Making God's kingdom present

Because it's Year B of the Sunday lectionary cycle during which we take St. Mark's Gospel as our Sunday staple, on today's Solemnity of the Christ the King we turn, as we did for five weeks earlier this year, to St. John's Gospel. But what we hear is perfectly congruent with what have heard from Mark over the previous few months. In today's Gospel, when Jesus tells Pilate "My kingdom does not belong to this world," he is referring to the fact that God's kingdom is not established by force, by political coercion, or by imposition. In much the same way we distinguish "the flesh" from the body in the writings of St. Paul (in Greek "flesh" is sarx and body is soma), we must distinguish between "the world" to which God's kingdom is the antidote and the world, perhaps most accurately described by Wittgenstein at the beginning of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus as "everything that is the case." In short, Jesus is not saying his kingdom is other-worldly. Because of the Incarnation, Christianity is not a form of Gnosticism.

The kingdom over which Jesus will rule and reign is a kingdom made u[ of those like Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, the scribe who grasped that loving God by loving one's neighbor is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices, and the poor widow who selflessly gave all she had, even though it wasn't very much. Suffice it say, a kingdom comprised of such people does not need to be ruled with a firm hand, let alone an iron fist.

As the Messiah, Jesus was a disappointment. Yes, he was a descendant of David, which is why Bartimaeus hailed him with the Messianic greeting "Son of David." But he did not come to route the occupiers (i.e., the Romans) and re-establish a united Israelite kingdom over which he would serve as temporal ruler. Because his kingship is æternal, there is nothing temporal or temporary about Christ's kingship.

Jesus is autobasileia, the kingdom in person. This is why, in the very first chapter of Mark's Gospel, after he emerges from the desert, the Lord declares, "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:15). By means of the communion we share, Christ desires to be present in us so that through us he can be present wherever we go. Wherever we go we should seek to make God's kingdom present. You see, the kingdom of God is not currently absent. It is present in you and me like the small mustard seed. God's kingdom is not established by governments or cultural institutions but by people who lose their lives for the sake of further establishing it. Whether through martyrdom or simply by lives lived in service to those in need, God's kingdom is spread by people most of whose names we do not know. This does not matter, as these people seek to glorify the name of Jesus, not their own.

Last evening we watched the 1975 movie The Hiding Place. Filmed two years after the book was published, the movie (and the book) tells the story of the Ten Boom family. The Ten Booms were Dutch Christians who, in German-occupied Holland, opened their watchmaking shop and attached home to Jews seeking refuge.

Eventually, the Ten Booms were arrested by the Germans. Casper, the family patriarch, died shortly after being detained. His daughters Corrie and Betsie, along with his son Willem, were deported to concentration camps. Corrie and Betsie were sent to Ravensbrück. Throughout their ordeal, the two sisters made the kingdom of God present by praying, bearing witness, serving their fellow prisoners, and working not to harbor hatred in their hearts for those who mistreated them. Betsie perished in the camp. Willem also died in detention. Only Corrie, who wrote The Hiding Place, survived.

Corrie Ten Boom's gravestone in Fairhaven Memorial Park, Santa Ana, California

What the sisters Ten Boom discovered while interned in Ravensbrückis is set forth very well in a sort of motto Betsie uttered: "There is no pit so deep, that God's love is not deeper still." This certainly echoes the words of Psalm 139:8b- "if I lie down in Sheol, there you are." These two women show us what it means to make God's kingdom present. They also show us what Christ himself showed us on the cross: the power by which Christ will finally establish God's kingdom in full is love. It is people like Corrie and Betsie Ten Boom who will inhabit God's kingdom. I suggest reading the book or watching the movie over Advent.

We are not to wait for Christ's return to reign in a passive manner. No, as his followers, we must seek every day in each situation to make God's kingdom present wherever we are.