Luke 9:25-27

     Jesus had a clear set of priorities. He clearly cared about the quality of a person’s life in this world. But he didn’t want people trading the temporary quality of life in this world, for the imperishable things of the soul. What value is it to win things of this world at the cost of the true inner self? What he says to drive this home seems harsh. If someone was ashamed of him now, he’d be ashamed of them later. In some ways this statement doesn’t seem on par with the forgiveness and grace he lived. Yet it was also a time when hyperbole, strong and extravagant statements, were the custom. Jesus could have been driving home the point by a strong statement to convince people to pay attention and not trade gold for dross.
     The last statement is one that has caused confusion,--that there were some standing there who would not taste death until they had seen the kingdom of God.
     Many early Christians assumed this meant that the coming of the kingdom (often interpreted as the apocalypse) would come within their lifetime. Yet as the generation died off that had known Jesus in the flesh, they had to deal with the fact that it wasn’t going to happen in that way.
     Interpretation of this ranges widely. Some believe that Jesus, fully human (the purpose of incarnation) simply was mistaken. This is offensive to some who believe that Jesus must have been omniscient, knowing everything. Certainly Jesus did know much. We could ask, ‘did he know the world was round, instead of flat,’ which was the prevailing idea of most of the world for dozens of generations?’ Or did he operate with his time and culture, with the limitations of knowledge that his fellow citizens did? There aren’t any satisfactory answers to this. He had remarkable understanding of human nature. He understood and represented God’s nature. But if he knew everything in the mind of God, he would not have needed to pray.
     Regardless of the answers to the nature of the knowledge of Jesus, it is clear that the kingdom, as in the apocalypse expected by some Christians, did not happen in the 2,000 years since then. But is also possible that Jesus did not necessarily mean the coming of the kingdom in that way?
      Jesus said interesting things about the kingdom. The kingdom is within you. But some would see the kingdom before they died. The kingdom is like a mustard seed cast out with other seeds in the field. The kingdom is like leaven, invisible but active and inescapable until all is leavened. He taught his followers to pray ‘thy kingdom come...’
      As Jesus described it, the kingdom of God both is and is to come. It is visible, yet invisible.   The difficulty in discussing God’s kingdom may be due to the limitations of human language and images for describing something of God.

How do you see the kingdom of God?
When you pray “thy kingdom come” what do you think will happen?
How do you discern (if you do) the kingdom of God around and within you?