Luke 17:20-21 Jesus, grilled by the Pharisees on when the kingdom of God would come, answered, “The kingdom of God doesn’t come by counting the days on the calendar. Nor when someone says, ‘Look here!’ or, ‘There it is!’ And why? Because God’s kingdom is already among you.”
Essentially, Jesus is saying, Don’t Look For the Kingdom in a Place
Continually, Jesus described the Kingdom in terms that one can’t point to and identify specifically—but in every story, the Kingdom was the essential piece. The Kingdom is mixed in and present already. It’s like leaven in a loaf of bread. A person can’t find the leaven after the loaf is baked. But the loaf would be completely deflated and radically different if the leaven were missing. The Kingdom is like a tiny mustard seed that sprouts into a giant bush. Someone couldn’t find the original mustard seed after the bush has grown, but birds could not nest in the branches were it not for the seed.
“The Kingdom of God is not coming in ways that you can observe,” Jesus said. “No one will be able to say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘It’s over there.’ The Kingdom of God is already within and among you.”
These words are such a colossal paradigm shift—an upside-down way of looking at an inside-out world. And they are as disruptive now as when they were spoken. Jesus was telling the people then (and us now) that we won’t be able to identify the Kingdom geographically or point it out in any one singular event. Even though the fullness of the Kingdom is not yet realised, the Kingdom has already begun, and we are a vital part of that realisation. It’s everywhere—and it’s now. It is within us and among us and worth losing all we have to gain it.
Christ our King, help us to be like you, to listen to your truth and to see that all people are important, no matter who they are or where they come from. Amen.
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