"Beneath Our Toes"--July 30. 2019

"Beneath Our Toes"--July 30, 2019

"Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, 'The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There it is!' For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you'." [Luke 17:20-21]

So much of our lives is spent (you might say "wasted" if you are feeling particularly honest) looking in other directions, rather than right here, right now.

We find ourselves seated at tables with friends or family, maybe with a cup of coffee or supper in front of us, and still we feel the need to look at little screens on our rectangles of technology... implicitly sending the message to the actual humans with us that we'd rather be somewhere else.

We spend our weekdays longing for the weekend, only to find that the weekend has its own hectic pace, and there is still laundry to be folded and dishes to be done even on Saturday and Sunday.  

We complain about the heat in summer, the snow in the winter, and how rainy and cloudy it is in the spring and fall (at least where I live), as if we can never be quiet content with the day we have been given, but are convinced that some future day will be better.

Kids wish they could skip ahead to being teenagers.  Teenagers wish they could be independent adults.  Young adults wish they could jump right to landing their dream job right out of school.  Parents of infants wish they could get past diapers and terrible twos.  People in the thick of their careers long for retirement.  And the next thing you know you are looking back wondering why you were in such a hurry to get to the next thing.

We do it in relationships, too.  I know doe-eyed couples who want to jump ahead to being married (assuming that will be unending bliss with no tears or frustrations).  I know married people who want to jump out of their marriages, convinced that it will be better once they are out.  I know people looking to jump back into relationships after having survived divorce or death who are convinced that getting someone new in their lives will make everything sunshine and rainbows again (when it never was all sunshine and rainbows the first time).  And at each turn, it seems our recurring hang-up is the inability to look right where we are, at the moment we are in, just now, and to see the presence of God there.  We are always looking somewhere else, to some past imagined time when things were "great" in our memories, or to some future time, when we're sure it will all be "great" again.  

We are lying to ourselves.

As the old saying goes, if the grass seems greener on the other side of the fence, maybe it's time to water your own lawn instead of wishing to be elsewhere.

See, Jesus has us pegged on that.  Jesus knows that we are driven to look to some majestic "Somewhere Else" or "Someday" where things will be wonderful, and instead, Jesus directs us to see the very Reign of God "among" us.  Even within us (the Greek of this verse can be rendered either way).  

So often, when we religious folk talk about the Kingdom of God, we immediately make the leap to assuming it is "out there" or "up there" or "off in the future" beyond the horizon.  We talk about "going to heaven" after we die, when actually the Scriptures more frequently talk about God's dwelling "coming to us" as God dwells among us.  We talk about Christianity as though it is primarily a means of getting to some heavenly Somewhere Else rather than a way of life that recognizes Christ's presence among us here and now.

And Jesus consistently redirects our attention, not up to the second star on the right, but right back down to the grass roots beneath our toes.  When the Respectable Religious people ask Jesus when "the Kingdom of God" was going to come, Jesus turns their question on its head.  He says, it's not about getting to some other place, or waiting for some other day, but God's Reign is happening right here and now.  As our older brother in the faith Martin Luther used to say, wherever God gets what God wants done, wherever God thwarts evil, hatred, and injustice and puts things right, wherever and whenever God's Spirit is on the loose--even under the nose of the powers of the day!--that's where you'll catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.  

And similarly, we could say, we aren't simply waiting for some future day after our death to see Jesus--he has already given us his social calendar and says we'll be able to find him when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, welcome the foreigner, and gather with others in his name!  If you want to see Christ, in other words, you don't have to spend your life looking somewhere else.  He is already present, as the poet says, "in ten thousand places."  Or like that beautiful line of Dr. Chumley's from the play Harvey, "Fly specks! Fly specks! I have been spending my life among fly specks while miracles have been leaning against lampposts at the corner of 18th and Fairfax!"  If you want to see the Reign of God, don't look somewhere else, to white sand beaches on a tropical island or floating on clouds in the sky, and don't look to some other time, past or future, that prevents you from seeing God's presence and fingerprints here and now.

It's interesting to me.  In this country we talk a great deal about the "pursuit of happiness," which by itself as a phrase suggests having to go somewhere else or to acquire something else or to be with someone else in order to finally "get" happiness and pin it down.  Jesus makes no such deal with us.  Because honestly, the Scriptures seem to think, as the mystics always have for millennia, that knowing God is the source of our deepest contentment and profoundest joy--and God isn't off "somewhere else," or waiting on a shelf to be purchased, or on an app on your phone, or at some future candlelit dinner in a restaurant.  The place to look is here.  The moment to look is now.  Whatever faces are before you.  Whatever work is in front of you.  Whatever beautiful and terrible things you wrestle with right in this moment--these are places to look for the reflection of Christ.  The Kingdom, as Jesus says, is among you.

Lord Jesus, help us to spot your presence right here and right now... and then to be your presence for others where and with whom you have put us.