a kingdom built of seeds

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Not our kingdom. Not our power. Not our glory. It belongs to another. The only one worthy of it. The only one it cannot blemish or destroy. Whenever we take it upon ourselves we ruin it, it ruins us. Whenever we try to play God we become the devil.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” “But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior.” There is no God but YHWH.

We are no less fickle than the Israelites, though we like to think better of ourselves. This prayer was their reminder. Is it ours?

I am thankful for earthly powers that constrain evil and steward justice. But even the best of them are deeply flawed, and often become an instrument of oppression as much as, if not more than, freedom, benefiting the privileged over the marginalized. The promises of empire ultimately seduce us if we identify with that empire, if we place in it our faith, trust, and hope. It becomes even more sinister when the church and crown, the religious and political, join forces. We diminish the way of the Christ while enlarging the way of empire. And at such great cost.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.”

“My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not of this world.”

Unrealistic. Idealistic. Impractical. Foolish. Upside-down. Counter-intuitive. The associations we have with kingdom and power and glory are self-serving and self-enhancing. A kingdom rules within and defends its walls and borders. Power is power-over and power subdues the powerless. Glory is a spotlight that celebrates victory, implying that one person or people or team or nation is better than another.

By our own reasoning the way of the Christ simply doesn’t work. At least not now, not here, not today.

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men…But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”

The way and life of the Christ is this foolishness, this weakness. And it shames even the best efforts of our kingdom, our power, and our glory to bring about what only following the way and life of the Christ will ever do.

Teach us the true kingdom, the true power, the true glory, that is forever and lies outside ourselves.

Amen.

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