The Kingdom of God and the Missional Church

“He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches."” – Matthew 13:31-32

:: The Kingdom and the Gospel ::

In the life and ministry of the Jesus we find recorded in scripture, there is no one topic more central to his teaching, invitation, or understanding of his own vocation than that of the Kingdom of God. From his very first recorded words as a rabbi, prophet and teacher, it is this proclamation that we find on his lips; ‘The time has come… The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’ (Mk 1:15). For Jesus, it was this message of ‘the Kingdom’ that comprised the very context for everything that he would say and do. In the Gospels, it is everywhere. From this observation alone, even a superficial foray into the New Testament would reveal this as an important and central concept. As followers of Jesus now thousands of years removed from this original utterance, then, our struggle is not with the realization that this ‘Kingdom of God’ which Jesus refers to is important; our struggle is rather to understand what, exactly, he meant by it.

And it is this pursuit; the pursuit of real understanding, that will invite us into the story of Jesus himself – in his context and through the ears of his original listeners – rather than merely finding ways to fit Jesus and his message into OUR stories. What would a proclamation of the ‘Kingdom of God’ have meant to a Jewish audience in a 1^st century Palestine under Roman occupation? How would this ‘good news’ have resonated with their traditions and expectations? How does this fit within the flow of redemptive history as a continuation or consummation of God’s ongoing relationship with his covenant people? Unless we enter into these questions with some diligence we are sure to miss the significance and calling implicit in that which Jesus is inviting us to ‘repent and believe’ in when he speaks of the Kingdom.

Consideration of the Jewish understanding of history will prove to be especially critical for the purposes of interpreting both Jesus’ view of his own role in redemptive history, as well as his message of the Kingdom. Hebrew tradition divides the unfolding of history into two ages: the ‘present age’, and the ‘age to come’.

The ‘present age’ is defined by the brokenness and conflict that flows from the legacy of rebellion and sin that separated both mankind and creation from their creator. This age is much like a leaf separated from the vine: cut off from its’ source, it is empty, dying, and falling back into chaos. The reign of sin, the symptoms of death, the apparent victory of the enemy; these are the characteristics of what the Jews of Jesus’ day would describe as ‘the present age’. At this point in their collective story as a nation, and as Gods covenant people, the people of Israel would have a heightened awareness and identification with the brokenness and oppression of this age due to their suffering at the hands of the Babylonian Empire. Having lost sight of their calling to be the faithful vehicle of God’s blessing to the whole world, they had been conquered and overrun by a foreign, pagan empire, and taken into captivity in a foreign land.

“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps… How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?” – Psalm 137:1-4

It was in this context; in this tangible re-visitation of the experiences of their ancestors as captives in Egypt, that we find the seeds of expectation for a “New Exodus”¹ – hope for the ushering in of a new age – planted. The Jewish people, knowing the heart of their God for the healing and restoration of his people and his world, expected that the ‘age to come’ would break in suddenly; that, carried by a new ‘son of David – a ‘messiah’, or ‘anointed one’ – a new reign of God would break in to this present age, re-establish the people of Israel, and God himself would once again dwell in the midst of his people in peace and prosperity. They expected that this would be both cataclysmic and beautiful; that the enemies of God would be vanquished and the people of God restored and blessed.

By the time of Jesus, the physical exile in Babylon had largely ended as the Romans established a new empire where the Babylonians had once ruled. The Jewish people had been partially restored to their ancestral lands; Jerusalem and the temple had been rebuilt, though not universally accepted. The sense was that, under Roman occupation now, and in the continued absence of God’s tangible presence, the exile was still very real and the expectation for the in-breaking of the reign of God was still very imminent.

It is absolutely vital that we understand that the expectation of Israel concerning the ‘age to come’ was not that the ‘chosen people’ would be swept away from this world to some disembodied state of eternal bliss; to leave earth behind for heaven. Rather, it was that heaven would be BROUGHT to earth. That God would come and dwell with his people. That expected cataclysm of the in-breaking ‘age to come’ was not an escapist dream; it anticipated a collision of realms – heaven and earth – brought back together again.

To clarify yet further, it is also important to recognize that the Jewish understanding of ‘heaven’ was not primarily geographical; heaven was not a location somewhere on the other side of the universe where God dwelt amongst the clouds. (This idea reveals the echoes of Greek mythology that have crept into our own thinking.) No, in the understanding of Jesus’ contemporaries, heaven was not a physical location; it was understood as the realm where God’s will was done. This realm, because of our sin and for our sake, was separated from our own experience by a sort of ‘veil’ (echoes of this idea found in Lam 3, Ez 13, 2 Cor. 3). It was understood that there were places where this ‘veil’ was thinner than others; places where heaven and earth were closer together – most notably, the temple. One day, it was believed that this veil would be lifted – that heaven and earth would come together fully – and that this would either mean judgment or glorification, depending on how one had oriented oneself toward this day.

Here, we can begin to understand Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 13; ‘Now we see but a poor reflection, as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.’ This ‘age to come’ would be both beautiful and terrifying, and it would come suddenly.

I explore all of this simply to illustrate how Jesus’ hearers would have interpreted this proclamation of ‘the Kingdom of God’ through the lens of the expected ‘age to come’. Heaven was, for them, the place where Gods will was done. To proclaim that the ‘kingdom of Heaven/God’ was at hand was to say that the realm of God’s consummate will was breaking through into our reality. The age to come was breaking in. Heaven was touching down.

So, Heaven is the realm where Gods will is done perfectly. The ‘Kingdom of God’, proclaimed as good news by Jesus and his disciples, is a description of that state being made reality here on earth. When Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray, his prayer hinges upon the request of God that ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.’ (Mt. 6:9) All that I have tried to say in this essay thus far has already been said, more efficiently and eloquently, by Jesus himself in the Lords Prayer. The Kingdom is about seeing God’s will being done, on earth as it is in heaven. It is about participating with God in the in-breaking of his reign into our reality. It is, quite simply, the act of bringing heaven to earth. This is the ‘good news’ that the gospels proclaim and call us to live into.

:: The ‘Missional Church’ ::

In John chapter 20 we find Jesus, having risen from the dead, appearing to his disciples. Behind the locked doors where they were hiding he appears in their midst, showing them the wounds of crucifixion on his hands and his side. Then, he says something incredibly disturbing:

‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ (Jn 20:21)

On the surface, this may not strike us as earth shattering. That is, until we realize that Jesus says this while holding his hands out to them in order to help them understand what this ‘sending’ means. Jesus was sent to be broken and poured out for the healing and restoration of the world. It would seem that, if we are to be followers of Jesus today, our own sending might look much the same.

You see, Jesus’ contemporaries were right to expect that the in-breaking of Gods kingdom would be a sudden, earth-shattering thing. What they did not expect, however, was a suffering servant and a sacrificial lamb. In their search for a political messiah and a nationalistic revolution, they missed the whisper in the longing for an earthquake. No, the long-awaited in-breaking of the ‘age to come’ didn’t drop in like an atom bomb; it hit the ground like a mustard seed. It died, cracked open, and that’s when things started to get interesting.

If there is one thing that the story of scripture tells about the character of this God with whom we are dealing, it is that He is frustratingly… organic. Rather than working above, beyond, or outside of his beloved, broken, groaning creation, God has consistently chosen to pursue his purposes in and through human history. God chooses to work in and through… us. He always has. And so when Jesus looks his disciples in the eyes and tells them that he is sending them to their deaths, we ought not be surprised. For, ‘Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (Jn 12:24) This was the path marked out by Jesus himself, and Paul did not refer to the Church as the ‘Body of Christ’ lightly. Rather, to follow Jesus in participating in the in-breaking of the Kingdom will mean that we, and our communities, will be broken open and poured out for the healing of our world. Spent for the good of our neighbors, our cities; even our enemies. Living Eucharists. ²

So what, we may ask, does it mean to be a ‘Missional Church’? If we were to simply dissect the term itself, we could reasonably say that it refers to a community of people, living as the body – the hands and feet – of Christ, committed to seeing Gods purposes – His will, or ‘mission’ – accomplished here on earth. People, being changed and healed by the work of Jesus in them, who offer their lives to him for the purpose of seeing Heaven itself brought to earth; making the in-breaking of Gods reign a tangible reality in and through the people and communities that God has created them to be. It is not enough to simply claim de facto membership in the ‘Body of Christ’ if we have no intention of using that body the way Christ himself did, or taking that body the places that Christ himself would go. We must realize that, as followers of Jesus, our identity is inseparable from our purpose; our mission.

For ours is a movement and a legacy of mustard seed monuments. Small seeds, placed deep into the soil of the places God has planted us and called us to die for; if we allow ourselves to crack open and be poured out, we find ourselves more full than we could possibly comprehend. Root systems push outward, breaking hard soil, stretching upward and changing the landscape itself. In the fullness of time, that step of sacrifice yields fruit and shelter for future generations and a legacy of the work of a God who glories in small beginnings.

To be a ‘Missional Church’ is to come to grips with the reality that we were never intended to be gathered together for merely our own sake. Rather, in the legacy of Gods covenant with Abraham we have been blessed to be a blessing; called out to be the vehicle through which all of creation may be blessed by the work and heart of God. It is to offer ourselves to the world as the physical evidence of the consummation of a Kingdom where Gods will is done right here in their very midst. It is to embody the character of the God who poured himself out in love so that broken people might find life. It is a call to go; to demonstrate and announce the reality and the ‘good news’ of this in-breaking kingdom to those who have not yet heard. It is to die, and to find real life on the other side. It is to invite others to join us in that journey. To be a ‘Missional Church’ is to be a people who have drawn so close to the heart of God that we find our hearts beating in time with his.

:: My Experience ::

I have been extraordinarily blessed in this season of my life to find myself surrounded by a community that is truly wrestling with what it means to be a ‘missional’ church: Biblically rooted, actively engaged in helping to meet needs of the community; proclaiming the gospel in both word and deed. God is doing some great things in our midst, and I stand in awe of that.

At the same time, we are held back by same things that hinder most suburban, wealthy, predominantly white churches that I know of. Our wallets (and our debts) are too big, our imaginations are too small. We are too comfortable, and too far removed from people who God would call us to love if we could only open our eyes and see them. We are too conservative, too well educated, and too reluctant to risk. We are too competent for our own good. We’re too homogeneous. Our numbers have grown more quickly than our ability to administrate; consequently the vision sometimes gets lost in the shuffle and communication isn’t what it should be.

This is, of course, a gross generalization of a fairly large community. Corporately, though, these are things that we all must own and press into if we are to pursue what God has for us. Overall, though, we’re putting one foot in front of the other. We are committed to this journey, and that’s exciting to see. We are growing in our understanding of what Gods ‘mission’ is and what our role might look like in the place that God has planted us. We’re blind people who are in the process of becoming less so; and I praise God for that every day.

1 N.T. Wright is the first person I have heard use this terminology.

2 Rob Bell used phrase in a teaching segment at a pastors conference at Mars Hill Bible Church called ‘Isn’t She Beautiful?’. He borrowed it from a spiritual director of his. Where it come from before that, I’m not sure; but it’s brilliant.

Relevant Works:

Bartholomew, Craig. Goheen, Michael. ‘The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story’. Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Academic, 2005

Wright, N.T. ‘The Challenge of Jesus’. Downers Grove, IL. Intervarsity Press, 1999

Wright, N.T. ‘New Exodus, New Creation, New Humanity’. Audio recording posted at: http://www.calvin.edu/worship/idis/theology/ntwright_romans_part2.mp3