The Closeness of God’s Kingdom
A Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany (Year B)
Jonah 3.1-5; 1 Corinthians 7.29-31; Mark 1.14-20
“Forty days more,” says Jonah.
“The appointed time has grown short,” says Paul.
“The time has arrived,” says Jesus.
“Immediately they left their nets,” says Mark.
If you think the Kingdom of God is a future dream or an aspirational fantasy, then think again. Listen carefully to what the Spirit is saying to the churches!
Today’s scripture readings all describe an experience of the nearness of God’s kingdom, and how the experience of that ‘nearness’ radically reorients the way people live their lives in the present.
The bracing tempo and direction of the Gospel according to Mark is itself visceral expression of the closeness of God’s Kingdom experienced in every encounter with Jesus. In Jesus, the kingdom is so near that it is always, already affecting the present[1], touching everything in the created order, both spiritual and material, with the redemptive purpose of God’s power.
That’s because, for Paul the apostle and Mark the evangelist, the advent of God in Jesus Christ is like the first light of early morning: in showing itself to us it beckons us to live in terms of the dawning day coming at us, rather than in terms the night that is now past.
That’s what Paul is speaking about to his Corinthian congregation when he exclaims, “The present form of this world is passing away!” and so the texture of our lives and how we’re living them must change too. “From now on,” Paul urges, let those who mourn “mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it…”
This rapid series of inversions bespeaks a radical reorientation towards what lies before us, not behind us:
Simon and Andrew had cast a net into the sea, but they leave it behind immediately, unharvested, in order to respond to what Jesus calls them to live into;
James and John are mending their nets, but they stop immediately, leaving them unmended, to follow him too.
Unharvested.
Unmended.
The closeness of God’s Kingdom interrupts our life and changes its direction. Jesus turns the living of our lives toward a “reality alarmingly beyond human expectation and human capacity.” [2] Jesus orients our lives toward the dawning Rule of God that is actively judging, saving, redeeming, and reconciling the life of the whole world – and invites us to participate in it: “I will make you fish for people…”
“The time has arrived,” Jesus says, “The rule of God has come close, so change your minds. Trust this proclamation.”[3]
//
Trusting this proclamation, believing it’s good news for us, is rarely an easy thing to do – at first anyway. An interruption is an interruption. Its disruptive, usually unasked for, and disorienting. It draws us out of the tasks to which we are accustomed and the patterns of living and relating that are comfortable – the nets we’ve been casting or mending for years even – and redirects us toward a new way of living our life.
The Area Parish of the St. Lawrence has been like that, hasn’t it?
It has interrupted some good things.
In some important respects it was asked for, but in other respects maybe it wasn’t what you were asking for.
And, whether you were asking for it or not, I’m sure it’s been disorienting in some way for you.
And yet, my parting question for you is this: have you perceived the closeness of God’s Kingdom to us at any time during these past 2¼ years?
What did that feel like? Like Jonah speaking? Or like Paul? Like Jesus?
Has it happened more than once?
Are there common factors across these experiences of God’s ‘closeness’?
Is there good news in it for you?
Can we trust that there is good news in it for us?
You don’t need to answer those questions right away. They’re questions I hope you will reflect on in the weeks and months ahead as you continue to embrace Peter, and now Adam, Kacper, Cythia, and the many other people lay and ordained who will be drawn into the orbit of Jesus’ ministry here in this area parish.
I can tell you that I have felt the closeness of God’s Kingdom affect my life while with you in this parish. In many different ways, at different times and places, the nearness of God’s Kingdom has interrupted my agenda to reorient me – sometimes like Jonah with a warning, or Paul with exhortation, or like Jesus with invitation. But like all graced experiences, these interruptions invariably reorient me out of my unconscious sleep-walking into a conscious realization of the way God’s rule is drawing near to me, and the surprising, creative ways Jesus is inviting me to participate in that redemptive activity.
I’ve felt the closeness of God’s Kingdom with you here:
In conversation, group study, worship, and sharing meals together at Days in the Wildwood;
In the experience of gifting baptised children at Trinity and St. John’s with prayer quilts made by the Christ Church Prayers and Squares ministry;
In the faithful decision of Trinity’s midweek congregants to monthly receive the hospitality of Christ in their neighbours at Centre 105 (and I’d dare say, in receiving it, giving it too!);
In the Cornwall hospice, hospital, and regional long term care homes where I discovered a wealth of dedicated parishioners from across the region ministering Jesus’ presence and healing care to members of our community;
In the voices of our combined choirs digitally mixed together by Penny to sing the praises of God throughout pandemic distance;
In the car loads of St. John’s and Trinity congregants arriving for the Christ Church fish fry and chicken dinner;
In the generous hospitality of St. John’s to adapt their Maundy Thursday supper and liturgy to welcome parishioners of every congregation; and
In the deepening relationships and building trust formed through working together on shared teams like the Parish Reopening Team, and the Music Director Search Team, and the Area Parish Digital Communications team.
In these ways and many, many more, I have felt the closeness of God’s Kingdom here. And that closeness is reorienting the direction in which we are living our lives together in our churches: reorganizing us, re-energizing us, and revitalizing us in this present time, making straight the way for God’s arrival in new and surprising ways, not only in our lives, but in the lives of the generations that follow you.
Thank you for your hospitality. Your kindness. Your energy. And, above all, your faithfulness and love to one another. The rule of God has come close! Trust this proclamation.
Yours in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Colin+
Art: Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Christ Preaching (1643, pen and brown ink on paper). Musée du Louvre, Paris, France.
[1] Mark: A Commentary by M. Eugene Boring in The New Testament Library published by Westminster John Knox, 2012: pg. 50.
[2] Meeting God in Mark by Rowan Williams. Published by SPCK, 2014: pg. viii
[3] Meeting God in Mark by Rowan Williams: pg. 7
