“God’s Kingdom Right Here and Now” by Beth DeCristofaro
Beloved: I have experienced much joy and encouragement from your love because the hearts of the holy ones have been refreshed by you, brother. Therefore, although I have the full right in Christ to order you to do what is proper, I rather urge you out of love, being as I am, Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus. (Philemon 1:7-10)
Asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus said in reply, "The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, 'Look, here it is,' or, 'There it is.' For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you." … (Luke 17:20-21)
Piety
Urge me out of love, Christ my Brother, to do what is proper to love my neighbor as myself and build your Kingdom in my own small, loving way.
Study
For my morning prayer a meditation app, sometimes silent, sometimes with white noise, helps me be in a sacred moment often with the sound of blowing wind. Always there are also the chirps of chipmunks and rustle of birds just outside the window. I experience the right-here-and-now through their little movements at the same time sensing the wide expanse of distance. In fact, the wind noise leads my awareness into width, depth, openness and boundlessness of God’s creation, God’s presence in His Kingdom. There is a comfort in sensing the immensity and my place in it. It is overwhelming yet so very right, so very right-here-and-joyfully-beyond.
It is a conundrum even a disappointment to be so bounded by our own perceptions. I am acutely aware of my own failures, my capacity to know God only in human images, my unwillingness to see God in those with whom I disagree or look down upon. I am tethered to the broken right-here-and-now incomplete world. The Pharisees and disciples might have felt the same. I imagine them asking themselves how and what Jesus meant by the Kingdom of God is among you when the boot of Rome was fixed firmly on Jerusalem’s neck and there was such infighting among Jewish factions while poverty and illness were rampant?
And so today as well we are in a beleaguered world. A Facebook meme states: “Jesus was approached by a caravan of 5,000 starving people and He fed them.” Jesus shows us the Kingdom of God incorporates all sheep who need a shepherd. My small place in this Kingdom is limited yet is a sacred calling. Later in the Gospel Jesus reveals that first (the Son of Man) must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation. I’m also called, as his sister, to expect to suffer. To be generous beyond my limitations. To be charitable despite my own discomforts. To be trusting in God’s presence and love for me even with the threat of serious illness. To rejoice that the immensity of the Holy Spirit blowing through right-here-and-now is guiding us in grace.
Action
Can I see, touch, hear and sense beyond the limited right-here-and-now to allow that breath of the Holy Spirit to guide me toward wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord?
Illustration “Vision” by Kat Sigler http://www.joyfulcolors.net/https/vision-and-colors?utm_campaign=c8f2e351-99c3-483d-8f85-30105d300df1
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