The Kingdom of Heaven - Transformation in action

There’s a story about an angel appearing at a faculty meeting in a University one day. The angel said to the dean that in return for his unselfish and exemplary behaviour, the Lord would reward him with his choice of infinite wealth, wisdom or beauty. Without hesitating, the dean selected infinite wisdom.

"Done!" said the angel, and disappeared in a cloud of smoke and a bolt of lightning. Now, all heads turned towards the dean, who sat surrounded by a faint halo of light. After a while, one of his colleagues whispered, "Say something."

The dean looked at them and said, "Wisdom tells me I should have taken the money." 

Wisdom today is often seen as far less important than being outwardly successful and enjoying the trappings of that success in the form of wealth or popularity. For centuries people have sought to find answers to all of life’s complex problems, people have sought answers to the meaning of life, and many have sought to understand God himself. 

We would like to assume perhaps that the Church has been a pillar in the search for wisdom, but too often I suspect we have been tainted by the need to preserve what we have rather than strive for what we need – that is a closer relationship with God, and to bring others into that closer relationship as well. In short it is to focus more on the things of God than of the things of this world, or perhaps put more spiritually, to try and look at the world with God’s eyes rather than with our own. 

And today in our gospel (Matt.13:31-33,44-52) we have thought about the kingdom of heaven. To be honest I think it’s wonderful to think of heaven as a place that’s transformed from so much of what we know here and now. Time after time we pray in the Lords Prayer for God’s Kingdom to come, but what do we mean… ?

There is surely nobody here who can not be affected in some way by watching some of the news recently of hatred in the world and the kingdom of heaven must surely be a very different place from this. And I have no doubt that it will be, and yet the kingdom of heaven is not something that is restricted to the future, the kingdom of heaven is here and now – the kingdom is here in a world ready to be transformed, and already seeing that transformation in places. 

A teacher once said to a class, ‘hands up those who want to go to heaven.’ All the hands went up apart from one, and the teacher asked the boy, ‘Don’t you want to go to heaven George ?’ and he replied, ‘no, not if that lot are going.’ 

But again this picture offers something simply of the future – and there’s nothing really wrong with that. The kingdom of God completely fulfilled will be full of love, peace and joy and full of the Holy Spirit guiding and directing us. There will be no need for hope because all hopes will have been fulfilled.

But it’s not the future that I want to think of this morning. It is of this gospel reading which reminds us that the kingdom is already here, and our church and each one of us who call ourselves Christians must represent that kingdom. 

Jesus talked of the kingdom of heaven as being like a mustard seed -  something that began so small and seemingly insignificant but something that would grow tremendously. 

When Jesus ushered in the kingdom through his earthly life, death and resurrection, it happened in a small and seemingly insignificant way – born in a small town, growing up in a town of little influence and even in his ministry only touching a relatively small number of people. 

And yet from this tiny mustard seed would grow a faith that would influence the world and continues to do so 2000 years later. And Jesus goes on in the gospel reading to talk of the kingdom of heaven being like yeast, continuing that theme of growth and influence, and of it being like finding one great pearl – in other words finding what is really important and getting rid of everything else that might prove a distraction. 

As the church represents the kingdom of God, and as we do as individuals, the reading provides a huge challenge. What are the qualities of the kingdom to look like ? And for the answer we look to Jesus. 

He didn’t come to build church buildings throughout the world, to maintain institutions, but he came to build communities of people bound together by love that would help his kingdom to grow. He came to build living communities that would be his body working in the world. 

And that is our challenge – we are to recognise that however small we seem in our parish here in the overall scheme of things, we have a part to play. More than that we are chosen by God himself to play that part. We are chosen to be his hands and his feet and his mouthpiece in the world. 

So many people argue that politics and faith shouldn’t ever mix, and certainly the mix hasn’t worked well at times, and yet, they can’t help but mix. As Christians we are chosen and called to be part of the kingdom of God and that means being involved in life in all it’s different shapes !

For too long I think the church has allowed itself to be pushed into the background, marginalized in national debates, but history tells us over and over again that the church has always played a massive part in important debates even when it’s easier not to. 

And so as we look around at the world today we look at a kingdom which is nowhere near complete, but we look at a kingdom where God has already done everything necessary to complete that kingdom – the rest is up to us. 

That is why we need to have a voice and an opinion on the troubles in the Middle East and other places – It’s why it’s right to think about issues of justice… 

We need to think about the things that help the kingdom of God to grow – In our church councils it’s right that we should think of the many practical things that help to keep our churches going – the buildings and the money and things like that, but actually these should all be considered with the over arching aim of building the kingdom. 

The ultimate, the primary, perhaps the only objective of every one of us as Christians is to help the kingdom grow – to help people to see more clearly a vision of heaven. 

A reality of life lived closely with God. A reality of a place of peace and love. A reality of a world with no conflict or hatred. A reality of a place where pettiness is eliminated in favour of a bigger picture of glorifying God in all that we do and think and say…

In Paul’s letter to the Romans (8:26-39) he was writing to introduce himself and his thoughts to the Christian community in the city. And in it he wrote some incredible truths – perhaps the greatest of all being, ‘If God is for us, who is against us?’ 

It was a call again to focus on what is truly important, to get priorities and principles right…. Without the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the church is meaningless – it could be any other club or organization and we could have a lie in on a Sunday, but with Jesus at it’s head, with Jesus’ message being proclaimed, with love shared and offered to all, it is and we are part of the living body of Christ, part of the growing kingdom of heaven today. 

When we pray as we so often do in the Lords prayer for the kingdom to come, we pray for a radical transformation of a broken world, we pray for a change in the lives of all who hurt or suffer for whatever reason, we pray for justice and peace to prevail in the world, we pray for good to overcome evil in every instance – and we pray offering ourselves as part of that radically transformed world, as part of that kingdom… 

May everything we do in our lives, in our homes, in our work, in our leisure and in our church, be done for God’s glory and for the extension of his kingdom, and may it be done with the confidence of knowing that he loves us, that he walks alongside us and that he has chosen us as his children to be part of his amazing kingdom, and that, in spite of our fears at times, there is nothing that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God.. . AMEN