The Kingdom of God

What Jesus calls the "kingdom of God" (basileia,realm, dominion) is also referred to in Matthew's gospel as "the kingdom of the heavens."
The kingdom (kin-dom) can be "seen" and "entered."
Our descriptive words:
--Paradise
--Utopia
--Fulfillment
--Life
--Peaceful
--"perfection"
--all-encompassing
--powerful
--beauty
--community of God

With regard to "perfection," we referenced Matthew 5:48, when Jesus says (after teaching love of enemy) "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." The term "teleios" might be translated as "whole," "complete," or "fulfilled." We refelcted on those textures of meaning when we considered what it means to be the "community of God."
Matthew 4:17 "Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand ("has come near")." Jesus announces the kingdom of God in our midst. So turn around, be changed, welcome God's realm opening to you!
Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens"
Matthew 11:12 "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of the heavens has suffered violence . . ." Again, in a historical context. The realm of God's nonviolent unbounded love suffers violence, absorbs it, overcomes it. God's realm never inflicts violence.

The parables: The kingdom shall be compared to . . . a man throwing handfulls of good seed ev
erywhere, on rocky and thorny territory just as much as fertile territory. The kingdom is like leaven in a loaf . . .
Mark 9:1 "Some of you standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come in power." What then, is the nature of this power, and how has it come?
Mark 10:15 " It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom." This comes right after a fine young man with many possessions did not follow Jesus because he was unwilling to let go of his possessions and allow them to be converted into that which the poor badly needed.
John 3:3 "Unless one is born anew ("from above") they cannot see the kingdom of God."
Fred Buechner says that the kingdom of God is not a place but a condition. "Insofar as here and there, now and then, God's will is being done in various odd ways among us even at this moment, the kingdom has come already. Insofar as all the odd ways we do God's will are half-baked and half-hearted, the kingdom is still a long way off-- a hell of a long way off, to be more precise and theological.
As a poet, Jesus is maybe at his best in describing the feeling you get when your glimpse (the kingdom). It's like finding a million dollars in a field, he says, or a jewel worth a king's ransom.
It's like finding something you hated to lose and thought you'd never find again--an old keepsake, a stray sheep, a missing child. When the kingdom really comes, it's as if the thing you you lost and thought you'd never find again is you." (Buechner, Wishful Thinking).
Let's continue this week!