From “Is Christianity Going Anywhere” \4thRWestar\Geering  [emphasis mine. GCS]

The Kingdom of God by Lloyd Geering

The chief theme running through the teaching of Jesus was not God but the kingdom of God. Jesus did not invent this term, for we find it occasionally in the earlier sages. Jesus fastened upon it, however, and made it central to his teaching. Perhaps he did so because many of his fellow-Jews hoped for the restoration of the kingdom of David as the answer to the Roman occupation of their land. But the kingdom envisaged by Jesus was different from both the Empire of Rome and the former kingdom of David.

In the ancient world the kingdom was the normal social institution that had evolved for the ordering of society. The king dispensed justice and his royal authority prevented society from falling into disorder and chaos. But since even kings could become despots and dictators, Jesus used the term `kingdom of God' to refer to the ideal way of ordering human society.

Kings and emperors imposed their authority from above. But when Jesus spoke of the `kingdom of God' he was not referring to a power structure that would be imposed from above - not even by a supernatural God. Some of the early Christians, however, found this very difficult to understand. Following the lead of John the Baptist, they put into the mouth of Jesus the apocalyptic description of the arrival of the kingdom as a sudden cataclysmic event. That is how Jesus, even by the time of Paul, was already being turned into an eschatological prophet, who had come to announce the imminent end of the world.

These apocalyptic warnings of a devastating end-time about to arrive are in conflict with what Jesus actually taught. He said the kingdom of God would come quietly and unobtrusively. `You won't be able to observe the coming of the kingdom of God. People are not going to be able to say, "Look, here it is!" or "Over there!" In actual fact, the kingdom of God is right there in your presence.' So Jesus likened the spread of the kingdom of God to leaven working its way quietly through the dough. Unlike the kingdoms of the world, which impose authority from above, the kingdom of God would spread from the bottom, as people developed selfdiscipline and mutual concern for one another.

Many of the parables of Jesus start with the words, `The kingdom of God is like. ...' Here we find Jesus talking about human attitudes to life and the nature of human relationships. Jesus taught people to look into the future with faith and hope and not to get worked up and over-anxious. `Don't fret about life-what you're going to eat - or about your body - what you're going to wear. Remember, there is more to living than food and clothing.' In the kingdom of God people were to get the best out of life, both for themselves and for others. That is why someone later put into his mouth, `I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly'.

Jesus had a great sense of humor. He used hyperbole to great effect; his pithy sayings were so striking that people remembered and retold them; yet, once they became recorded in Holy Scriptures, solemn readers of the Bible in later ages often missed the humor.

`It's easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of God'!

`Why do you notice the speck in your friend's eye, but overlook the log of timber in your own?'

`When someone wants to sue you for your coat, let that person have your tunic as well'.

There would have been howls of laughter at that remark, for since people in those days wore only two garments (an inner and an outer), it would have left the person naked.

There is almost universal agreement that the most important injunction in the teaching of Jesus is brotherly love, the subject of perhaps his best-known parable - that of the Good Samaritan. Christians have long taught that the two most important commandments given by Jesus are these: `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. And love your neighbour as yourself'. But they too often forget that Jesus did not formulate these; as a good Jew, he was simply quoting from the Hebrew Bible, where these words are found, respectively, in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.

The place where Jesus was wholly original was in the now famous words - 'Love your enemies'. This was a quite revolutionary statement and it still is. He expounded it further: Tell me, if you love those who love you, why should you be commended for that? Even the despised toll collectors do as much, don't they? But I tell you - Don't react violently against one who is evil: when someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other as well. When anyone forces you to go for one mile, go an extra mile. Give to the one who begs from you; don't turn away the one who tries to borrow from you.

The injunction `to love one's enemies' is not only unique to the teaching of Jesus but is so revolutionary that many reject it as absurd. In my own country, New Zealand, in 1942 a Christian pacifist was pleading his case before the tribunal. He explained that, as Christian, he was bound to love his enemies and therefore could not participate in military action. The magistrate poured scorn on him and said it was absurd to suggest that one could love Nazi Germans. Similarly, American Christians today think it is absurd to show love to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

So the human Jesus was a sage who taught some quite revolutionary things in describing the human behavior appropriate to the kingdom of God. His teaching caught people's attention and made its mark on their memories because it was so different from what they had heard before. `They were astonished at his teaching', wrote Mark, `since he would teach them on his own authority, unlike the scholars'.

While some of the aphorisms of Jesus were quite direct in their challenge to the current mores of the day, some of what he said was intentionally puzzling. People were left to work out the implications for themselves. Even his parables sometimes had an unexpected sting in the tail. Jesus did not set out to replace the Ten Commandments with a set of new directives. He encouraged people to work out for themselves what was the right action to take and to do so on the basis of a few basic principles, the chief of which was love. Even in the small amount of reasonably authentic teaching of Jesus that has survived, we have ample evidence to show why this most unusual person aroused antagonism - sufficient to bring about his death. The priests, the influential, and the highly respected people of his day were clearly very upset by his utterances. The religious authorities were incensed when he said of them, `Look out for the scholars who like to parade around in long robes and insist on being addressed properly in the marketplaces, and prefer important seats in the synagogues and the best couches at banquets'.

Similarly, rich people were not all impressed when he said, `It's easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to get into the kingdom of God!' Capitalists did not want to hear, `If you have money, don't lend it at interest. Rather give it to someone from whom you won't get it back.' Indeed, even today wealthy Christians prefer to ignore these utterances.

Some of his teaching seemed to be so outrageous and ran so counter to everyday wisdom that a few began to question his sanity. One tradition does relate how the people of his own town thought he had gone mad. Further, the fact that Jesus frequently spoke about the coming of a new kind of kingdom was sufficient to put the Roman authorities on the alert and to find in him the warning of a coming insurrection and threat to Roman rule. His teaching shows us why both Jewish and Roman authorities came to regard him as a public nuisance that had to be put out of the way. Had not John the Baptist, the original mentor of Jesus, already been beheaded for offending King Herod?

So, like Socrates who had been put to death for supposedly undermining public morality, the life of Jesus ended in his being executed by one of the common methods of the day. Yet, we do not have sufficient documentation for us to know the exact reasons why the Romans executed Jesus. Weighty books are still being written to attempt to answer that question, for early Christian tradition soon tried to shift the blame from the Romans to the Jews. But whatever were the circumstances surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus, it helped to spark off the rise of Christianity and, within a short time, it caused the cross to become its most central symbol.

Yet the world of the following centuries would never had heard of the crucifixion of Jesus, if it had not been for Paul. For that reason some claim, as we have already noted, that he was the actual founder of Christianity. Certainly he had by far the greatest influence on where it was to go in the next twenty centuries. This means that it was a man who never met Jesus of Nazareth, or heard him speak, who largely shaped the Christian creeds.