“The Kingdom of Heaven Has Come Near”
Alison Longstaff, January 27th, 2008
St. James Lutheran, New Dundee
Isaiah 9: 1-4; Matthew 4: 12-23
Disclaimer #1 This sermon is not about our struggle. Instead, we will pause to pay attention to what God is already doing and being in our lives.
Disclaimer #2 I frequently use the male pronoun when referring to God. Please do not assume that I am saying that God is male and male only. I am not yet skilled at the linguistic gymnastics required to speak of a very human, loving, and personal God without using a personal pronoun or sounding really stilted and odd. So, if my language offends, please feel free to translate it into whatever language works for you. God made us all in His/Her image. Absolutely no one is left out or “less-than” in God’s kingdom.
Disclaimer #3 The opinions expressed below are not necessarily the opinions of the Lutheran church. Please feel free to consult your local pastor for clarification of any questions that may arise.
Now, to begin.
“The Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”
These were the final words of our Gospel reading today: “The Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” What feelings does that phrase evoke in you? “The Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”
When I first read it, it evoked a sort of shivery awe. It was as if my spirit became quite still, and my eyes and ears opened wide and started looking around. There was a kind of inner excitement and anticipation. “The Kingdom of Heaven has come near? Where!”
But on another day, it might bring up quite another response in me. After all, the full phrase is: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” And on days when I feel like a failure, and when I doubt my ability to be at all worth saving, my response might be rather to pull the blankets up over my head and whimper, “please go away.” I wouldn’t want the Kingdom of Heaven to come near me. I would be too sure that the “Kingdom of Heaven” would simply highlight all my warts and failings in contrast and remind me how unworthy I was. Who would want that?
But I’m speaking primarily to Lutherans, and Lutherans in particular are very good at remembering that God is a God of love and Grace, not judgment. Right?
Well, whatever we feel or believe, I bet we could all agree that God probably doesn’t want us cringing and cowering away from His outreaching love. He does NOT want us to think of Him, and expect a beating. What loving parent would ever want their child to respond to them in that way? No, I think, when God draws near, when the kingdom of heaven draws near, God surrounds us and lifts us up in love.
So, having said this, why would God say, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near”? The traditional understanding of this is, “get your act together. Comb your hair, clean your room, shine your shoes, because God is coming over today.” And that is a perfectly appropriate and understandable interpretation of it. Another interpretation of it is, “Buddy, you’d better get your act together now, because if you don’t, you’re toast.”
Well, having been raised under the heavy weight of the latter interpretation, with a hefty side serving of “and frankly, you’re the equivalent of a dung-fly, so you may not even be capable of measuring up, but you’d better try,” I’m looking for a more redemptive interpretation. Where is God’s love in such a statement?
What if we turn it on its head? I do know witnesses say that when God draws very near to us, rather than producing shame in us, we will feel an all-encompassing peace and are filled with overwhelming love. Anyone who has felt this great love, this transformative, redemptive, passionate delight, cannot help but be changed. Given one taste of God’s love, and one is forever changed, which is another way of saying one “repents.” So, another way---the grace way---to read today’s text would be, “The Kingdom of Heaven is coming near, and you will be transformed.”
I think that’s a pretty friendly way to read this text. It doesn’t invalidate other readings. It simply speaks to God’s side of the relationship. Being changed by God’s love is just as genuine a repentance as any shame-filled, hand-wringing litany of all the ways we’ve messed up. The “shame-filled, hand-wringing litany of all the ways we’ve messed up” is closer to the idea of repentance I was raised with. Perhaps the clergy assumed we were all arrogant, thick-skinned meat heads, that needed a lot of pounding to tender us up. But some of us start out tender to begin with, and a gentle hand is more than enough to guide us down the path of kindness. In any case my personal theology has concluded that Repentance means “re-thinking.” Repentance means seeing things in a whole new way. Repentance doesn’t have to involve feeling bad and beating ourselves up. It might, but it doesn’t have to.
So, Repentance means seeing things in a whole new way. Why else would Scripture say, “the people who walked in darkness, have seen a great light?” We all start out walking in darkness. This isn’t about some group over there. This is said to all of us. This is a prophecy. “The people who walked in darkness, have seen a great light.” God will enter our lives, and we will eventually all see things in a whole new light. For each of us, each differently, the kingdom of heaven will draw near, and we will be changed. Upon each of us, the light does indeed shine.
Now, let’s take some time to reflect on if and when God may have drawn near in our lives so far. Sometimes an encounter with the divine is quite profound, sometimes so very gentle that it might be described as a whisper into our consciousness, or a “still, small voice.” So let’s stop and reflect: what has happened to you in your lifetime, that you may have felt, or maybe thought you sensed something quite extraordinary move near?
Let’s sit with this a moment.
I had such an experience last week when I attended my first “Code Blue” at the hospital. I stood with another chaplain just outside the room watching the emergency team labour to revive an older gentleman who’s heart had stopped beating. I was surprised to discover that instead of anxiety, I was filled with a sense of overwhelming beauty. The absolute focus and silent respect of the medical team, and the prolonged endurance of their fight to bring this gentleman’s spirit back into his body was so profoundly beautiful. It was as if they were also an honour guard standing in respect, at the passing of a great leader. All the while I had an indescribable sense that the man was somewhere up above, watching the whole show, not the least bit upset, and hand in hand with the wife who had gone before him and had been waiting for him. Call me fanciful. But as I passed through that experience, I shivered and got goose bumps.
It turned out the gentleman did indeed pass on to be with his wife. The medical team ceased their efforts and called the time of death. Then it was time for the pastoral team to move to support of the grieving family.
Celtic spirituality uses the term, “thin places” to describe physical locations where they believe that the veil between the spiritual realm and the physical world are particularly thin. Pilgrims seek these places out in Scotland, Ireland, and England in search of a spiritual encounter, or a new direction, or a new sense of self or mission.
I don’t know if we have to go anywhere to seek out the thinning veil. In my experience, it finds us. Did I sense a thinning of the veil when that man passed through? I don’t know. I do believe the thinning veil happens all the time, though we generally don’t have ears to hear or eyes to see it. Maybe there are places on the earth where it is easier to sense things on the other side. But most people I know have had some experience where they sensed a divine presence, or felt there was something deeper and sacred overlaying a quite ordinary experience, regardless of where they were on the planet. And I believe this sort of experience is indeed heaven drawing near, no less and no more. I also believe that God guides even whether we are open or not open to such encounters, so we are not doing something wrong if we don’t have such experiences often. I don’t think we need to stress about any of it, just simply sit in stillness and awe if it happens to us.
In our culture, we tend to dismiss such happenings. We tend to doubt our own inner experiences, even the most profound. Why is that? Well, one reason might be that such spiritual events, such divine encounters leave no evidence, they leave nothing scientifically measurable as proof of their passing. They leave only a mark on our hearts—not our physical heart muscle, but—on our spiritual heart, on our love. We can’t measure such experiences or record them or photograph them or get a certificate of authenticity for them. So we tend to dismiss them.
But also, when God draws that close, and touches our hearts, it can be so intimate that we may not want to talk about it for quite awhile. We may scarcely dare to acknowledge it to ourselves, let alone anyone else. We know just how ready the world is to mock stories of such experiences, to scourge them and crucify them. So it is understandable that we tend to keep such experiences quietly to ourselves.
With that said, let me reassure you that nobody needs to raise their hands, just answer quietly inside yourself, have you ever sensed the kingdom of heaven drawing near? Perhaps you think you never have, and maybe that is true. If it is, that is nothing to stress about either. We are all made differently, and God designed each one of us, perfectly formed for the task he has in mind for us. Some of us are particularly sensitive to such things, some less so.
I consider myself rather dense to spiritual reality. Of the few experiences I have had, all but one could be written off as a fanciful imagination. God protects even my freedom to believe in them or not. But I do know, that whatever these experiences are—that so many of us have and are afraid even to admit to ourselves—they leave us changed. We’re never quite the same afterwards. And when such an experience passed us by, we may have found ourselves covered in goose bumps, or felt our heart racing, or felt slightly shaky. We may have seen things or heard things a little out of the ordinary. It isn’t always just “a bit of undigested beef.”
And think about it, if God loves us so much that He was willing to die for us, if God says He is always knocking and all we have to do is open our hearts, then maybe, just maybe, the kingdom of heaven is a lot nearer than we ever imagined, and that the little thrill that you felt as you watched the candles being lit, or your baby sleep last night, or the way the light fell across the fields when you drove in here, wasn’t just a nice feeling, but God’s hand, brushing the hair out of your eyes. Maybe, just maybe, God is very close indeed, just waiting for the day we open your eyes and look Him full in the face and smile.
The kingdom of heaven is drawing nearer all the time, and we do not need to be afraid of it. All we need to do is allow it to be so, and trust that God has our future for good in His sights. Repent? Of course we repent! If you are like me, I’m always thinking and rethinking whether I’m good enough or doing the right thing. I can’t help it. God might just wish I worried less about whether I’m good enough, not more. But in any case, I do know this, that just like the light is already growing stronger daily on our good land even though it is only January, and winter still holds us tight in her grip, our spiritual spring is well on its way too, and we can see it in our glimpses of the light of God’s love for us, and the warm feelings that stir whenever He draws near.
As we leave this place of worship today and head out into the ordinary life of another work week and school week, lets see if we can be a little more attentive to the whispers of God’s presence in our lives. Let’s see if we can notice the brush of His robes, the whir of angels wings, and the warmth of his steadying hand in our lives, and be comforted, for the kingdom of heaven is indeed drawing near. This minute, right now, God is near.
Amen.
