JESUS' SPIRITUAL VISION: RE-INTERPRETING THE KINGDOM OF GOD AS A SPIRITUAL PARADIGM

Carol Richardson August 26, 1993

Introduction The message and actions of Jesus Christ conveyed a vision of the primacy of spiritual reality. The term that Jesus used to convey the meaning and significance of spiritual reality was "the Kingdom of God." In the history of the church, however, spirituality has often been intrepreted apart from the Kingdom of God metaphor; this has led to myriads of inadequate ways of interpreting spirituality throughout the history of Christianity. To some, spirituality has meant a rejection of the "natural" world. To others, it has meant communing with God, the saints, erc., while living within the constraints of the physical world. To still others, emphasizing spirituality has meant having faith in a powerful, orderly, monarchical God, to whom one must submit by trying to force one's individual behavior to reflect the "holiness" of that powerful God through strict adherence to divine law. In this latter instance, spirituality becomes "holiness," which is narrowly conceived of as legalistic obedience to divine command and literalistic adherence to divine revelation. All three approaches emphasize spiritual reality as alien to this "fallen" world in which we live, and

thus conceive of spiritual salvation as an act performed once in history by an otherwise transcendent, other-worldly God. The spiritual vision of the Christian church has become tunnel vision, as what Jesus emphasized about spirituality has largely been overlooked or misunderstood, as layer upon layer of tradition and human culture progressively cloaked the words and actions of Jesus. My thesis, then, is that Jesus' vision of spiritual reality can only be understood by re-examining his vision of the Kingdom of God, which conveys a holistic view of earthly reality as containing the seed of spirituality within itself, as well as within the context of human relations. The task which I have undertaken here, then, is to look faithfully at the way Jesus emphasized spiritual reality in order to see what Jesus affirmed and what he denied. While many people have assumed that the spiritual reality that Jesus affirmed was only, or primarily, some other-worldly eschatological vision, my central theses is that Jesus' message affirmed that spiritual reality exists both eschatologically and existentially in the present, with an ethical unity between the eschatalogical and existential domains. This ethical unity, furthermore, can only be construed as relational ethics, which is characterized by love of God and love of neighbor. Indeed, the mysterious unity of these two types of love is the central theme of Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God. In order to demonstrate my central thesis, we shall first have to demonstrate a correlated thesis that Jesus never deprecated the natural world; rather, what Jesus regarded as inferior to spirituality was human preoccupation with material well-being as the source, sustenance, and goal of life. While the tendency has been for Christians to oppose the physical to the spiritual, Jesus opposed materialism to spirituality. The difference here may seem subtle, and it is not enough simply to say that is it just a matter of people's attitudes. Attitudes are important here, but one's attitude cannot be correct unless one's assumptions are also correct. The assumption in question is whether or not one sees spiritual reality as pervading the natural world, or the question of God's presense in and through physical being. In order to demonstrate Jesus' affirmation of the natural world, I shall draw a distinction, albeit my own, between the words "physical" and "material." What I propose is that the word "physical" can suggest something whole, a gestalt, a natural entity with its own intentionality, while the word "material" suggests merely the finite, non-spiritual building blocks of physical reality. A physical or natural entity can be construed, then, as a unity of the material and the spiritual. Indeed, as we shall discuss later, what Jesus affirmed through his parables was, in fact, a unity of spiritual reality and natural, or physical reality. What Jesus impugned was materialism, which affirms material reality as both the source and goal of life. When the physical world is considered to be dependent only on materiality, then one is blind, or living in illusion. Instead, when one realizes that the physical world, including human beings, depends primarily on spirituality as its source of

life, then one is recognizing the spiritual possibility of God's Kingdom here on earth. The third thesis which we will explore is that Jesus' vision of God's reign on earth necessarily entails a questioning of the dominant cultural paradigm of one's day. While it has often been considered that Jesus' message primarily called into question the Jewish legalism prevalent in his day,(1) Jesus actually called into question the materialistic attitudes that gave rise to the legalism. Indeed, the legalism which had become dominant in Jewish culture at the time of Jesus was tied to materialistic values as well as to materialistic power structures. The pervasive materialistic adherence to the law was what Jesus decried, while he affirmed a spiritual adherence to the intent of the law. The intent of the law was summarized by Jesus as the commandment to love God and to love one's neighbor. This unified ethical command equates spirituality with embodied expressions of love, hospitaility, faith, and generosity. This unified command of love constitutes the core of Jesus's spiritual paradigm, that is, the spiritual vision which he called the Kingdom of God. As an ethical and earthly understanding of spirituality, the Kingdom of God calls into question more than just legalism. Wherever and however materialism has become integral to the dominant cultural paradigm of any place and time, Jesus' message of a spiritual paradigm challenges the values, relationships, and power structures of the dominant culture. The Gospel of the Kingdom of God In order to understand Jesus' proclamation about the Kingdom of God, we first need an understanding of Jesus himself. How did Jesus understand his own spiritual role? As Rudolf Bultmann has pointed out, "the dominant concept of Jesus' message is the Reign of God."(2) This prioritizing of God's Reign suggests that it would be a mistake to focus on, or to emphasize any particular understanding of Jesus himself. Rather than seeing Jesus as the Christ who reigns at the right hand of God, ruling over the earth, Jesus asked us to focus on God and God's Reign on earth. Indeed, as Bultmann has also observed, "the historical Jesus of the synoptics does not, like the Johannine Jesus, summon men[sic] to acknowledge or 'believe in' his person."(3) Furthermore, although some scholars have rejected Bultmann's suggestions that Jesus referred to the "Son of Man" as being someone other than himself, I would suggest that such apocalyptic variations on Jesus' eschatological theme are not essential to the salvific core of Jesus' message. If my understanding of the synoptic gospels is right, then I must conclude that Jesus did not equate belief in him with salvation. Instead, I assume that Jesus himself assumed that his message of the Kingdom of God was in itself salvific. For Jesus, the spiritual goal facing human beings was not to worship Jesus himself, but to worship God in such a way as to usher in God's Reign here and now, in the midst of the world in which we live. While I do not want to dwell on apocalyptic themes, I would simply point out that apocalyptic expectations were part of the cultural world view in Jesus' day, and Jesus

occasionally made use of such expectations to convey some of his own ideas. However, for Jesus, no apocalyptic events were in themselves salvific; rather, his message about the Kingdom of God was, by itself, potentially salvific. The first step in recognizing the salvific potential of God's Reign is to perceive that "the Kingdom of God is among you." (Luke 17:21) Jesus made this statement in response to an apocalyptic query as to when the Kingdom of God was coming! In other words, Jesus deemphasized apocalyptic concerns in favor of emphasizing the contemporaneous presense of God's Kingdom within the context of the secular historical process. In addition, Jesus' assertion that the Kingdom of God is among us connotes the ethical dimension of my first thesis. That is, the idea that the Kingdom of God is among us suggests that our relationships with one another can manifest God's Reign. Human relationships, though, only manifest the Reign of God when individuals allow God to Reign within them and in their relationships. Such a willingness to perceive and to serve God requries the assumption that God's Kingdom actually can be found "among us" as a real spiritual presense made manifest through our own physical, embodied actions. This assumption, in turn, can lead to ways of relating to others as though we are all children of God, dwelling together in a new order. Thus, the first challenge of Jesus' vision is to perceive the invisible presence of God's Kingdom among us during our earthly life. This is the first step to salvation in Jesus' spiritual paradigm. Some of Jesus' parables suggest the inconspicuous, ever-present nature of the Kingdom of God, thus characterizing it as a spiritual reality embodied within physical reality. For instance, in the parable of the mustard seed, (Mark 4:30-32), Jesus contrasts the seeming insignificance of the mustard seed's size with the bountiful size of the shrub which grows from it. What is contrasted, then, is not only the size of the seed and the shrub, but also the seeming insignificance of the seed with the bountiful hospitality the shrub provides for the birds. Metaphorically, what this parable implies about the Kingdom of God is that God's Kingdom on earth is so inconspicuous that we may not know it is there, even though it is truly an inviting and hospitable Kingdom. Spiritually, what this parable suggests is that the seeming insignificance of the material nature of both the mustard seed and the Kingdom of God is irrelevant to the spiritual results. Because of the gracious hospitality of the mustard bush, one can further infer that the spiritual reality of God's Reign is inconspicuous until one becomes aware of the gracious hospitality that it offers to all. Finally, the fact that Jesus extolled a shrub and its hospitality to birds implies his affirmation of the natural world and God's presence in and through the natural world. Jesus' parable of the woman hiding leaven in some bread (Luke 13:20-21, Matthew 13:33) also conveys the incongruity between the inconspicuousness of God's Kingdom and the powerful, pervasive results of its spiritual presence. Here, I think Bultmann's interpretation is helpful but partially missed the mark. While Bultmann was correct in pointing toward a sense of the miraculousness of the process(4), he missed the emphasis on the hiddenness

of the spiritual side of reality. Another theme is evident in this parable, for by comparing God's Kingdom to the woman who makes bread, Jesus is not only affirming physical reality, but also suggesting by analogy that God takes an ongoing, active role in creating the physical world that sustains us. We shall explore this theme more at a later point. In most of Jesus' parables, the inconspicuous, yet effective presence of God's Kingdom exists right here on earth, not in some other-worldly realm. Virtually all of Jesus' parables provide very earthy metaphors for the Kingdom of God. This affirms the idea that Jesus saw a unity of the physical and the spiritual, while deprecating only the materiality of the physical, rather than the wholeness of the physical in union with the spiritual. Jesus thus believed in a dualistic world, but in a holistic sense that is neither precisely Western or Eastern, but perhaps uniquely Jewish. Jewish thought had always entailed belief in a God who was active in history and who could become physically manifest to human beings. Thus, the approach to the divine presence in Judaism and in Jesus' message exhibited a holistic dualism that falls somewhere between the radical, distinct dualism of some Western thought and the yin/yang approach of Eastern thought. Needless to say, as Jesus' message was preached in the West, the dualistic tendency was exaggerated and misunderstood until it no longer represented Jesus' original holistic thinking. Having examined how Jesus' message did not devalue the natural world, but instead focused on the Reign of God within the natural world, I have in essence asserted that Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God consists of an existential dimension; that is, the Kingdom of God begins to exist in and through life events here on earth. The second dimension of the Kingdom of God is the eschatological dimension, or the salvation that is yet to come. This eschatological dimension is tied to the existential dimension by relational ethics, or spirituality. Once again, Bultmann came close to hitting the target, to capturing the central core of Jesus' message. Bultmann states that "Jesus' eschatological message and his ethical message constitute a unity."(5) He goes on: The unity of the eschatological and the ethical message of Jesus may be so stated: Fullfillment of God's will is the condition for participation in the salvation of His Reign. The Reign of God, demanding of man[sic] decision for God against every earthly tie, is the salvation to come. Hence, only he[sic] is ready for this salvation who in the concrete moment decides for that demand of God which confronts him in the person of his neighbor ... Both things, the eschatological proclamation and the ethical demand, direct man[sic] to the fact that he is thereby brought

before God, that God stands before him; both direct him into his Now as the hour of decision for God.(6) Bultmann did recognize the unity between Jesus' eschatological vision and the ethical command to love one's neighbor, with an emphasis on the necessity of deciding and acting in the here-and-now. However, because he did not recognize the Reign of God as being potentially present already here on earth, Bultmann reduced the existential dimension of the Reign of God to an ethics of obedience to God, without the spiritual affirmation of God's presence in earthly things, and without recognizing that the unity comes through relationships rather than through obedience alone. Because of God's presence in creation and in us all, the unity of the Kingdom of God comes through the spiritual presence of God's grace, which is the source of life for all things. A more holistic sense of God's Kingdom comes, then, when one recognizes that the unity between the existential dimension of God's Reign and the eschatological dimension of God's Reign lies in fulfillment of the spiritual-relational unity of God and humankind. What creates the unity between the eschatological and existential is precisely our ethical relationships -- not just an ethical demand and corresponding obedience, but a spiritual relation to God which can only happen through our spiritual relation to our neighbors. This spiritual relation is only fulfulled when we see God, or Christ, in our neighbor. Just when did Jesus say any of this? In the story of the final Judgement, (Matthew 25:3146) Jesus makes the point that our ethical relationships with one another are precisely what either will, or will not, save us in the end: to some people Jesus declares "I was hungry and you gave me food ...," while to others Jesus states "I was hungry and you gave me no food ..." Jesus concludes: "As you did it to one of the least of these, you did it unto me." The primary message of this text is that there is a connection between our faith, or, more broadly, our spirituality, and our relationships with other human beings. Thus, our faith, if it is Christian, cannot be solely in some distant God in heaven, nor in some other-worldly, princely Christ; rather, Christian faith must be in a God and a redeemer who are ever present with us on earth, and who come to us in need in the form of our earthly neighbors. The test of our faith, then, is not the purity or rightness of our belief, but the actions to which our faith compels us. The test of our faith, though, is not just any action we perform as individuals, it is ethical action in relationship to others. This is what I term relational ethics -- how we relate to the "least of these," especially the ones we do not like. Our relational ethics, thus, is the measure of our faith; more precisely, our relational ethics is our spirituality, for spirituality is the holistic connectedness of God's Being within and among the beings of our universe. Jesus elsewhere made the same connection between our faith in God and our relational ethics when he pronounced the priority of just two commands: One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one

another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?" Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that 'he is one, and besides him there is no other;' and to love hime with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and 'to love one's neighbor as oneself,' -- this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." After that no one dared to ask him any questions. (Mark 12:28-34, NRSV) In this passage, the two commands are inseparable. As the Interpreter's Bible remarks: "When there is the love of God as here portrayed by Jesus, love of neighbor has deepened and intensified. So also, ... when love of neighbor has become a real experience, the love of God has been lifted up from confining walls, and filled with ethical and spiritual content."(7) Again, we find unity between the ethical and the spiritual, because both ethics and spirituality are understood in relational terms. Beyond this, it is important to note that Jesus tells the lawyer, or scribe that he is "not far from the kingdom of God." Out of three sources of exposition on this text that I examined(8), only one notes the possible significance of this remark: But in this context is "You are not far from the kingdom of God" being understood in some future, eschatological sense, or does Jesus mean it to be understood as a present or almost present reality? ... the present writer finds it impossible to resist the conclusion that the Reign of God is presented by Jesus as a present reality. The scribe is not far from the kingdom in two senses: he recognizes the total claim of the sovereignty of God and morally has submitted himself to its demands, and also he stands ready for its manifestation. Of considerable importance on a different level is Jesus' own understanding ... We are faced ... with yet another saying which carries plain implications of "realized" eschatology.(9) Once again, the difficulty of interpreting this text seems to result from a reluctance to accept the idea that Jesus might actually have meant that the Kingdom of God is already

here, among us. While few scholars dispute the authenticity of that remark in Luke 17:21(10), the implications of accepting the veracity of Jesus' assertion that the Kingdom of God is among us have not heretofore been adequately thought out. In reference to Jesus' remark to the scribe, one can better understand this text if one relates it to the judgement passage in Matthew. In other words, if one assumes not only that Jesus perceives the possibility of God's Reign in the present, on an ongoing basis, but also that it is an ethical imperative to perceive the familial unity of all of God's children and to love them as such, then one can realize that to accept one's place in God's family is to accept one's place in God's Kingdom. In the final judgement passage, Jesus referred to the "least of these" as "members of my family," (NRSV) and so we are to recognize everyone as God's children, as our own family, as our neighbors. One can only do this through God's grace. That is, one can only experience oneself as a child of God if one recognizes that only God's grace makes us worthy to be God's children. Likewise, one can only recognize others as children of God by extending to them that same grace which one has already received from God. To receive God's grace for oneself is to accept one's place in God's family. To extend God's grace to others is to accept one's role in God's Kingdom. Indeed, Jesus' remark to the scribe may have really been a challenge to accept God's Reign in his life by relating to others out of love, while relinquishing his loyalty to nationalistic interests and to religious factions. This dialogue is recognized as containing elements of controversy(11); since the scribe was obviously part of a particular Jewish sect, perhaps Jesus considered the controversy to be between loyalty to human rule and acceptance of God's rule. In other words, Jesus may have been challenging the scribe to see his neighbors as being also outside of his own little group, for God's rule extends to any and all human communities, all of which are part of God's family. We shall discuss this point again under the thesis, that that the Reign of God calls into question every cultural paradigm. For now, the main point to recognize is that Jesus' comment to the scribe about being near the Kingdom of God is linked to the scribe's understanding the Kingdom both spiritually (i.e. in relation to God) and ethically (i.e. in relation to one's neighbor) as necessarily entailing loving relationships. The scribe was close to the Kingdom of God because he recognized the unity between loving God and loving his neighbor, and accepted that unity as the highest ethical command. While this passage defines loving God partially in terms of loving one's neighbor, and while the judgement passage entirely defined loving Christ in terms of loving one's neighbor, we have not focused on identifying one's neighbor nor on how one is to love that neighbor. At this point, we may conclude that loving one's neighbor is like loving God, but who is the neighbor whom we are to love? In the pericope about the final judgement, neighbors who are in need are the ones we are to love. In the pericope about the greatest commandment, our neighbor is someone whom we are supposed to love as we love ourselves. So far, then, we know we are to love those in need as we love

ourselves. In the parable of the good Samaritan, there is a double message about who our neighbor is. Indeed, Luke places the parable of the good Samaritan directly following a shortened version of the pericope on the two greatest commandments, as if to highlight the connection between the two: Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live." But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, ... But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." (Luke 10:25-37) This passage entails a double definition of neighbor, for the assumption is clear that the man in need was accepted as a neighbor by the good Samaritan, as evidenced by his own willingness to be a neighbor to this man. Secondly, however, the Jews who were listening to Jesus tell the story would have been shocked to accept the Samaritan as their own neighbor because of the ethnic rivalry and historical animosity between the two groups. The Jews considered the Samaritans to be inferior because of their mixed racial heritage. In our own culture, we often consider people inferior when they are different from us, as though being "different" is necessarily bad. We also often consider people to be inferior simply because they are in need and cannot take care of their own needs by themselves. When others are in need, we often label them "needy," as though their victimization were

their own fault. In the parable of the good Samaritan, however, Jesus refutes such ungracious attitudes towards others. Clearly, the message here is that we do not get to choose our neighbors, for our neighbors are anyone and everyone in need, regardless of whether or not we like them or respect them. And if our neighbors are not near at hand, we are to "go and do likewise" in order to be a neighbor to them. Again, everyone is part of God's family on the basis of God's grace alone; no one earns family status with God. Yet we cannot receive God's grace for ourselves alone; grace is something we must share, for divine grace, like divine kinship, is a shared event, and everyone is our neighbor. The third thesis which we will explore is that the Kingdom of God calls into question every cultural paradigm that does not operate out of spiritual values. Three major cultural assumptions are challenged by Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God: (1) the idea that one earns one's rewards both on earth and, by analogy, in heaven; (2) the materialistic world view that presumes that life depends solely on material well-being for sustenance, and that such well-being is the major goal of life; and (3) that power structures -- political as well as economic -- are acceptable methods of serving the needs of the few, even at the expense of many of our neighbors. As we have previously discussed, it has been argued that Jesus primarily opposed the legalism of his day, I think Jesus' message was larger than that in its critique of the mix of cultures in which he lived. In fact, I think he critiqued culture precisely on these three central issues, and that, for Jesus, the legalistic tendency in Judaism was only a problem when it stood as an obstacle to loving one's neighbor. To test this assertion, let us look at some of the texts to examine how Jesus' message often implicitly critiqued culture. We have already looked at how Jesus' definition of neighbor in the parable of the good Samaritan called into question his followers' cultural and religious assumptions about who was their neighbor. Again, the Jews would have assumed on cultural grounds that the Samaritan was not their neighbor, but this cultural assumption was backed up by religious tenets on ritual and cultic purity. A second cultural assumption was called into question: that no one wanted to help a victimized stranger lying by the roadside. The figures of the priest and the Levite represent the best of the religious and political culture of Judaism in Jesus' day, yet even they would not stoop to be a neighbor to the hapless traveler. An implicit message in this parable, then, is that the cultural and religious asumptions of who is one's neighbor fall completely short of the definition of neighbor in the Kingdom of God. Part of the cultural context which Jesus challenged was the nationalistic and religious loyalties which also interfered with loving one's neighbor. We saw this in the controversy dialogue about the two great commandments, where I suggested that what was controversial to Jesus was the nationalistic and religious loyalties of the scribes, because this loyalty to exclusive, humanly determined social groups precludes the possibility of living in the Kingdom of God. Thus, Jesus' comment to the scribe, "You are not far from the kingdom of God" is meant to point the scribe in the right direction: away from divisive

human institutions and towards the inclusivity of God's Reign. What Jesus seems to be saying applies beyond his own cultural context; that is, none of our social concerns about being acceptable to the "in" group or to the people with power matter at all. Rather, for Jesus, all that matters is living in love, and thereby truly letting God reign among us. Now, the gospel writers were careful to present this controversy dialogue in such a way as to make Jesus look good(12), but presenting himself admirably was not Jesus' main goal in the controversy. Jesus was not trying to "look good;" instead, he was opposing the cliquish and legalistic concerns of the scribal culture. Jesus was trying to emphasize to the scribe that earning social status and political power interfere with living in the Kingdom of God, precisely because social status and political power prevent the egalitarianism that is necessary for sharing grace. The materialism that may be prevalent in any culture was also something to which Jesus stood opposed. Notice, first, that his parables of the mustard seed and the leaven compare the Kingdom of God not to something "precious," or expensive and glorious like gold and jewels, but to things that are precious for the sustenance of everyday life. While this notion is understated as a thematic detail in these parables, Jesus' emphasis on the natural world and its simple, sustaining beauty is made more explicit elsewhere. Consider the following passage: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil now spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you -- you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:25-33) Both Mathew and Luke surround this pericope with other passages that berate materialistic concerns, a characteristic theme of Q (and we wonder why it was destroyed?!). Both

authors include nearby the admonition not to "store up for yourselves treasures on earth ... but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven ... for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21; cf. Luke 12:32-34) Now this remark about not storing up treasures on earth clearly conveys the antimaterialistic theme of Jesus' spiritual paradigm; however, the phrase "store up for yoruselves treasures in heaven" has overshadowed this anti-materialism because of its other-worldly image. Through the years, the church has promoted this other-worldly image of heaven due to the fact that few people have truly understood Jesus to have claimed that the Kingdom of God is truly among us here and now. As a result, what has been understood of this passage has not been simply anti-materialism but also a supposed polemic against this physical world and our earthly life. What has been overlooked has been, in addition, the connection between storing one's treasures in heaven and striving "first for the kingdom of God and its righteousness." When we are mindful of the idea that Jesus considered the Kingdom of God to be relationships of grace in which God's love reigns right here on earth, then we can realize that the treasures we store up in heaven are spiritual relationships, or relationships which share divine grace. Secondarily, striving for spiritual relatedness is our work, our task here on earth, and we do not have to worry about material well-being because God will provide for our physical needs out the the bountiful goodness of God's creation. Finally, Matthew adds to this section Jesus' directive, "No one can serve two masters ... You cannot serve God and wealth." (Matthew 6:24, NRSV). The point made by all of these texts put together, then, is that materialistic goals and concerns conflict with spiritual goals and relationships, and only by truly striving to love God and our neighbors can we serve God rather than the temporal wealth that our social world has to offer. The third issue that Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God called into question was the tendancy in human culture to assume that people can as well as must earn rewards, not only on earth, but also in the hereafter. Bultmann has noted that one of the problems with Jewish legalism was that it motivated ethical behavior on the basis of reward and punishment, and that Jesus opposed such legalistic regulation(13). Indeed, this is true, yet, what Jesus opposed was first, how such legalism interfered with loving one's neighbor (as we have already noted); second, how such legalism presumed that people earned their way into God's Kingdom; and third, as Bultmann noted, how such legalism "governs the relation of the individual to God."(14) Bultmann asserts: "What counts before God is not simply the substantial, verifiable deed that is done, but how a man[sic] is disposed, what his intent is."(15) Yet Jesus' message is more subtle, more mysterious, and more complex than this, for his message is full of paradox. On the one hand, Jesus seems to say that we cannot enter heaven if we have not fed and clothed our neighbors. On the other hand, Jesus proclaims:

"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." (Matthew 18:3-5) It is important to note that Jesus made this pronouncement in response to the disciples' query as to who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. In other words, Jesus' message was that no one can earn a place in God's Kingdom, for what governs our relationship to God is grace. When we consider this text in light of the seemingly paradoxical message of the passage on the final judgement, then we realize that our intentions are what is called into question. If we seek to earn our way into God's Kingdom, then God's Reign of grace has eluded us entirely. However, if we focus on our relationships, especially on our mutual dependence on others and on God, then, just as children recognize their dependence on their parents, we will recognize God's Reign as already among us, for all of us depend on God's grace for our whole lives, the same as children depend on the grace of their parents in providing for them and raising them. What governs our relationships to God then, are not legalistic regulations, but grace that we must share in humble relationships with others. This idea flew in the face of Jewish cultural assumption about earning respect and status, both socially and religiously. In fact, the most successful people in any materialistic society, that is, the wealthy, are told by Jesus that they cannot earn a place in God's Kingdom. As Jesus proclaimed: "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:23-26, NRSV) Obviously, salvation is not something we accomplish on our own. Salvation is an act of grace. More than that, salvation is a shared event, for we are saved only insofar as we share this gift of divine grace with others. If, through lack of faith, we hoard materialistic wealth, then we may be depriving others of physical sustenance, and thus our greed deprives them of the physical bounty of God's grace. We cannot be saved if we worry only about our own physical and spiritual well-being. No, we must give life to our faith by sharing God's bountiful grace in order to care for both the physical and the spiritual wellbeing of others. As a wise person recently remarked to me: "We are not saved for ourselves; we are saved for others."(16)

All in all, Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God called into question numerous cultural assumptions and practices; moreover, the universality of Jesus' message trancends his own culture to critique all other cultures as well. Whenever and however social structures interfere with loving people who are in need, Jesus' vision of the Reign of God insists on recognizing God's Reign as existing here-and-now in the command to love our neighbor. Whenever the dominant cultural paradigm values people's social status and rewards certain behaviors with power and wealth, Jesus' image of the Kingdom of God focuses instead on the life-giving reality of God's grace, which can only be experienced as a shared treasure, a gift open to us all. Whenever cultural values prioritize material well-being, Jesus' vision of the Reign of God among us emphasizes in its place human interdependence based on God love and grace. Conclusion In the synoptic gospels, then, Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God forms an egalitarian model of community, one in which people are sustained by networks of interdependence, with people interacting out of genuine love. Such love is based on the freedom and egalitarianism that truly result only from God's grace. Thus, Jesus' message did not reject the natural world; rather, Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God rejected the human cultural world insofar as it is guided by a materialistic paradigm rather than a spiritual paradigm. In conclusion, this spiritual paradigm is our salvation, for to dwell in the Kingdom of God means to realize that spiritual reality consists, quite simply of our kinship to God and to one another. No one can earn family status with God: God's grace makes us equal, and interdependent. Thus, our salvation consists of an existential dimension in which we must learn to share God's grace with the other members of our family. Our salvation consists of an eschatological dimension as well, in that God's grace unites us with God and with one another beyond this earthly life. In the meantime, Jesus calls us to live and to share the bountiful hospitality of God's grace here on earth. Jesus calls us to live in a spiritual paradigm rather than in a materialistic, cultural paradigm. Jesus calls us to live in God's Kingdom, a Kingdom of love and grace.

ENDNOTES

1. See, for instance, Bultmann, Rudolf. Theology of the New Testament, (New York: Charles Scribners Sons), 1955, p. 11. 2. Ibid., p. 4. 3. Ibid., p. 9. 4. Ibid., p. 8. 5. Ibid., p. 19. 6. Ibid., pp. 20-21. 7. The Interpreter's Bible, Ed. George A. Buttrick, (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press), 1951, p. 849. 8. See The Interpreter's Bible, p. 849; The Anchor Bible, "The Gospel According to Luke" (X-CCIV), Joseph A Fitzmyer, S.J. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc.), 1985, p. 1157; Harper's Bible Commentary, James L. Mays, Ed., (San Francisco: Harper and Row), 1988. 9. The Anchor Bible, p. 482. 10. See FORUM, Vol. 7, No. 1/2, March/June 1991, p. 127. 11. The Interpreter's Bible, pp. 848-849. 12. ibid., p. 846. 13. Bultmann, pp. 11-12. 14. Ibid., p. 13. 15. Ibid., p. 13. 16. Joan Sidell, a friend from Takoma Park, Maryland; she has been an active lay leader in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) for several decades.

This is the text of a paper on the topic of the "Kingdom of God" written by Carol Richardson while at Vanderbilt University.

This page last updated 1996/08/26 Carol Richardson -- Email: babienge@aol.com