I wonder how many times over the years we have prayed together the words ‘Thy kingdom come.’ But what do they mean? What is the kingdom of God? How would we recognize it? Where is it, and what would it be like to be, if you like, ‘in it? Well, these are the questions I would like to reflect on this morning in the light of this week’s readings. In general terms, to enter the kingdom of God, to experience the kingdom of God, is to see the world as God sees it, to understand the world as God understands it and relate to the world as God relates to it: in other words, to think as God thinks, love as God loves and act as God acts. It is, to quote St Paul, to have in us the mind that is in Christ Jesus, to be like Jesus and live by his teaching, all of which is only possible through the power of the Spirit living in us, doing what, left to ourselves we could never do. But what does that mean in practice. Well, the clue is in today’s Gospel story.
In it, we see Jesus attempting to create some quiet time with his disciples, to find a lonely place where they could be by themselves for a while, only to be confronted by crowds of people waiting for him as he stepped ashore from the boat he had travelled in. And St Mark tells us that, when he saw the crowds, he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. He was not angry at them. He did not blame them in any way. There was no sense that they were bothering him or putting him out, even although they were. He looked at them, saw in them the whole of humanity down through the ages, and was filled with compassion. And in this attitude of profound compassion for the crowds we have the key to the kingdom of God. To enter this kingdom is to view the world and its people at all times through loving and compassionate eyes. It’s not to judge. It’s not to condemn. It’s to understand the world and its people and love them the way God does. And we have to choose to do it. Whether it be those who commit crimes, those who hurt us, those who perpetrate acts of terrorism, those who simply think differently from us, there is always a choice to make. We can look at what they have done wrong and blame or criticise them, or we can seen them as God sees them. This applies to all kinds of groups and individuals who pass every day before our judgement seat, but I thought I would choose just one example today and look at it more closely. And the example I settled on in the end was the story of MPs and their abuse of the expenses system which generated so much heat just recently.
And the first obvious thing to say is that many, or at least some MPs, did things that were wrong. And in some case they were very wrong. The anger felt by so many people around the country was perfectly understandable and in no sense does what I am about to say attempt to justify in any way what happened or try to explain it away. In many ways, they were not unlike the shepherds described by Jeremiah in the first reading. These were the religious and political leaders of their day and the prophet speaks of how badly they had failed the people, a theme which is taken up even more vigourously later by the prophet Ezekiel. But having said that, we still have a choice to make. And its a choice between the way of the world, a way which comes very naturally to us and so is easy to make, or a choice for the way of the kingdom, the way of compassion and understanding which does not come at all easily, is not natural, and so has to be very deliberately chosen.
As far as the first choice is concerned, we heard plenty of it when this whole issue was in the News. The sheer delight the papers took in exposing people in the way which would have the most effect and be most humiliating for them. They were all at it, of course, even although they weren’t. All politicians, we told ourselves, were crooks, even although they aren’t. They’re just in it for the money, we said, even although many of them could make far more money in other walks of life than they do in politics. And so a mood came over the country, a kind of feeding frenzy, during which all politicians were subjected to the modern equivalent of the stocks where anybody and everybody felt free to throw more and more mud at them. And I repeat, many of them had committed very serious offences. There was no justification for what happened in many cases. But I am talking this morning about what they did. Its about our response to it.
Because there was an alternative. And it was the way of the kingdom, in which, through the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, we could choose to move beyond our natural human response and see, not politicians, but individual human beings who had failed so badly and made such a mess of things, as God saw them. How would we feel, for example, if all our indiscretions, mistakes and acts of dishonesty were exposed for all to see. God, the saying goes, is the one who forgives all because he understands all. But how willing were we to try and understand how this whole debacle happened, how men and women, many of them good people who went into politics for the best of reasons, finished up the way they did. Were we at any time willing to understand or try to do so? What would it be like, for example, to have it all over the papers that your husband had been watching blue movies at the public expense? The Jesus who stepped off the boat that day would, I suggest, have looked at it all and felt pity for those concerned.
And there was another element to it all, the element of revenge: the desire to make them suffer for what they had done. Well, I read something recently about revenge. ‘If you want a moment of happiness’ it said, ‘Seek revenge. If you want eternal happiness, open your heart to forgiveness.’ And there’s an oriental proverb which says; ‘If you seek vengeance, you need to dig two graves; one for the other person and one for yourself.’
So, during the recent MPs expenses crisis, whose grave were we really digging?
BIDDING PRAYERS
To sit in judgement on others and find fault with them comes naturally to us as human beings. We do it all the time without even thinking. And yet this is not the way of the kingdom. It is not the way God sees the world and invites us to see it through the power of the Spirit living in us. And so we ask God to lead us beyond this deep-rooted tendency in our nature and open us up to much more positive and loving ways of viewing the world and the people in it...........Lord hear us
But if we are to begin to see the world as God sees it, we must choose to do so. God will invite. God will show open up new possibilities. But God will never force us. In the end, moved and led by the Spirit, we will have to choose to see the good in others rather than the bad. We will have to focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses. We will have to choose to put the best and not the worst interpretation on everything they do or say. And so we ask for this grace..........Lord hear us
What proves that God loves us, St Paul says in the letter to the Romans, is that Jesus loved us while we were still sinners. And so the great challenge for those who seek to enter the kingdom of God is to love those who do what is wrong without demanding that they change first as a pre-condition of our loving them. To love as God loves is to face the sin in others and love them in that sin, no matter what they have done. And we ask God to enable us to do this.......Lord hear us
The Press today take great pleasure in exposing to the full view of everyone the faults and weaknesses of those whom they catch out in embarrassing or compromising situations. They do this to sell newspapers, in the full knowledge that we, the public, enjoy it and take delight in it. But for this to happen to any person must be a terrible experience and we pray today for all who have suffered from it in the past or who are suffering from it this weekend............Lord hear us
In the first reading this week, the prophet Jeremiah attacks the religious and political leaders of his day whom he sees as shepherds who have failed in their duty to look after their sheep. And in our own day, many leaders both in the Church and in the Government have failed in the same way. But we pray for them today, that, whatever they have done, they will ultimately find in the Church and in the country, not just condemnation, but understanding and forgiveness....Lord hear us
In the second reading this week, St Paul speaks of how Jesus has broken down the barrier which had existed between Jew and gentile. This was to create what he calls ‘one single man’ out of what had previously been two separate parts and symbolizes the breaking down of barriers between peoples in every age which is at the very heart of the Gospel message. And so we pray that where people are separated today by hatred and the desire for revenge, God will bring peace and unity.............Lord hear us
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