God's Kingdom On Earth

On this, our celebration of Earth Day, we raise the words of the prophet Jeremiah and the Gospel of Luke to begin to understand the complex relationship between heaven and earth.  Our central Christian Prayer opens our thinking about earth and heaven this way: Our Heavenly Father, your name is sacred above all others.  May your Kingdom come to earth and may your will be done here on earth as surely as it is in heaven.”   Can we, like Jesus, imagine that our prayer for the Kingdom now has already come true?  If, indeed, God’s Kingdom is here on earth already, then we are challenged to care for the earth as if we are caring for God’s already-here Kingdom.
Will you pray with me?  Listen to this version of the Lord’s Prayer in this beautiful translation from the New Zealand Prayer book:

“Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, pain-bearer, life-giver
Source of all that is, and that shall be
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven,
The hallowing of your name echoes through the universe
The way of your justice be followed by the Peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
Sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory and in the power that is love,
Now and forever, Amen.

Isn’t that gorgeous?  It opens up new windows of understanding and helps me understand God’s reign on earth a bit better.

And then, in Luke, the Pharisees asked Jesus when this Kingdom of God was coming to earth.  And did you hear what Jesus replied, “For in fact, the Kingdom of God is among you.”  Jesus did not even hesitate—he said it is here, now, among you.  It is here, among us, too.  Look around at each other for a moment and take in the Kingdom of God already among us!

If we take Jesus’ reply here to the Pharisee’s question seriously, then as Christians we are no longer living for a heaven that will come later, but we are living in heaven right now, on this earth, right here.  But Jesus’ new thinking about the kingdom now requires a shift in how we live, and why we live, and what the goal of our life will be.  If we are living in the Kingdom now among us, then earth and heaven become blurred together.  For in fact, the Kingdom of God is among us, right here and right now.

Let’s place this thinking about the Kingdom now into conversation with another passage about creation and humanity and the reign of God and Earth Day.  In Genesis chapter 1 verse 26, God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle and over all of the wild animals of the earth.”

Now the verb in this verse, ‘to have dominion over’ is the Hebrew verb radah, which means to rule over or to reign over.  But this verb of ruling over immediately follows God’s direct desire for humankind to live within God’s image of grace, mercy, compassion and love.  Humanity is charged with acting just as God would act—that is, in God’s image and likeness—as humanity reigns over the earth.  There is enormous power in this charge of God to humanity, but there is also enormous mutual responsibility.  If we reign in the image and likeness of God, we reign by living in compassion for all living things, including living things that are yet to come.  If we reign by living in God’s image and likeness, we reign in consideration of what the seventh generation from now will have to deal with because of our reign and dominion today.  God’s image does nothing that harms tomorrow because God loves the future as much as God loves us.  If we act in God’s likeness, we will reign in the same way.

What would reigning over the earth in the likeness and image of God look like?  God’s image and likeness are expressions of justice, compassion, mercy, good will and loving kindness.  This means that humanity is charged from the very beginning of Genesis to live and reign over the earth in compassion, love, generosity, sharing, grace and justice.  But above and beyond these lofty attributes, living in God’s image and likeness also means living together in loving community—both local and global community—because God’s kingdom is among us.  Living in God’s likeness is living in community and love, a community of love that embraces all of the earth: animals, plants, insects, and every crawling thing.  As God loves creation, we are likewise charged to extend the likeness and image of God’s love to all of creation.

Living in the image and likeness of God is difficult in our culture and society today.  Our society worships greed and pride, money and gluttony.  And so, Earth Day is a very good time for all of us to remember our rootedness in God’s likeness and image, humanity tasked from the very beginning by God to reign over the world acting through God’s image and likeness.  But God’s image and likeness, God’s very character, demands that we act in righteousness, grace and humility.  This means living with one another in peace and love, sharing and watching out for one another.  We are not to rule over one another in just any way we want.  We are tasked with ruling over the earth in the likeness and image of God.

In this community of Christ, we do watch out for one another.  We listen carefully as we help each other through difficult times.  We pray for one another.  And we also reach out into the world, living our compassion into the world around us.  One of the ways we show compassion is to honor the shared and limited resources of our world by using less, recycling more, thinking about reducing our waste and learning to live better with less.  These simple steps are both living and loving as good neighbors to our globe, but they are also solid spiritual practices as we live in the likeness and image of our God. 
All you have to do is Google “Earth Day” on the internet and you can quickly find places like the Earth Day Network that has mobilized a billion people to take an action to be more earth-loving, or in our words today, to act more in the image and likeness of God.  With 6.7 billion people on the earth today, that means 1 out of every 7 humans beings has already pledged to be more earth-conscious.  This is a global grass-roots movement, crossing all racial and political lines to reach out globally to those who realize God’s creation expects our mutual care for providing a clean and healthy environment for our future generations.  Groups like the Pachumama Alliance is bringing third world indigenous people together with industrial nations to combine ancient natural wisdom with technology to assist all nations to better care for Mother Earth.  Together, as united humanity, we can be gentler and wiser with our limited global resources—and that means holding more respect and love for our future generations who will live here in this same kingdom of God.

Here, I would like to also reflect back on our verse today from Jeremiah.  Jeremiah reminds us that God asks us, when at the crossroads of our lives, to look back, remembering the ancient paths of our lives about the “good way” of life, the way of God’s likeness and image.  Jeremiah then asks us to walk in that good way together.  Jeremiah reminded his people that the “good way of God” is caring for each other, considering and thinking about the whole community together.  This is the holistic concept of shalom—peace and goodwill acting within God’s likeness and image.

There is an old Navaho saying that says, “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”  The current political debate of whether global warming is or is not a scientific reality does not really interest me here because Jeremiah reflects that the ancient paths of our lives indicate Gods good way is this:  Our children, and our children’s children invite us to act in the good way by living lightly on our globe simply because we borrow our world from our children.  This is living in God’s likeness and image.  And, according to Jesus, heaven is here on earth right now.  So I take seriously the charge to live on this earth in the image and likeness of God.  Live lightly on this earth, think globally and act locally, do what you can to manage the world around you in the image and likeness of God.  Let us share lavishly, love generously, and remember that we are all children of God as we live in God’s Kingdom on Earth. 

And Happy Heaven on Earth Day. Amen.

Jeremiah 6:16a
Thus says the LORD: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.

Luke 17:20-21
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.”