NOT OF THIS WORLD
Jerusalem was filled with people that day. A very important feast had drawn the crowds to the Holy City and the streets were brimming with people from all over Galilee and Judea.
So when the rumor was spread that Jesus was coming to the city excitement filled the air. Everyone knew the stories of his miracles, of how he fed 5000, and how he spoke as one who had authority. Some had wanted to make him king but he rejected the notion and escaped their royal designs for him. Now it seemed that with his coming to Jerusalem he had finally accepted their coronation plans.
Men with good sharp knives cut down palm fronds and handed them to the women and children. Others took off their good feasting cloaks and spread them on the ground in anticipation of the would-be king.
Then they heard the faint clatter of hooves on the ancient paving stones. With uncontained smiles and joy bursting from their withheld shouts they waited to see the first glimpse of their king. Around the bend came Jesus – riding on a donkey?!?
It was an absurd sight for a conquering king coming to claim a throne and vanquish the Roman invaders. One expected a half-wild stallion for a king’s mount. Jesus came on a donkey – an animal of peace.
No matter. The crowd still shouted “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!”[i]
However, oblivious to the symbol of the donkey, the crowd failed to note that this king and his kingdom were different. The donkey pointed to the upside-down kingdom that Jesus came to establish where down is up and weak is strong.
What kind of a kingdom is this? How do we as followers of Jesus interact with it? Where is the kingdom of Jesus?
These are the questions I want to investigate with you with this Palm Sunday morning. I invite you to meditate on this different kingdom and the difference it makes in our lives.
1. A different kind of kingdom
Less than a week after the wonderful welcome that Jesus received from the crowds he was arrested. Jesus was taken to the high priest and other Jewish elders for a mock trial. They could find nothing wrong with him but they hated him and his popular following among the people.
The Sanhedrin did have grounds for accusation in his claims to be the Son of God. They demanded that he confess this and he did.[ii] But the elders could not execute anyone apart from Roman law. This is why he ended up before Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea.
Since Pilate could care less about this man’s claim to be a deity, much less the Son of God, the Jews had to think of something that Pilate did care about. If they could convince Pilate that Jesus was a revolutionary bent on establishing his kingdom, Jesus would be seen as a threat to Rome. Then he would have to be put to death.
When Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king, the king of the Jews, Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world…” (18:36a). What is it if it is not of this world?
We can probably agree that the kingdom of God refers to the dynamic rule or reign of God. The kingdom of God occurs when people are ruled by God.[iii] These people have come to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord of their lives and his ways, thoughts, commands and life rules their thought and behavior.
However, it is difficult to boil down the kingdom of God to a simple statement. Jesus described the kingdom in a variety of ways. He said the kingdom is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. Some soil received it while other soil was hard and resisted it. Some get it and some don’t; some are open to the kingdom and some reject it.[iv]
Another time, Jesus said the kingdom is like a mustard seed, a tiny seed that grows and grows to become a tree.[v] In other words, the kingdom spreads and cannot be stopped. Jesus said it was like a treasure or a pearl that made a person give up everything to attain it.[vi]
Yet again, Jesus said that the kingdom is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. One who owed much and is forgiven does not forgive one who owed him little.[vii] We get the idea that the kingdom is about forgiveness and grace and showing both to each other.
Christ’s kingdom is like no other. Where politics as we know it is about competition and domination of the other party, the politics of the kingdom are about forgiveness. The kingdom of God means, among other things, the forgiveness of sins. This is what Jesus primarily taught in his parables.
With terrorism still threatening homeland security in different nations and immigration rules tightening it is increasingly difficult to move to a new country (France; Shafias in Canada). Entering into the kingdom of Christ is also difficult. It is not an easy thing to become a citizen of the kingdom either.
Jesus told Nicodemus, “…unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God…unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3-5). You will not see the kingdom in the normal everyday goings-on of life. You cannot see it in the 9-5 workday or the household chores of the home. It is almost impossible to see the kingdom in the House of Parliament. Unless you are born again.
A person is born physically and is naturally part of the temporal world. Jesus said that we need to born again of the Spirit, to be remade in the image of Christ, to see how the kingdom is spreading like that mustard seed in the very home you live in, to see how even the politicians in Ottawa cannot stifle the kingdom, and to see how even the most menial and boring chores are the stuff of glory in the kingdom of God. Others become important to us and their satisfaction is our joy. Being born again we begin to understand how being weak allows God to be strong; how giving up our ambitions leads to victory; how being the least in a conversation makes us the greatest.
This is indeed a different kingdom, and we have only scratched the surface.
2. A different kind of battle
If Pilate’s suspicions of Jesus being a revolutionary were at all aroused, meeting Jesus would have diffused any such thoughts. Christ’s kingdom as we just described it is not at all threatening to the political establishment.
Jesus told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews” (18:36ab).
By this Jesus explained that the kingship he claimed was nothing like the types of kingships – sacred or secular – which Pilate would be familiar with. Roman law would not take notice of it. This kingdom was not a political threat to the Roman Empire.
When Herod the Great died in 4 BC, Josephus (the historian) says, “Anyone might make himself king by putting himself at the head of a band of rebels whom he fell in with.” If Jesus were that kind of king, there would have been a battle when the soldiers came to arrest him in the Garden. The fact that he was taken so easily showed that he was not that kind of king.[viii]
Simon Peter had to be restrained from fighting the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus. He drew blood and the chunk of an ear and Jesus rebuked Peter, not just for the action, but for failing to understand this kingdom principle: Love your enemies.
The example of Christ at his arrest is representative of his whole life and mission. Jesus came to serve and not to be served. He came to give his life for the world and not to take life. Rulers and leaders of the world as we know it like to possess power and authority and to use it to dominate others. Jesus said that greatness is found in serving.[ix]
Jesus demonstrated a love that was vulnerable – so vulnerable it led to his death. Note: “demonstrated.” That means that he invites us to live the same way, forgiving extravagantly even at our own cost. There is no witness, no redemption, no love if we play the game by the old rule of retaliation. The willingness to suffer in the face of injustice witnesses to a powerful love which overrules the norm of reciprocity (payback). In front of the cross Jesus rejects self-defense.[x]
We can easily make this political but I would rather make it ethical. Nonresistance and Pacifism are politically charged terms and I feel uncomfortable with the activism, peace rallies and protests that go with them. For the believer who is born again, follows Jesus and bases life decisions on the character and imitation of Jesus, rejecting violence is ethical, it’s a way of life. It is the way of life.
Personally, I struggled with that part of being Anabaptist/Mennonite. In my personal reading and devotions, however, I came to see that Jesus was powerful, mighty and larger than life because he lay down his life. It was an incredibly selfless and therefore amazing thing to do. Jesus made it personal too, and so I find it to be a personal choice as well to reject violence as an option and be like my Jesus.
So it is profoundly significant that Jesus tells Pilate that if his kingdom were of this world his servants would fight. It is not and so they do not. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood…” (Eph 6:12), for our battle is not with men and women but for men and women of all walks. That is the mission of the kingdom and it is now our mission.
Do we not fight at all? Mennonites have been called “the quiet in the land” and “the defenseless ones” and therefore “doormats.” In many cases we ought not to fight back since it would ruin the testimony of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ – not just physically but in all ways.
However, we do still wrestle, we do not roll over to allow evil to master us or our neighbors. Tolerance is the enemy of the gospel when it comes to sin. So yes we fight, but as Paul said, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor 10:4-5). This is the Word of Truth.
Funny that Pilate then responds to Jesus testimony of the truth saying, “What is truth?” Pilate didn’t get it. Do we? I think I am starting to understand.
3. A different kind of realm
To confirm the unique nature of his kingdom, Jesus repeats his first statement in a slightly different way. “But now my kingdom is from another place” (18:36c). The difference is the word “place.” In the NASB it is “realm” suggesting a location. So his first statement was about “what” the kingdom is; his second about its need for defense; and this one tells us where the kingdom is found.
“It does not refer to a territory in a spatial sense. Nor does it have an abstract or static meaning. The kingdom does not stand still on a particular piece of ground – it is always in the process of being achieved. The kingdom points us not to the place of God but to the act of God. It is His ruling activity. The kingdom is present whenever women and men submit themselves to God’s reign in their life.”[xi]
One time when Jesus was teaching some Pharisees asked about the kingdom of God and when it would come. Jesus told them, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).
We could easily take this the wrong way. We could say that the kingdom is simply a spiritual reality and an internal reality. We could say that it is intensely personal and therefore a matter of private faith. Then we would be wrong.
First of all, the kingdom was and is present in the person of Jesus Christ, the King. He embodies the kingdom in his life, death and resurrection.
Secondly, the kingdom is within us in that Jesus lives in those who believe. He is in us but he is not us. Jesus is sitting on the throne of the life surrendered to him.
Thirdly, the kingdom cannot be contained, as we see in the parable of the woman who mixed yeast in her dough.[xii] We know that yeast in the dough expands and grows and makes a lot of cinnamon buns. The kingdom of God in you cannot be contained either – it spreads to all parts of your life and even into the lives of others.
Where do we see the kingdom? Jesus said that when you feed the hungry, give the thirsty a drink, invite strangers to your house, clothe the fashion-challenged, visit the shut-in, the prisoner or the patient in the hospital, that is the kingdom at work. And the king will be happy when you do this.[xiii] How often the NT writers come back to this theme of feeding and clothing and healing. We get the idea that the gospel of the kingdom is a social gospel, not just spiritual. It is a gospel of action and not just preaching.
Where do we see the kingdom? We see it in people who allow the love of Jesus to reign in them so that they cannot sit still when needs present themselves. They are quick to forgive; they are slow to retaliate and resist the inner compulsion to get even; they show grace where what is deserved is their wrath.
The kingdom of God is Jesus. It is Jesus in his people. It is his Spirit claiming those who have been touched by this very relational kingdom. To fill this kingdom Jesus calls all who accept the invitation: prostitutes, tax collectors, sinners, communists. Such is the kingdom of grace.
The kingdom is not of this world. Its standards are peculiar to this world. Its’ king chooses the unusual and the unlikely for his subjects.
Since the king and his kingdom are not of this world, his subjects are not of this world anymore either. Those who are under the reign of the king are also peculiar to the world in that they resemble the king. They are now in the world but not of it.
There’s an ancient document from the second century called the "Epistle to Diognetus". It’s a letter from a Christian to a prominent pagan named Diognetus, in which the author, who is unknown, is describing and defending this strange new religion of Christianity. It reads, in part:
"The Christians are not distinguished from other men by country, by language, nor by civil institutions. For they neither dwell in cities by themselves, nor use a peculiar tongue, no lead a singular mode of life. They dwell in the Grecian or barbarian cities, as the case may be; they follow the usage of the country in dress, food, and the other affairs of life. Yet they present a wonderful and confessedly paradoxical conduct. They dwell in their own native lands, but as strangers.
"They take part in all things, as citizens; and they suffer all things, as foreigners. Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every native land is a foreign. They marry, like all others; they have children, but they do not cast away their offspring. They have the table in common, but not wives. They are in the flesh, but do not live after the flesh. They live upon the earth but are citizens of heaven. They obey the existing laws, and excel the laws by their lives.
"They love all, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown, and yet they are condemned. They are killed and are made alive. They are poor and make many rich. They lack all things, and in all things abound."
On this Sunday that we recall the Triumphal Entry of Jesus on a donkey, that we recall the revelation of the Upside-Down Kingdom, I invite you to consider how we might be different again. How can we regain our peculiarity in the world and be the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? For we who believe in the Sovereign Lord who died on a cross and have been changed by his grace, are not of this world.
AMEN
[i] John 12:13
[ii] Matthew 26:63-64
[iii] Donald Kraybill, The Upside-Down Kingdom, p. 25.
[iv] Matthew 13:24
[v] Matthew 13:31
[vi] Matthew 13:44-45
[vii] Matthew 18:23ff
[viii] F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John, p. 353
[ix] Matthew 20:25-28
[x] Kraybill, p. 217
[xi] Kraybill, p. 25
[xii] Matthew 13:33
[xiii] Matthew 25:37-40
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