The Backside of the Kingdom--July 11, 2025

The Backside of the Kingdom--July 11, 2025

[Jesus instructed the seventy:] "Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near'." (Luke 10:8-11)

No matter what, the kingdom comes near.

Did you catch that?  In this passage that many of us heard on Sunday, as Jesus commissioned seventy disciples to go ahead of him, the Reign of God becomes visible either way, no matter how the people of any town or village respond.  In fact, in part of God's cosmic genius, even when people explicitly reject Jesus' messengers and message, the kingdom becomes evident.

Here's what I mean about the brilliance of Jesus' instructions.  When two of these missionaries (they are traveling in pairs, you'll recall) get to a town and are welcomed, they are directed to heal the sick and share tables with the people there. And in that breaking of bread and healing of sickness, there is a glimpse of the Kingdom.  When Jesus directs these disciples to say, "The kingdom of God has come near to you," it's not a sales pitch to sign up for a new religion or a spiritual country club--it's a description of what the people will have just witnessed.  Where God reigns, bread is broken and shared, strangers become friends, and diseased bodies are restored to health.  The message the missionaries bring is simply to explain what will have happened among them.  How do they explain their ability to heal? How are people supposed to interpret the arrival of these strangers to town?  Ah--this is what it looks like where God reigns.  The healing, the shared meal, the giving and receiving of hospitality--these are what the kingdom of God looks like.  In other words, these traveling disciples are not going from town to town as mere event promoters ginning up interest and ticket sales for Jesus' traveling road show.  Rather, they are bringing the Reign of God in their very own presence, because they bring the message and power of Jesus with them.

Now, that's the easy part, I think.  What floors me about this scenario is that Jesus has designed it so that even when his disciples are rejected, there will be a glimpse of a different side of the Reign of God, but a true one all the same.  If (or honest, when) there comes a village that rejects Jesus' visiting disciples and they will not open their doors to them, they have strict instructions not to seek revenge, not to make threats, not to insult or belittle the residents, and not to call down fire from heaven. (There had been a moment, just a few paragraphs earlier in Luke's gospel, where a village of Samaritans didn't want to welcome Jesus, and James and John offered to Jesus that they call down divine retribution in the form of firebolts from the sky, and Jesus rolled his eyes and rebuked them for even suggesting such a thing--see Luke 9:51-56).  In other words, Jesus is telling his disciples to take seriously his earlier teaching not to return evil for evil, and not to answer meanness with more meanness.  Why is that important?  Because that's also what the Reign of God is like.  Jesus famously teaches (see the Sermon on the Mount especially) that God's way of ruling the world is not to answer hatred with more hatred or evil with more evil. Rather, Jesus insists, God sends the good gifts of sun and rain on both the good and the bad, the righteous and the unrighteous, the thankful and the ungrateful alike.  This is not a bug in the code--this is a feature.  This is what it looks like where God reigns.  This is how the Kingdom comes--not by coercion, not by heavy-handed intimidation, not by steamrolling over people or invading like an empire, but in vulnerability and non-retaliation.  So when Jesus' disciples are rejected, their refusal to answer that hostility with more hostility is itself a glimpse of what God's Reign is like.  They show a different side--perhaps the backside, like the famous story of Moses' glimpsing God from behind--of the kingdom, but they show it all the same.  Even in the act of rejecting the kingdom, the townspeople will inadvertently catch a glimpse of the kingdom because the visiting disciples will not seek revenge or unleash wrath on them for rejecting it.  They will simply declare, "This was the Kingdom of God that had come to your door. This was a chance given to you to share the life of God's Reign."  Like someone who turns away from the sunset in anger but still catches a reflection of the oranges and purples of the sky in a window or a mirror, you can't help but still see signs of the Kingdom of God even when you are turned dead set against it.  That's part of God's genius.

All of this is to say that whatever "the kingdom of God" means, it's bigger than just a show of power. Sometimes we misunderstand that. If we focus only on the scene of disciples curing the sick or casting out evil spirits as they go from town to town, we can end up thinking that God's Reign is just a euphemism for divine firepower, or spectacles that dazzle people into believing in God. But Jesus seems to think differently.  He is convinced that God's Reign can be glimpsed in healing, but also in a shared meal between strangers who become friends, and in the courage it takes to welcome a newcomer and open your door to them.  And beyond that, Jesus believes that God's Reign is evident every time his people answer hostility with grace and non-retaliation.  Every time they meet up with rejection and do not give in to the impulse for revenge or threats, the vulnerable self-giving nature of God's Kingdom becomes clear, even if for just a moment before the parade moves to the next town.

This is the real revolution of understanding Jesus brings about the reality we call the "kingdom of God." It is terribly easy to hear that phrase and think we are talking about an empire that conquers, a nation that expands with invading armies and overwhelming force, or a posture that threatens, arrests, or kills anyone who disagrees with it.  That's how other kingdoms operate, after all. But Jesus makes it clear that God's Reign is never advanced by dropping bombs or killing enemies. God's presence is never revealed by taking away food from a hungry stranger to keep the resources hoarded for yourself.  God's Kingdom is never advanced by threatening wrath on those who disagree with you. Rather, you see the Reign of God in self-giving vulnerable love... love that is brave enough to risk rejection without retaliation.

Sometimes I hear Respectable Religious Folks who sound convinced that what Christians need to do is to wield more political power, to enforce their ways and their thinking on everybody else, and to get rid of anybody who stands in their way.  That is the perennial lure to do things according to the rules of every other kingdom and to follow the playbook of every empire in history.  But it is not the way God's Reign works--full stop.  Jesus shows us instead that God's Reign is strong enough to bear being rejected. God's Reign is gracious enough to love even in the face of hostility.  God's Reign makes us brave enough to risk meeting new people as well as being turned away by those people.  The Kingdom of God isn't merely about flashy shows of divine power--it is about the kind of self-giving love we see in the face of Jesus.

How will we put ourselves out there in the world today--risking both the presence of strangers and the possibility of rejection as well--in order that God's Reign might be seen in us either way?

Lord Jesus, let your kingdom be seen in us today, and give us the direction to know how to respond to this day's encounters in ways that show your face to the world.