Being the Kingdom -- Comforting the Afflicted

Everywhere you go, announce that the Kingdom of Heaven is coming closer and closer all the time! Heal the sick! Raise the dead! Cleanse the lepers! Cast out demons! All of you took without paying so give without charging! Don’t take any money along with you! Don’t take along any provisions! Don’t take along any extra clothing, an extra pair of shoes, or even a walking stick! Let the people you help give you what you need. Look for suitable people whenever you enter a town or a city and stay with them until you leave again. Be respectful of their homes and follow their rules. Extend a peaceful greeting to them if they are worthy, but if they are unworthy, take back your greeting of peace. If no one in the town or city invites you into their homes or listens to what you have to say, then turn around and leave. When you reach the city limits, take off your shoes and clap the soles together, so that you don’t even take away the smallest piece of dirt from that town. Amen! I’m telling all of you that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah will be given more leniency on Judgment Day than that place will.

~ As Matthew Tells It
The New Peace Treaty: A New Translation of the New Testament

The Kingdom of Heaven was indeed close at hand, getting closer and closer all the time, because the Kingdom of Heaven was embodied in Jesus Christ. Since Jesus embodies the Kingdom, wherever Jesus is, the Kingdom is there.

The Kingdom of Heaven is still close at hand, getting closer and closer all the time, because the Church is the embodiment of that Kingdom -- or at least, it is supposed to be. The Church is the Body of Christ; therefore, the Church is to be the physical representation of Christ to the world. The literal body of Christ may be elsewhere, but the “Body” -- the physical representation and continuing presence of Christ in the world, enlivened by His Spirit, and nourished in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood -- is found in the continuing mission and ministry of the Church -- or at least, it is supposed to be.

If the Kingdom was embodied by Christ, and is (supposed to be) currently embodied by the Church, then the Church embodies and makes the Kingdom present by doing what Jesus was doing, and still seeks to do through His Church: curing the sick, raising the dead, healing lepers, liberating people from evil spirits. If these activities serve as a sort of mission statement for the Kingdom, then the Kingdom is about healing and restoration -- or restoration through healing.

Remember, to be sick in ancient Judea was not simply a matter of being physically unwell, it was often a matter of being ritually unclean. A sick person was cut off from life. Lepers were marginalized and separated from society. Various illnesses carried various remedies -- remedies that to us would seem more like punishments than like cures. Evil spirits separated people from themselves, their own well-being, often from their sanity, and usually forced them out of mainstream, respectable society -- isolated, alone, and tormented. Death, of course, is the ultimate separation in which people are cut off from this world in a very literal way. Death also often meant that loved ones of the deceased were cut off -- women who had no husbands, no fathers, and no sons, had no security or means of survival, so the death of a husband of a woman whose father had died, and who had no son, meant the social death, poverty, and a slow, lingering despair until she too died.

The Kingdom overturns death -- the dead are raised to life! The Kingdom liberates captives -- those who are possessed! The Kingdom ends isolation and includes the marginalized -- demons are cast out and lepers are cleansed! The Kingdom heals -- it not only heals illness, but it also heals the emotional, spiritual, and social consequences of illness. The Kingdom brings life -- ABUNDANT LIFE!

All of us who bear the name of Christ also bear that Kingdom -- or at least, we should. We may not literally raise people from the dead, or literally cure lepers, but this world is filled with many who are physically alive who are dead in many ways, and they need to be brought back to life and restored to full humanity. Society is filled with lepers who have been cut off, we just no longer call them lepers. There are many people who are tormented by evil spirits, we just no longer think of them as “demon possessed.” There are many evil spirits -- alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness, hedonism, eroticism, materialism, greed, consumerism, narcissism -- and many people who need liberation.

Does it seem overwhelming to think about it? Then that is probably why most of us try to go through our lives without thinking about it. Jesus warned us that the harvest was huge, and told us to pray for the Lord of the harvest to send out workers -- to send us out, to work, to harvest, to heal, to cure, to liberate, to raise the dead, to restore relationships, to bring people together, to BE the Kingdom of Heaven -- to BE both sheep and shepherd.

After Jesus tells us what to do and say, He tells us what to take: very little. Disciples and Apostles travel light in this world. A true disciple and Apostle does not get rich being the embodiment of the Kingdom. Televangelism would be great if it were not for the televangelists getting rich from the Gospel -- saying Kingdom things, but living worldly lives.

I used to think that by not being married, and by not having many things, I was sacrificing; I now see that it takes less sacrifice to do without than it does to have. Being married is a continual sacrifice; being single is not. Having possessions is a continual sacrifice; having little is not. I have the freedom to pick up and go anywhere at any time if that is what God requires of me; married people with a lot of possessions cannot. There is a freedom that comes with not having.

Yet, this sort of apostolic poverty cannot be forced. I am not speaking of poverty in the way the word is generally used. Forces and powers in the world keep people in states of abject poverty in order to make larger profit for themselves. This is oppression, not blessing or spirituality or the embodiment of the Kingdom. No one can use what has been said by Jesus, or by me, or by the Apostles and disciples throughout history and try to twist it into a doctrine that by keeping others in poverty, or by taking what they have, it is somehow for their own spiritual and physical good. That sort of thinking is an evil spirit that has the powerful and greedy in its grip.

This also does not mean that those who are engaged in full time ministry cannot be sustained in their ministry. Some of us work many jobs to pay for our own ministry, but it is difficult because we have to maintain a certain level of freedom from employment in order to be available when needed. But ministry can never be “a job” even though a church may sustain clergy. Then again, any job can become ministry if that is where our focus is -- there is always someone going through something to whom we can help bring healing and restoration. We can embody the Kingdom digging ditches as well as we can ladling soup in a soup kitchen.

WHEN WE ARE KINGDOM-MINDED, WE ARE KINGDOM-MOTIVATED, WE ENGAGE IN KINGDOM-MINISTRY AND OTHERS ARE KINGDOM-MENDED.

Our security does not come from having things, but by serving others. Logically, this is the most secure way to live. If I have to compete with others for my needs to be met, I may get some met, but most will not be met; many people may have no needs met; and a few may have all their needs met. But if we all, instead of competing for our own needs to be met, focused on meeting the needs of others, then we all have more than enough -- because instead of one person looking out for me (myself), I have many people looking out for me, and together they can provide me with what I cannot provide for myself; and I along with others, can provide for others in a way they cannot provide for themselves, and in a way that I cannot provide for them on my own. So our security comes from not focusing on our own wants and needs, but by wanting the needs of others to be met.

IT’S OKAY TO OWN THINGS -- I JUST HAVE TO BE VIGILANT AND MAKE SURE THOSE THINGS DO NOT OWN ME!

Finally, Jesus says that if others are not hospitable to us as we embody the Kingdom, then they are worse off then Sodom and Gomorrah, which were destroyed because they were inhospitable to the point of abusing strangers who visited and dwelled within. Most of us do not like those parts of the Bible because we think it sounds harsh, or judgmental, or mean. Some people like those portions too much because they are harsh, or judgmental, or mean. But there is actually something positive in the statement. The harsh part is a result of “NO ONE” welcoming the Apostles -- if one person does, then the whole town is spared. Sodom and Gomorrah would have been spared if there were only ten hospitable people in it; there were not, and it was destroyed. If anyone welcomes the Apostles then the Apostles pass along their peace; if no one at all in an entire town welcomes them, then they shake off the dust of that town, so that there is no connection at all between the Apostles and that town. But one person, one house, one family, can change everything for that entire town!

It is like the parable Jesus tells about a woman making bread. She puts in a little yeast and it leavens all the dough. What most people do not understand is that she is using enough dough to feed an army. She uses a little bit of yeast in a vast amount of dough, and somehow, the entire amount of dough rises. That is what is happening in the towns.

So the questions I have to ask myself as one who bears the name of Christ are:

In what do I really place my security?

Do I really own the things I have, or do they own me?

How are the things I own a burden and how do they keep me from serving God?

How free am I to live a fully Christian life as envisioned in the Gospel?

What keeps me from that freedom?

Am I a healing presence in the lives of others, or do I add to their burdens?

How am I engaged in the Lord’s work in my daily life, and how hospitable am I toward others who are engaged in the Lord’s work?