Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church

I remember the first time I went to Disneyland. My mom took me for my eighth birthday. Of course, I loved it. But, what, if instead of exploring everything, riding as many rides as possible, I had fixated on Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln? That feature is gone now, but it used to be on the right just as you entered Disneyland. What if I stayed there the whole day and never walked up Main Street. I’d have gotten something but I would have missed Disneyland.

In the world of Christianity, Salvation, going to heaven, is Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. Salvation is at the entrance to what God wants to do in our lives. It is not even the most important thing. That’s good and bad news. The good news is, there is so much more. The bad news is that salvation is what the church tends to promote most heavily. And in a world that doubts the existence of hell or any afterlife at all, it isn’t all that powerful an attractor. It would be like promoting Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln exclusively as the reason for coming to Disneyland.

Why am I so sure of this? Because of a Bible verse we looked at last week. Matt. 4:17, Jesus’ first, most important sermon, the lesson he came to teach us, the foundation of his message and ministry is this, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Not, repent or perish. Not, repent for salvation is at hand. Not, repent and receive fire insurance.

Last week we looked in detail at the word, repent. Basically, it means change or surrender. Change everything because of this incredible opportunity now available to you – the kingdom of heaven. Which begs the question, what is the kingdom? The Disneyland analogy suggests that there is a lot, lot, lot more than just salvation.

Let’s deepen the mystery just a little more. If “The Kingdom” is the central core of Christianity, why don’t we know more about it? Why, in fact, have many of us never heard of it or at least never thought about the kingdom as the foundational reference of Jesus?

The Kingdom of Heaven must have something to do with love. After all, “Jesus loves me this I know.” But, why would a Christian woman, experiencing the kingdom for the first time in a real, life giving, Godly, tangible way, want to shout, “Stop loving me so much!” I’ll come back to her in a little while. I’m beginning to think that the kingdom may be both inviting and frightening. I think that may be why we don’t talk about it, because it makes us uncomfortable. I think the kingdom may challenge our assumptions about God and about ourselves and our beliefs.

So, what does Christianity have to offer? Are we offering it? And do we want it?

I’ve got a few stories to give us a glimpse of what the kingdom is like. In honor of Mother’s Day, we start with grumpy sons, move to a desperate mother and then to two strong daughters.

We start in an unlikely place with men who should know the answer, but don’t and they hurt lots of people because of their ignorance.

Read Matthew 15: 1-2.

1Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2"Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"

These were the most religious people of the time, the men who knew the teachings of the Bible. These men should be able to know the kingdom of God when they see it but they absolutely miss it completely. By a mile. Jesus’ followers were trying to find God. They were following a man who healed people, who fed people, who raised people from the dead. They themselves had gone out and cast out demons. These were fisherman, tax collectors, hard men who had found transformation. And the grumpy Pharisees say, “Hey Jesus, why don’t your followers wash their hands before they eat?” Come on. But it is worse than that. They say, “Why do they break the traditions of our elders?” The only important thing to these guys was their traditions, not transformation, not the power of God in people’s lives, just the rules.

Does that happen today? Absolutely. Why are people staying away from churches by the millions? At least in part because what we have for them is tradition, rules. I’m guilty. I recently had someone ask how they could improve a ministry in our church. I told them to form a committee!

I am not against rules. All institutions have them. Society is changing, the Bible is not. But, the reaction of the Pharisees is not right. We have to look somewhere else.

Let’s go further in the chapter. (Matthew 15:21) I mentioned last week that throughout this Gospel, Matthew records Jesus teaching something and then immediately demonstrating it. He does it again here. In the passage we just read, he shows us the attitude of the religious leaders. Now Jesus is going to show us what that attitude looks like in a practical situation.

21Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession." 23Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." 24He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." 25The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. 26He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." 27"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Why was Jesus so mean? Remember, Matthew records a lesson and then records an example of Jesus demonstrating it. I think that’s what is going on here. We just had this terrible example of the insensitivity and blindness of the Pharisees. Now we see what that would look like in real life. Jesus’ first response to the woman is the one he would give her if he were to act according to the Pharisees. And we all recoil at the hostility and hurt of it. We may be used to it from people, but not from Jesus.

If we are not very, very careful, we will give people our religion, our traditions, our insensitivity and totally miss the moment when the kingdom of heaven is coming near. It’s so close but we just don’t step in. We stay in our own kingdoms, where we are in charge and decide what is right.

But the kingdom really is right there. That mother’s faith was in the power of the kingdom even if she didn’t know that was what it was. And Jesus showed it to her, invited her into it and her faith led her there. And in that kingdom, his kingdom, he can say by the way, your daughter is healed. But, physical healing is not the core of the kingdom though the possibility of that is there. It isn’t a lack of healing that makes Jesus’ response to that woman so uncomfortable for us. And in the response of the Pharisees, we don’t have a problem with the concept of washing hands before eating. It was something else that was lacking in their attitude and response that was at once familiar and awful.

Which leads me to my stories of two strong daughters. The first is the story of the woman I already alluded to, who experienced the kingdom and wanted to flee from it, who wanted to say, stop loving me so much. I met her on an incredible weekend retreat. Some of you know about the weekend retreats called Walk to Emmaus. Others call them Cursillo. Everyone I’ve known who has gone came away overwhelmed by truly knowing the love of God in a way we never had before. We met people who loved with Jesus’ love. And when I say Jesus’ love, I mean sacrificial love. They truly gave of themselves so that we could meet Jesus in a life changing new way.

So, here I am, sitting at breakfast on Saturday morning, across from a young woman who was also attending for the first time. She was jumpy and uncomfortable. I asked, and she said she was not doing well. I said, “It’s because you are afraid everything they are telling you is true isn’t it?”

That was it. This young woman feared that what these people were telling and showing her was true, that they and God really loved her. It was ruining her. She had built a protective shield around her heart. She knew how to deal with regular people but not these people. She knew how to have a safe faith with a distant God but this Jesus she was getting a glimpse of was way too real, too personal. She hated to walk away from what she had been longing for, unconditional love with no strings or expectations. The only thing more frightening than walking away, was staying and receiving it, which meant letting down her guard, her protective defenses, and becoming vulnerable. She was really torn. The kingdom of heaven will do that to you. Everything in her mind told her to run and everything in her heart told her to stay. She stayed and it changed her life and now she is free to receive everything God has for her.

What is the essence of her experience? Unconditional love? That’s part of it. What frightened her? That she might have to change and become vulnerable. What attracted her? That she might have the chance to change and have a safe enough place to allow herself to be vulnerable.

That takes the kingdom inward towards transforming ourselves. What takes it outward towards transforming our world?

Last story, about a daughter named Tinley Ireland, a college student at UC Berkeley at the end of Anti-Islamo-Fascist week. There had been clashes between religious and political groups all week long. Protestors had shouted down speakers in classrooms and had been drug out by security. Conservatives faced off against liberals, against Islamists against Christians, against atheists. Now, through a series of circumstances this believer in Jesus found herself in front of several thousand of these same students on the main quad at Berkeley. I’ll just read the account from a blog written by someone considered by many to be one of the most cynical newspaper editors at Berkley. “I can conclude only by ceding the floor to my friend Tinley Ireland, who gave, for my money at least, the best speech of the evening.” Just as the sun set, shining right into her face, she stood up on the steps of Sproul Hall on that same consecrated spot where earlier in the day the fear-based community had shouted itself hoarse about the people "over there" who are just waiting, waiting to get us. She stood there and told us about her faith. She talked about how the hardest part of following Christ was to love¬ not just her friends, but her enemies too. To stop having enemies at all.

At the end she asked who in the crowd didn't believe that Jesus was the son of God. Most hands went up. Mine did. She smiled, and as the light faded she simply and truly said, "I love you." I've been on the receiving end of a few punches in my life, but nothing ever hit me that hard. I don't know exactly what kind of politics or religion or philosophy that is—but whatever it is, where can I sign up?

What does Christianity have to offer? What is the essence of the kingdom of heaven? Unconditional love? Yes. Sacrificial love? Yes. The possibility of change? Yes. The chance for safety enough to let down defenses and become vulnerable? Yes. And people in this world, even people in this room are dying to have that. Some are so guarded that they may reject it, willing not to have it rather than hope for it only to discover it isn’t real. Oh, but it is real. Someone said, if I come to your church, will I meet people like Jesus? Oh, I hope so. I wish so. I pray so. Love. The possibility of change. The freedom to be vulnerable. Receive that, offer that, become that and the kingdom of heaven through Tinley Ireland and through you and me can transform someone’s world beginning with our own.

We will spend the next three weeks looking at practical ways to do just that.