We cannot exist outside of a kingdom
Blog post by Matt McCoy
6 minute read
Listen to this blog as an audio recording
I’d like to make an important claim:
We live in a kingdom, and we cannot exist outside of a kingdom.
Look, I realize we don’t often use the word “kingdom” in modern culture, and when we talk about a kingdom, we’re likely thinking of a geographic reality like the United Kingdom or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And while those are certainly kingdoms, limiting our imagination to merely geographical kingdoms will hamstring our ability to understand why the Bible places so much emphasis on “The Kingdom of God.” So I want the starting point of our definition to come from (wait for it) the dictionary.
The basic definition from the dictionary of kingdom is, “a realm associated with or regarded as being under the control of a particular person or thing.”{1} And I want to draw your attention to that word “realm” and think about things beyond geography. A realm can include relationships. A realm can include architecture. A realm can include social constructs. Try thinking of a realm as “boundaries.” Hey, while it’s a tad unusual for us to use the language of “kingdom” to describe our world, it’s worth the effort, in order to better understand what the Bible is trying to tell us. And the Bible is trying to tell us that living in a kingdom is one of the most normal, natural things we do. Let me give you four examples.
First, think about the place where you live as a kingdom.
If you live in a home, in a homeless shelter, or on the streets, there is a rule and an order to it. There is a structure to when and how you come and go, when and how you eat, when and how you sleep. That structure is provided by someone; maybe it’s you by yourself, maybe it’s you with someone else, and maybe it’s entirely by someone else. Even if you’ve never paid attention to it, there is a social order to who’s in and who’s out, and expectations placed on those who enter the kingdom of where you live. So, if you were to come over to my house and enter the kingdom where I live, Denise and I would expect you to treat our family with kindness and we would expect you to eat a common meal with us (screen free) at dinner time. These are normal, healthy boundaries for us {2}, and that’s what helps govern our ‘realm.’
Second, think about a school as a kingdom.
It doesn’t matter if the school is a preschool or a graduate school, there are strict rules about who can come in, when they can come and go, and how all the people in the kingdom of a school must behave while they’re there. When I visited my kids in elementary or middle school, I had to wear a name tag that said “VISITOR” in very big letters. I was expected to abide by the rule of the school district when I was within the realm of that kingdom. These boundaries help establish a kingdom which accommodates anyone who meets the criteria for being a student in Bellingham Public Schools, and those boundaries (when working properly) help a student from any background get access to a great education.
Third, think about a shopping mall as a kingdom.
Again, there are strict rules about when someone can come and go. Parking, walking, and eating all come with boundaries and guidance. The architecture of this space is huge, much like the medieval cathedrals of old, with icons (they call them advertisements now) showing pictures of the ideal human person of that kingdom, using relics (they call them products now) of importance within that realm. {3}
Fourth, remember back to CHAZ/CHOP last summer in Seattle.
People created an autonomous zone, and then they immediately got to work building a kingdom. Some voices got elevated and some got expelled. They planted a garden (of Eden?). They ate together, sang together, and played together (which, significantly, is the three movements of a Spring Church worship service). They established their own armed police force. They locked arms around the boundary of their realm, as a display of unity, trying to keep ‘the bad’ out.
Once we start thinking of kingdoms as realms with boundaries and rules, we start to see how these kingdoms are everywhere. Our polarized political culture is a constant clash of kingdoms, whether it’s Liz Cheney being attacked by Republicans for critiquing Trump, or Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle being attacked by Democrats for not being liberal enough.
We cannot exist outside of a kingdom.
So with our imagination around ‘kingdom’ growing beyond geographic realities, and including any “realm associated with or regarded as being under the control of a particular person or thing,” let’s check in with one thing Jesus said about God’s Kingdom being bigger than geography.
Jesus makes clear that the Kingdom of God is already among us, like when he gave the Pharisees an opportunity to expand their imaginations (Luke 17:20-21):
Jesus, grilled by the Pharisees on when the kingdom of God would come, answered, “The kingdom of God doesn’t come by counting the days on the calendar. Nor when someone says, ‘Look here!’ or, ‘There it is!’ And why? Because God’s kingdom is already among you.”
Living in a “realm associated with or regarded as being under the control of a particular person or thing,” and that person being Jesus, is something that is already available to us. Whenever we live, inside any school we might enter, and within every shopping mall, we’re invited to take those realms and submit them to the authority and control of Jesus. {4}
We don’t leave these realms in order to enter the Kingdom of God, rather the Kingdom of God comes to those realms. This is what we pray every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer:
Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Our imaginations need to be able to understand that we live in a kingdom, and we cannot live outside of a kingdom, in order for us to engage with a very important claim I’m going to make on Sunday night:
God’s Kingdom is better than a kingdom of our own making.
We started this exploration in our last service, when we looked at the challenging situations Hannah was facing, and then compared and contrasted her responses to how we might respond in a similar situation. We concluded by discussing how Hannah helps us reimagine our place within God’s kingdom.
Answers from the community to the questions posed at our last service. Transposed digitally for clarity.
So in this coming Sunday’s service, we’ll be looking at the story of Hannah again, and examining how her responses to the challenges she was facing help us learn how we can participate with God’s Kingdom no matter where we are.
And, if your imagination is still wondering about how the Bible describes life as being lived within a kingdom, I invite you to watch this video from our friends at The Bible Project:
1 Samuel 1
So there was this guy from Ramathaim-Zopphim, from the hill country of Ephriam , and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an ephraimite. And he had two wives: the name of one is Hannah “Grace” and the name of the other is Panina “Jewel.” Panina had children, but Hannah had no children.Now this man went up from his city at all the appropriate holidays to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of Angel Armies at Shiloh. And there were the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, who were priests of the Lord.
And on the day Elkana made his sacrifice, he gave to Panina his wife and to all her sons their portions of the blessed meat. But to Hannah he gave the best cut of the blessed meat, because he really loved her, even though the Lord had closed her womb.
So that woman bullied and harassed her, just like she always did, because the Lord had closed her womb. That's the way it happened, year after year. Whenever she went up to the house of the Lord, that woman would bully her. So Hannah wept and would not eat.
Then Elkanah said to his wife Hannah, “Why are you weeping? And why aren’t you eating? Why are you heartbroken? I know you don’t have kids, but aren’t I more than enough?”
Then Hannah stood up after eating and drinking in Shiloh, and Eli the Priest was sitting on the seat of honor by the doorpost in the Temple of the Lord. Her soul became bitter, and she prayed and prayed to the Lord while she wept and wept. She swore up and down and she said, “Lord of Angel Armies, if you’ll take a good hard look at my pain, if you’ll quit neglecting me and actually do something about this, and give me a son, I will give him to you completely, unreservedly, and I’ll set him apart for a life of holy discipline.”
And she went on multiplying her prayers before the Lord, and Eli observed her mouth. Because as Hannah was praying in her heart, her lips were moving, but no voice was heard. So Eli figured she was drunk. And Eli said to her, “How long will you keep on being drunk? Sober up and be done with your wine!” But Hannah answered, “No sir! I am a woman with a broken heart, I’ve not drunk a drop of wine or beer. The only thing I’ve poured is my heart to the Lord. Do not take me for a bad woman; my great sorrows and terrible situation is why I’m still here praying.” So Eli answered, “Go in peace. May the God of Israel give you what you have asked of him.” And she replied, “I hope you see the way God blesses me.” Then she went on her way, ate a good meal, and she looked like her joyful self again.
Footnotes:
{1}Apple Online Dictionary, accessed 29 July 2021. I told you, just a basic definition here. Sometimes simple is best.
{2} Cloud and Townsend wrote Boundaries in the mid 90’s, and it’s still a great book. I teach a weekly class on it at the Lighthouse Mission for the Men’s recovery house. A very important life skill that benefits from a lifetime of cultivation.
{3} Oh you’ve got to read James K. A. Smith on this topic, in Desiring the Kingdom p 20-25. His description of a Shopping Mall as a place of worship is so good. But go ahead and read the whole book. Seriously.
{4} in the interest of brevity, I deleted a more robust engagement with scripture and theology. But the “kingdom of God” is one of the major themes of Jesus’ teachings, and it’s just all over the place.
In addition to James K. A. Smith, I’ve been deeply influenced by:
Provan, Long, and Longman, A Biblical History of Israel
Samuel Wells, God’s Companions
Mortimer Arias, Announcing the Reign of God.
Juergen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom.
Stanley Hauerwas, After Christendom