The author of the gospel of Matthew
uses the phrase 'Kingdom of Heaven' thirty times, three times
saying, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” So for
Matthew's first hearers to have a real feel for what Jesus had taught
his closest followers was for them to have a heart felt experience of
what 'kingdom of heaven being at hand' means. Surely if the Jesus
story is to stay relevant it can mean something like that for us now.
And, because Matthew says we enter it through 'repentance' or
metanoia we potentially can claim that state of mind and reality by
experiencing our view of life and living being turned on its head in
some significant ways. Repentance for Matthew is not so simple as to,
by our personal will power, stop some bad behavior and start good
ones. No, it meant to have ones deepest evaluation of inner and
outer reality transformed from whatever cultural and conventional
point of view we have inherited.
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| Finding Treasure In A Field. |
One may say, “But I’ve inherited my
Christian faith. I was taught it. So surely I have the mindset of the
'Kingdom of Heaven is at hand' in blood, in my soul already. I need
to expect nothing more or different.” To some degree just being
around the stories of Jesus may result is some measure of a 'kingdom
of heaven' attitude being absorbed into who we are. But we all likely
have something still to look forward to if we have not had those
moments when we are aware of the stark contrast between 'the kingdom
of heaven' state of mind compared to our cultural, including church
culture, point of view we have so deeply drunk from. Many devout
persons of various Christian traditions are learning that much of our
inherited Christian world view has become instead of a 'Kingdom of
Heaven' mindset yet another conventional, materialistic and often
moralistic point of view---much as we often find our assumptions
about marriage, politics and nation are often as much un-pondered
fantasy as fact. The Kingdom of Heaven being present, on the other
hand, is something that the author of Matthew is saying we are
invited to and can come by grace to experience authoritatively deep
in very own being. And it comes not primarily because we have been
told we should believe something but rather have had some
convincing personal experience.
We find that Matthew believes himself
to be in touch with a deep and truthful authority when he says Jesus
taught and believed that the 'Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.' In this narrative Matthew illustrates how strongly a genuine inner religious
authority can strike a human being in his/her depths. He illustrates
this kind of unconventional authority by saying that those who were called by Jesus
'immediately left their belongings, occupations and parents' when
they were face to face with such genuine authority. Is leaving our
livelihood, belongings, and even family the way we would ever
properly advise someone to respond to some conventional change in
life? Of course not, we would rightly say, 'Examine it further.
Sleep on it for goodness sakes. You may be being misled.' The kind
of thing we say when one is car shopping. But surely still today
when one comes face to face with the deeper inner spiritual forces of
life, such as some did who were near Jesus, the need to obey
this higher voice and its call is so authentic and authoritative that
one would have no reasonable desire but to follow at nearly any cost.
This is the nature I believe of what has always been referred to as
'call' and its not reserved for only prospective preachers. It is a natural phenomenon of the human soul. And an
experience of such authority is the nature of what it means to come
under a fuller awareness of the reality that the 'kingdom of heaven
is truly at hand.'
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| Off The Beaten Track |
What might it mean and feel like to be
moved by such a truth that Matthew says is so central to what it
meant to be a Jesus follower? It would mean that as many questions as
one may have and as imperfect his/her pattern of loving themselves
and and others is, to trust the Kingdom of heaven is near means
nothing less than: the potential of loving and being loved as the
ordinary and expected experience of being human in this world. It
means being given permission by the highest authority that it is
appropriate and customary for a human being to live with an
incomparable hope that life and the world is headed toward a better
condition, not worse. And that each of us has something significant
to do with which way it goes. The Kingdom of heaven being a hand
means that no mater what other realities and disappointments are
observed in life that there are means and forces beyond our present
mortal comprehension whereby unsolvable political/social/family/moral
issues may be transcended, even at a mass level. And to bring us all
to a far more glorious view of just who we are and how each is part
of the whole of reality and connected always to the Sacred
foundations of all this is. This means that we can, without
discrediting or splitting off our intellectual capacities and our
latest technologies, be confident that life and love may be
experienced on a scale far grander than any of our forebears were
able to imagine. Such conclusions as these I think are natural to
the state of mind that trusts 'the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'
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| A Fig Tree |
May I leave you with Matthew's grand
belief: Each of us is capable of coming to a new and broader point of
view which affirms in us the right to trust that the very best of
God and humanity is potentially yet to come. Even better, it can
always be viewed as just around the corner, giving one a consistent 'stay tuned'
attitude toward life. When we are open to and blessed with such a
mindset we will be living our days and situation very much the way
the first and closest friends of Jesus lived theirs.... trusting
that the 'the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'
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