Rev. David Inglis October 24, 2004

Luke 18:15-17

Jesus devoted most of his ministry to teaching about the kingdom of God, embodying it in his actions, and inviting people into it. But what is it? Jesus never defined it for us.

In my own experience, the kingdom of God is the new reality that we experience when we center our lives in God’s eternal, unconditional love for us and for all. It’s the new world that we help create when we live in love, not selfishness; hope, not cynicism; faith, not fear. The kingdom of God infuses our reality in this world with the very qualities of heaven–love, peace, joy, beauty, freedom, life abundant.

Jesus invited everyone into this new way of living–from Nicodemus the Pharisee to the loose-living Samaritan woman at the well to the thief dying on the next cross. It is available to anyone at any time. There are no creeds you have to learn and no feats of righteousness you have to achieve. But though all are invited to it, few enter its door. And what is the door? Jesus pointed to it in today’s scripture reading. He said, "Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it."

I’d like to help open that door a little more and help you take another step into it today. I invite you to go back to the beginning of your life in this world, to the time when you were born. You were literally God’s gift to the world, and the world was God’s gift to you. As a baby and a young child, you were very human, limited by your biology and inexperience. But you were also imbued with a beautiful innocent spirit that was created to love and be loved. You smiled easily and laughed with pure delight. Your eyes opened big to the world around you, and you exulted in the wonder of snow and Christmas lights, of piles of leaves and mud puddles, of face-licking puppies and piggy-back rides. If a bird died in your yard, you felt bad for it and wanted to bury it with a funeral. If someone was sick, you wanted to take them something to help them feel better. The soul within you was eager to learn, ready for adventure, capable of joy, wide open to love.

But this innocent soul was born into a world that is often harsh. In this world, love is usually conditional. Be good, be smart, be quiet, and you’re okay. Misbehave, do something stupid, or be rowdy, and we’ll get mad at you, smack you, or shame you. We tried to be what they wanted, at least when we knew they were looking, but we lived in anxiety that we weren’t good enough or loveable the way we were. We doubted ourselves, we hid the parts that we were ashamed of, we tried to make ourselves into a good boy or a good girl. We grew anxious or angry or sullen. We erected a wall of callousness to protect us from pain. We pretended not to care. We learned not to feel. We worked extra hard to seek that elusive approval. We overcompensated for our perceived deficiencies by being tough or attractive or cool or clever. We sought solace from our pain in music or or relationships or sports or TV or food. But pain, and the fear of pain, became a daily part of our existence–sometimes low grade, sometimes intense, but always there.

And now we are haunted by a deep longing in us for the freedom, spontaneity, wonder, joy, wholeness, peace, and freely-flowing love that we were created for. And do you know, that is exactly what Jesus offers us when he invites us into his kingdom. He invites us to come home to God and to come home to our selves as God created us.

But we can’t barge into this kingdom of love, trust, hope, and peace with our armor on or our weapons drawn. And we can’t enter it denying our own truth, denying our own gifts, denying the feelings and longings of our own heart. That’s why Jesus said in Matthew 18: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

So here’s the door into God’s realm of love, joy, peace, and beauty. Being humble and open like a child means laying down our masks and our shields, laying down our striving for acceptance and our shame at rejection, laying down our judgment of others and our judgment of ourselves. And it means coming before God just the way we are–needing healing for the wounds we have received, needing forgiveness for the wounds we have inflicted on others, needing to know and that God will never reject us or forsake us.

And what is left when all of these things are removed? Us! Not an artificially constructed us created to earn approval or ward off pain. But something simple, beautiful, innocent, and created to love and be loved. It’s our soul that was planted in us by God from the beginning. When we first rediscover it, it feels very vulnerable, awkward, and shy. But if we do whatever we need to do to keep it exposed to God’s healing grace, God’s unconditional love and God’s renewing power, it will develop the strength to meet fear with faith, to meet challenges with hope, to meet hatred with love. It will have the power to help create the kingdom of God right in the midst of the world you live in. That is why you were born into this world–to live in the kingdom of the world and transform it into the kingdom of God. When Jesus calls us to follow him, he calls us to follow him in this mission that every son and daughter of God is given a part of–to help God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

But our mission must always begin by us entering that kingdom ourselves. Can you feel Jesus’ invitation to you to enter that door by becoming humble and open like a child?

Close your eyes and find the place where you feel a longing for wholeness, for peace, for love, for freedom, and for joy. Try to locate that longing deep inside you. And find the places where you carry the shields and the armor and the weapons, and the striving. Do you feel the weight, the tightness, the tension of fear? Inside the door, you see Christ with his arms outstretched, waiting to receive you naked and real, just as you are. Can you let your burdens go, lay them down, and step into Christ’s embrace in trust, hope, gratitude, and love?

Welcome to the kingdom of God, beloved and beautiful child of God. Let’s take a moment to be with Christ in silence.