Kindom (no it s not a typo) Luke 13:20-21 October 2, 2016 I. The Kindom of God yes you heard me right. A. So over the many past weeks you may have thought I had a speech impediment. B. Gary was certain that I had a defective spellchecker as I kept typing Kin-dom and he insisted that no such word exists. 1. Which according to Oxford and Webster is correct. 2. But, the word kindom has been used for decades in progressive theology and feminist theology. I don t know why Oxford and Webster are so slow. Maybe they don t read a lot of feminist theology. A problem maybe they should address.
C. In any case, Kindom is a respelling of Kingdom designed to highlight the mutual relationships in the Kingdom of God rather than the hierarchical relationships of the patriarchal system. D. Among others it was originally used in the works of Ada Marie Isasi-Diaz and Rosemary Reuther. 1. Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz explains that she rejects the word kingdom for two reasons. "First, it is obviously a sexist word that presumes that God is male. Second, the concept of kingdom in our world today is both hierarchal and elitist" (304). "The word kin-dom, she explains, "makes it clear that when the fullness of God becomes a day-to-day reality in the world at large, we will all be sisters and brothers--kin to each other." 2 2
E. Besides, Kingdom is probably a mistake. 1. New Testament translators have taken what Jesus spoke in Aramaic and was written decades later in Greek and translated that, during the time of King James, as the Kingdom of God. 2. But, many scholars now believe that is not quite accurate. 3. As Jesus was making the comparison with the Roman Empire, it may have been a better translation to use Empire of God which is not necessarily masculine or patriarchal. 4. Martin Luther King, Jr. used a phrase more in line with what Jesus intended to communicate, a phrase I have often used; namely, The Beloved Community of God. 5. However, Kindom of God, as an alternative, retains the sound of the Kingdom of God, but gets more to the meaning of Beloved Community of God. 3 3
6. The Kindom of God reminds us that we are all brothers and sisters in one family of God, and that is probably even more in line with the image of community that Jesus intended; much more so than being a peon in a patriarchal militaristic fiefdom that comes with belonging to the King-dom. 7. After all, Jesus did refer to God as the head of the family, not as a King. Nowhere does Jesus pray to a king. II. Given our membership in the Kindom of God, we as brothers and sisters one to another, as I mentioned last Sunday, need to learn to re-orient our lives around the Sacred Life and Living Earth story and abandon the Sacred Money and Markets story. A. I promised last week that we would begin the more hopeful journey today as we begin to live into the Sacred Life and Living Earth story. 4 4
B. Last week we examined how, in the U.S. we have oriented our lives around the Sacred Money and Markets story which has brought us great pain and suffering and has brought us to terminal crisis. 1. As David Korten said in his book, Change the Story, Change the Future, We live by shared cultural stories. They are the lens through which we view reality. They shape what we most value as a society and the institutions by which we structure power. When we get our story wrong, we get our future wrong... we are in a terminal crisis because we have our defining story badly wrong. [p. 16, Korten] 2. We haven t been following the story given to us by Jesus about valuing relationships. 3. We have been following the story given to us by Caesar about money, ownership, control and power. 4. The values of the Roman Emperor are the values that our society is organized around. 5 5
III. Today I want to connect the Kindom of God, where we are all members of God s family, with the Sacred Life and Living Earth story because they all are oriented around loving relationships. A. This is quite different than the Sacred Money story and Kingdoms which are all about money, markets and property and the way the powerful can control the powerless. B. The Kindom of God and the Sacred Life and Living Earth story provide us with a narrative that is life giving, creative and loving; and doesn t lead to planetary suicide. IV. So what is the Sacred Life and Living Earth story about? A. Well to start with Sacred Life and Living Earth story is oriented around life and mutually enhancing relationships and not around property and ownership. 1. It s about empowering, not controlling. 2. It s about enhancing value and not trying to possess it. 6 6
B. It s a story about how God calls us into meaningful relationships that are mutually enhancing. C. It s a story that recognizes the sacredness of life and sees making money sacred, making it the orienting value of our lives, as the destructive, illusory, idolization that it is. D. It is a story that sees the Earth as a living organism to be related to in a mutually enhancing way, not as a dead rock to be used up. E. It is a story about the Kin-dom of God. 1. The kindom as Jesus told us is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into flour until it was all given life and it was enough bread dough to feed a multitude. 2. As Jesus shows us in his parable, the Kindom is all about the spirit of love and life being breathed into the community until everyone has been inspired. 3. The Sacred Life and Living Earth story is about bring life and nurture into the world and creating the kindom of God. 7 7
F. The Sacred Life and Living Earth story calls us to measure value in our lives, not by how much money we make, but by how well we have enhanced the value of the those around us, including those who are not human. V. There is another helpful biblical image of the kindom that we are attentive to every Advent and that is the image of the Peaceable Kin-dom as found in prophecy of Isaiah. Isaiah 11:6 9 The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 8 8
A. As I mentioned at the Blessing of the Animals yesterday, that image of a world totally at peace, where humans are no longer at war with one another or at war with the rest of creation; that vision to become a reality is totally dependent upon us following what is known as the great commandment, namely, that we love one another as Jesus loved us. B. But what people need to realize is that loving one another doesn t just extend to humans, but to all of creation. C. We need to find ways to enhance the value of all of God s creatures. D. But if we are to ever achieve that vision of Isaiah we heard in the scripture we will need to start seeing God s creation, not as an object to be used or consumed, but as a living organism that we are called to love. VI. That brings us some good news and some bad news. 9 9
A. The bad news is that we are running out of time to make this vision a reality, because if we don t love it we will kill it. B. The good news is we do have a perfector and pioneer of this vision in Jesus. C. He did, we can do it. In fact, he calls us to do it. We are expected to do it. VII.Now there is nothing inherently wrong with money. A. There s nothing wrong with money, any more than there is something wrong with the English language. 1. They are both tools needed for living. 2. But we don t make our language into something by which we measure the value of our life. 3. Nor should we do that with money. B. Money should be one of the tools we use to enhance the value of God s creation, enhance the value of others. C. It is a tool for enhancing relationships. 10 10
VIII.When we get our stories wrong we threaten our continued existence. A. Life should not be a tool we use to help us make money. B. Money must become for us a tool we use to help us enhance life. AMEN. 11 11