Reading 33
The kingdom among you
The reading
Luke 17:20-37
Being asked by the Pharisees when God's Kingdom would come, he answered them, "God's Kingdom doesn't come with observation; neither will they say, 'Look, here!' or, 'Look, there!' for behold, God's Kingdom is within you." He said to the disciples, "The days will come, when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will tell you, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Don't go away, nor follow after them, for as the lightning, when it flashes out of the one part under the sky, shines to the other part under the sky; so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
"As it was in the days of Noah, even so will it be also in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ship, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise, even as it was in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from the sky, and destroyed them all. It will be the same way in the day that the Son of Man is revealed. In that day, he who will be on the housetop, and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away. Let him who is in the field likewise not turn back. Remember Lot's wife! Whoever seeks to save his life loses it, but whoever loses his life preserves it. I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed. The one will be taken, and the other will be left. There will be two grinding grain together. One will be taken, and the other will be left."
They, answering, asked him, "Where, Lord?" He said to them, "Where the body is, there will the vultures also be gathered together."
The companions
Psalm 46 (selected)
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we won't be afraid, though the earth changes, though the mountains are shaken into the heart of the seas; though its waters roar and are troubled. There is a river, the streams of which make the city of God glad, the holy place of the tents of the Most High. God is within her. She shall not be moved. The nations raged. The kingdoms were moved. He lifted his voice, and the earth melted. The LORD of Armies is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Come, see the LORD's works. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth. "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth." The LORD of Armies is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.
Isaiah 45:15
Most certainly you are a God who hides yourself, God of Israel, the Savior.
A word for the week
We are always looking somewhere else for God. Up in the sky, off in the future, out at the edges of the dramatic and the spectacular, anywhere but right here in the ordinary room we are actually standing in. The Pharisees do exactly that when they ask Jesus when the kingdom of God will come, expecting him to name a date or point to a sign in the heavens. And his answer pulls the whole search up short: the kingdom of God does not come with things you can observe; people will not say, look, here it is, or there it is, for the kingdom of God is among you. Among you. Right here. In the middle of the ordinary, unnoticed.
That is a startling thing to sit with. We keep scanning the horizon for God to arrive in some unmistakable way, and Jesus says the kingdom is already in your midst, quiet, easy to miss, present in the ordinary the way the most important things usually are. It does not announce itself with trumpets. It slips in. It is in the cup of water given, the enemy forgiven, the child blessed, the bread broken at your own table. You can be standing in the middle of it and miss it entirely, because you were listening for something louder.
But then Jesus says something else in the same breath, and the two hang together in a way we need to hold. He warns his disciples that people will chase after false sightings: look, here! look, there! And he says, do not go running after them. When his day finally comes, it will not be a rumor you had to be let in on; it will be unmistakable, like lightning that lights up the whole sky from one end to the other. So there are two things true at once, and the tension between them is exactly where we live. The kingdom is already here, hidden and quiet, among you now. And the full unveiling is still coming, and when it comes it will need no announcement.
Which means our task is a strange one. We keep our eyes open for what is already here, unnoticed, in the ordinary. The mistake in both directions is the same: looking in the wrong place. Some people miss God because they are staring at the sky waiting for the spectacular and never see him in the plain gift in front of them. Others get pulled off after every excited claim that here, at last, is the sign, and go chasing rumors. Jesus says: do not do either. The kingdom is among you. Live inside it now, in the small holy things, and do not go running after the people shouting look, here.
There is a warning tucked into the end, in the sober images: two people in one bed, one taken and one left; remember Lot's wife, who could not stop looking back at what she was losing. The day comes into ordinary life, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the grinding of grain, and finds people either awake to it or asleep in it. So the counsel is the same as always: be awake now, here, in the ordinary, because the kingdom is nearer than you think, closer than the horizon you keep scanning. It is among you.
At the table
Where have you been scanning the horizon for God while missing him in the ordinary things right in front of you? What small, holy thing this week might be the kingdom, already among you?
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain). The divine name is rendered "the LORD" in the Psalm.