The Joy of the Kingdom

12 Pentecost | Luke 12:32-40
August 12, 2013

Jesus said to his disciples, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Luke 12:32-40)

1. The Kingdom of Heaven starts from the joy of God.

Fear not, little flock.  Your father finds his joy [eudokhsen] in giving you the kingdom.

The Kingdom of Heaven starts from the joy of God.  It is about its expression, and its expansion.  It is that joy – that pleasure, that satisfaction – that is the true wealth of the universe.

Here, with God, it begins.  And here, in the teaching of Jesus, we begin our training in it.  You have to get the spirit right.  The Kingdom of Heaven is a spiritual kingdom.  That is, it is the right spirit of the material kingdom.  It is just as material as anything else – it involves the trees and the mountains and the seas, and money, and people, and disease, and all of that.  But in all of that material world, the Kingdom of Heaven consists in getting the spirit right.

Here Jesus defines the kingdom of Heaven in terms of its spirit.  If you think what I am saying to you tonight is right, if you want to hail Jesus as the Messiah, then listen carefully to this definition of the spirit of the universe.  Listen carefully to this description of the spirit of God: Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One.  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind, and all your strength.

This is the nature of your God – the nature of his kingdom flows directly from who he is.  He is beyond fear.  He takes his joy in giving us the kingdom.  Our part of righteousness is to show up.

Jesus taught us to pray simply that God’s kingdom would come – and invited us to be a part of its coming.   But – and Christianity as a religion has never really been clear about this – you can’t get into the spiritual of the kingdom of God without beginning with the right spirit.

• The Kingdom of Heaven starts from the joy of God.
• It is a gift (the nature of joy).
• It is beyond fear (the nature of faith).
• We have to show up (our part of righteousness).

2. Tonight’s scripture lessons go over this theme clearly.

Isaiah: Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

Hebrews: Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.   Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval.

Genesis: And (Abraham) believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.

• Learn to do good.
• Walk in faith.
• That is the right way, so far as the only real God is concerned.
• We have to show up (our part of righteousness).

That’s the meaning of this talk about being prepared.  Servants are not idle – sitting on the bench, as it were.  If you are a servant – an employee of someone – you have a job to do.  You’ve been there long enough to know what you have to do, and you have probably been there long enough to take some initiative – to know things that might need to be done that are not on your instruction list.  Your master may come home at any time.  What will you be doing when he comes?

Act like someone who has been given the kingdom – a person of full opportunity and responsibility – not someone who is under some other kind of regime.  Without fear, in the spirit of your master’s joy, we have to show up – that is our part of righteousness.  We are full citizens of the kingdom simply by believing this.

• The Kingdom of Heaven starts from the joy of God:
  • Fear not little flock;
  • your father finds his own joy in giving you the kingdom.
  • It is a gift (the nature of joy);
  • It is beyond fear (the nature of faith).
  • We have to show up (our part of righteousness).

3. The Wright Brothers and the Kingdom of God.

Annie and I just came back from the Outer Banks.  While we were down there this time, we made two visits – I should almost say pilgrimages – to the place where Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first flight.  On December 17, 1903, at Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks, Orville and Wilbur Wright made four flights in a contraption called the Wright Flyer.  The first three flights lasted 12, 12, and 15 seconds, and were less than 300 feet.  But the fourth, epic-making flight lasted for 59 seconds and traveled 852 feet.  From that moment began an incredible new chapter in human history, which has connected the world in ways that could not have been imagined before it happened.

The Wright Brothers’ Memorial in Kill Devil Hills is a powerful place.  It is hard not to be affected by the place, the simple glory of the event, the story of these two brothers who believed something hitherto impossible was possible and pursued it with all the resources of mind and spirit, hope and faith at their command.

Virtually no one believed that human beings could fly, at least not then, not any time soon.  They did.  And they kept pursuing it through failure and danger, with hopeful developments and horrible setbacks, until one day it finally happened.

It should be obvious that not everyone can be the first person to fly.  But life is full of first happenings.  People break through.  Truth happens.  The kingdom arrives.  Things that seemed impossible become possible through joy, faith, and just showing up.

Joy: The Wright Brothers were very clear that they did not invent what they saw.  They studied birds and the way that wings worked.  They studied the wind.  They made engines.  They learned what was already there.  The Kingdom was given.  It was God’s joy.  They had the privilege of discovering the gift.

Faith: Nothing happens without faith.  It has to do with things that are not seen.  Things that are not seen come into being by people stepping into the unseen reality that God gives in his joy.  But you have to go beyond fear.

Showing up: None of us can do more than we can do.  But we can do a lot more than we know or than we can be assigned by someone else.  If the assignment is internal – if we offer the resourcefulness that we ourselves, only we ourselves, have, then things can happen that would not otherwise happen..

The Kingdom of Heaven starts from the joy of God.  It is about its expression, and its expansion.  It is that joy – that pleasure, that satisfaction – that is the true wealth of the universe.  This spirit is the sign of eternal life:

• The Kingdom of Heaven starts from the joy of God:
  • Fear not little flock;
  • your father finds his own joy in giving you the kingdom.
  • It is a gift (the nature of joy);
  • It is beyond fear (the nature of faith).

We have to show up.  That is our part of righteousness.

The Rev. Benjamin Campbell
Richmond Hill