The Reign of God is not like the Kingdoms we know on Earth. God’s Reign, proclaimed by Jesus is not based on retribution and extravagant violence like the Empires we know now. God’s Reign is characterized by justice, truth and repentance. Rather than seeking our own way, we collectively seek to know God’s will.
This is described in the Sermon on the Mount as systematically as much as it is anywhere else in Scripture. The Sermon on the Mount is the longest speech we have from Jesus and it functions in the Gospels much as the Letter to the Romans does in the Epistles. It becomes a scaffold on which all the statements about the Kingdom of God can be mounted and compared – and becomes a sort of answer key to help explain the more cryptic statements that are found in other parts of this Gospel. (And in Mark, Luke and John’s Gospels too.)
The challenge for us is how do we apply this broad vision and teaching to our own lives in our specific contexts. There are some suggestions in the sermon linked below.
The direct link to this sermon is found here.
Thank you
Hi, Nick,
This has nothing to do with any of your sermons, but I was curious about the revamped Nicene Creed that our church in Seattle has been saying for a number of weeks now; it reads “We believe in God above us/ Maker and Sustainer of all life/ of sun and moon/of water and earth…” Does this sound familiar to you? Did someone of some committee decide on this new wording at the national level? What is the rationale behind it? I would be curious to learn anything you could tell me about it.
Peace, Monty McGovern St. Stephen’s Church, Seattle, WA 98105
No, that’s new to me. I’ve not heard anything about that sort of change coming before or from General Convention either. And any change to the Creed would be highly controversial so I’m sure I’d have heard.
Sounds to me like this is something the leadership of your congregation has decided to do on their own.