Pentecost 6 (Luke 9:51-62)

“Go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”

The Kingdom of God is the reunification and transformation of the soul.

The enemies and friends of Jesus thought of the Kingdom of God in earthly terms. They may have used the phrase “Kingdom of God” but they really meant ‘the Kingdom of Man.”

The Bible is a record of how human beings seek to use God to create and sustain the Kingdom of Man. All of the ancient empires fall into this category. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome all sought divine favor to establish and maintain the rule of man in the world.

They all invoked a very basic assertion: God is on my side. Since God is on my side I have the right to dominate, conquer and rule.

Virtually all people who met Jesus, listened to him teach and saw his miracles had the expectation that he would follow the pattern of the Kingdom of Man. He would inspire his followers. Raise an army. Use the divine power at his disposal to subjugate his enemies. And, he would create a new world order to impose divine Law on the nations.

He would authorize the righteous  to practice aggression against the unrighteous. He would demand the unrighteous submit to the rigid inflexible and uncompromising rule of the righteous.

To the very end this is how the people who knew Jesus interpreted his presence in the world.

And so, we see how James and John wish to punish the Samaritan villages for refusing to submit to them as the true righteous representative of God. Jesus rebukes the brothers for their pride and self-will. There is no condemnation in Jesus. Jesus never authorizes his follower or representatives to condemn.

And so, as Jesus nears Jerusalem there are those who seek to gain his favor. They are seeking the material rewards from the Kingdom of Man. They are seeking maximum wealth and power for minimal effort. Jesus is quick to clarify the cost of following him, the cost of discipleship.

To one man Jesus clarifies that he is not offering a palace to live in and a city to rule. Jesus himself has no permanent home in this world. To be sure, the entire planet belongs to Jesus. But, Jesus is not parceling out territory to his followers. He calls his followers to be stewards of his planet not owners.

To others Jesus asks for a reordering of priorities. The principle underlying the call to discipleship is: if you place God second you place God last. This is not a demand to submit to a monarch in fear. It is an invitation to surrender to the Beloved of God in love.

Where we chose to place our time and attention reveals our current spiritual state and our future spiritual direction.

The Summary of the Law sets the standard in the Call to worship. The call to worship invites us to make a real choice to enter into the Real Presence of God at the time and place God himself has designed into the very fabric of the universe.

It is as we surrender self-will to Divine will through love that we find our true self. That true self is the image and likeness of the Logos, the co-eternal Word of God made flesh in Jesus Christ. It is a life long journey away from fear, anxiety frustration and stagnation into an active dynamic transform life of service and  celebration.

No one then understood this amazing gift of God until the day of Pentecost. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fulfills the promise of the Son to lead us into all truth.

It takes time. It requires choice. Each small choice we make to receive the word of God, to believe the word of God and to live the word of God moves us more closely to the one who is the Word of God. That person is Jesus Christ.

The Kingdom of Man is the assertion of the individual will to power to use God and other people to meet our needs and desires. The Kingdom of God is the personal relationship our Heavenly Father offers all people everywhere to receive and experience. The quality of that relationship can be described as the adventure of a forever friendship with someone who knows us, cares for us, and has only our good as his goal.

This forever friendship is the Kingdom that Jesus asks us to proclaim to everyone we know and to everyone we meet.