Love of Coming Kingdom

A meditation for November 2003

Have you ever thought of being on “exhibition”? The sixth Great End of the Church suggests that as Christian disciples we exhibit the Kingdom of Heaven to the world. We are not to be on exhibit like some mummy in a museum, or even as a masterpiece over a mantle. We are, as a church, called to show God’s grace to the world and to be an exhibition of God’s love in the midst of cultures which seem to be blind to the light of love and forgiveness.

That certainly is what Jesus was talking about when he spoke of the Kingdom of God. His parables were stories which drew his hearers into participating in the reign of God in human history. We are invited to join this company and to follow in faith the One we call Savior and Lord.

The Kingdom is a reality which the Gospel writers describe in different ways. Three of these, Matthew, Mark, and Luke in particular, picture Jesus as teaching with parables, each telling how the reign of God lays its claim upon us. The good news comes not just by the stories Jesus told. There are also acted parables, in which the mighty acts of God are seen and embraced. Then, above all else, God’s love is witnessed in the Cross and in the Resurrection.

In the Gospel of John, this same coming Kingdom is called “eternal life,” and in the Gospel according to Paul, the Apostle speaks of our being “in Christ.” However it is described, God’s presence in history and in our humanity is a present and a future reality by which we come to life.

Love of the Coming Kingdom

Look with me at the gifts of the Spirit and I will show you one of the great ends of the Church: “The exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.”

If I speak of the reign of God in human history, or as embodied in a heavenly colony on earth, but I witness to its coming without recognizing the love of God exhibited in each revelation, I am full of weighty words and pious bombast.

And if I voice a profound theology of the Kingdom of God and claim a special revelation of what the future holds, but I do not myself exhibit love, the world will not behold the heavenly vision.

If I pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,” and do not put my heart into its realization, I will not gain the rewards I seek.

Love, making visible the unseen, brings the Realm of God down to earth; is patient with the earth bound; acts out of the kindness of the heart; does not covet sainthood. Love leaves room for neither pride nor prejudice.

Love, while taking on a human face, reveals a divine intention, without insisting on exemptions. Love does not put on an exhibition of virtue, but is humble about its gains.

Love, telling us about the Kingdom of Heaven, bears us home like a joyful shepherd; believes, as a woman hides leaven in three measures of flour; hopes, as one seeks treasure buried in a field. Love endures, as a seed falling into good soil brings forth abundant fruit.

Love reveals a Kingdom coming that will have no end.

But as for time’s culmination and the sure knowledge of what God is bringing to pass, it will only be rumored; as for descriptions of heaven’s joys, they will prove inadequate. For our certainty about history’s course is partial and our views about the Kingdom’s coming are myopic, but when love incarnate is revealed, the whole human family will have 20/20 vision.

When I had just begun this pilgrimage of faith, I was tempted to expect perfection in others and in myself; to see the heavenly Kingdom as already completed, as fixed in us, God’s humble dwelling.

But when I had journeyed on I came to see this Kingdom as a dream still to be realized; and I saw myself in a company of pilgrims, witnessing to the triumph of love over alienation and evil.

For now we see, as in a mirror, imperfect people; but face to face with perfect love, we see ourselves as forgiven people. That’s the grace we show the world, an exhibition of love given and received.

So we are left with these realities: faith, measured by the mustard seed’s growth; hope, like the master’s for his servants’ talents; and love, like that of the prodigal’s welcoming father. These three abide, but the greatest is the love that shows the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.

Let love finish now its new creation

From Love’s Letters: A Poetic Book of Confessions by George Gunn
(Library Lane Press / Copyright 2001)