No. 1/2, March/June 1991, p. 127.

11. The Interpreter's Bible, pp. 848-849.

12. ibid., p. 846.

13. Bultmann, pp. 11-12.

14. Ibid., p. 13.

15. Ibid., p. 13.

16. Joan Sidell, a friend from Takoma Park, Maryland; she has been an active lay leaderin the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) for several decades.


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This is the text of a paper on the topic of the "Kingdom of God" written by CarolRichardson while at Vanderbilt University.

This page last updated 1996/08/26Carol Richardson -- Email: [email protected]

re-interpreting the kingdom of god

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