Trinity 1: The Kingdom of Heaven has come near.

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Exodus 19:2-8a, Psalm 100, Romans 5:1-8, Matthew 9:35-10:8

“The kingdom of heaven has come near.”  Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. 

 Today’s Gospel speaks to the mission of the church. The empowerment of the disciples – Jesus gives them authority over unclean spirits; The sending out of the disciples: sent to proclaim this kingdom that has come near, and to bring healing to the people.

If we are to take up this commission we first of all have to believe in this kingdom, which is a little bit like swallowing the blue pill in the Matrix. CS Lewis said that faith is not a spectacle to look at, but a pair of spectacles to see the world. To see the kingdom of God we have to put on these spectacles. But this isn’t as odd as it sounds. We’re more aware than ever today of the complication in trying to see the world well. I say well, because we’ll never see it perfectly, but we can see it better and worse. At the bottom end, for all our cleverness, there remains a good section of the world ensnared in cults and conspiracy. I was horrified in the army by the proliferation of flat-earthers. Nothing to do with any religion, there’s just a growing number of people in the world who through fake videos and nonsense believe the earth is flat. But even if we avoid the obvious pitfalls, the internet is a swamp of fake news and lies, and social media is peppered with echo chambers, click-baiters and distraction. Even science is wielded now as a weapon of politics and becomes a confusion. Do we see the world as it is? No, but we strive to see it better.

Consider the recent democratic movement of statue removal. We are right to deplore anyone involved in the slave trade, but how far back should we expunge? All the way to antiquity? And what of execution? Exploitation? Should we remove statues, paintings of all Emperors and kings? We do very well to consider who are our heroes, our role models; who is celebrated publicly. But subtracting misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, we might-0= find ourselves with very few art galleries, museums and public artworks left. And if Gone with the Wind is removed from public, could we legitimately protect the Bible? My favourite poets, artists, composers and, yes, theologians are all on the offenders-list. These people all saw the Kingdom of God, but they did not see it all.

The philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote: ‘There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.’ The removal of barbarism may entail the removal of civilisation.

 And I wonder how we will be judged. Will they think in centuries to come: I cannot believe these people thought abortion was acceptable! They called it ‘pro-choice’ like it was a good thing! Or: ‘She was a great artist but she actually ate other animals, the monster!’ Or: ‘Can you believe they didn’t allow people the universal basic human right of the right to die? So much suffering – so antiquated!’

I’m not suggesting a moral equivalence of misogyny and eating meat, but it’s a warning for us that former generations would be surprised by the standards they are judged against.  The Norwegian poet Olav Hauge put it well when he wrote:

Don’t give me the whole truth, 
don’t give me the sea for my thirst,
Don’t give me the sky when I ask for light,
But give me a glint, a dewy wisp, a mote
As the birds bear the water drops from their bathing
And the wind a grain of salt.

Emily Dickinson did even better with:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Success in circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind –

 (with apologies for the gendered last line. Other genders are available.) Both these poems remind me John’s Gospel, where Jesus says:  ‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth’ Only the Spirit comes very gradually.

 So where is the kingdom of God and how can we see it, how can we proclaim it. Well it helps if you can raise the dead. But I’m trying to suggest that more than anything it means pursuing the truth. Jesus came to the man born blind and healed him. He also set him free from the wrong idea that sin had caused that blindness. He ate with tax collectors and other people deemed unclean. He surprised everyone rewarding the faith of the Gentile as beyond how own people, He told the story of the Good foreigner, against the leaders of his own people. He taught sick people that the Sabbath was made for them, that they also were part of the complete work of God’s creation. He gathered women and slaves as his closest disciples, counting them equal before God. The truth that Jesus teaches is that you cannot write off people: the prodigal son, the lost sheep, the foreigner, the untouchable, the wayward woman, the reformed extorter, the slave. The truth is contained in the voice of all these people. And even, according to Isaiah, ‘the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.’ We are all somewhere on the scale between flat-earthers and fully woke – but we should strive to see the world more fully and understand, respect and support the experience of others better.

And this is not just about identity politics. We are even more likely in our everyday lives to be shutting out the voices and needs of those around us. And I think, especially in the present crisis, where temperatures are running a little high and patience a little thin, the little voice in your head that says, ‘but what about you? What about your needs?’ can become very strong, very persistent. When the lens of our spectacles turns myopic to see the world in terms of the injustices I suffer, the lack of care I receive, the unfairness that is put upon me, the goods I am entitled to; at the cost of our family, friends and neighbours, we will never see the further shore of the kingdom of God. There are many who have been unable to see beyond the privilege of their own gender, ethnicity and class. There are many unable to see beyond their own nose.

 The kingdom of God is a horizon in which there is perfect justice, perfect love, perfect peace. We only ever glance at it slant, through our wonky spectacles. Faith, and especially the words and parables of Jesus, should help us to see better but these glints and dewy wisps are but corrections on our winding path towards perfect love.

 In my first year of ordination, a priest came in to talk to us about self-care. His advice stayed with me. He said our calling is to work ourselves to death. But he recommended we do it slowly.

So it is with the kingdom of God. When we believe we see the world aright is when we should be most cautious. If we are full of fear and anxiety over offending, for saying the wrong thing, I also believe we will not get there. But the more we are drawn to ourselves, to people like us; the more people we leave outside, the further we are away. The work of the kingdom is to open our hearts gently and humbly and to extend our love as far as we are able. The kingdom of heaven has come near: ‘As the birds bear the water drops from their bathing/ And the wind a grain of salt.’