Easy does it, Mr. Mustard

With the new movies "Son of God" of the theaters, I figured we were again going to lose sight of what Jesus meant by the Kingdom. Got me thinking about what we could glean about it from what he said about it. A little forensic analysis into the mind of Christ, if you will.

Both John the Baptist and St. Paul were pretty sure the Kingdom was right around the corner.

He said to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?...Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Luke 3:7,9)

 Holy Polycarp! The chopper, determined to cut down the rotten tree, has made his decision, walked to the offending plant and has laid his axe against the root of the tree, measuring the the swing that will start its demise. All that's left is to raise the axe and bring it down. Repent of your sins now, and dodge the axe!

Paul was similarly insistent that the end was near, and tied to comfort those who worries that their lost loved ones might miss out on Jesus's coming.

Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord,^* will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep....Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together^* with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:15,17)

"We who are alive, who are left." Seems Paul was expecting to be among those witnessing the return of Christ firsthand.

But what of Jesus? Did he expect the Kingdom to arrive soon? a number of parables and sayings seem to indicate that he did.

Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:27

Whatever the Kingdom of God may be, people alive in the early first century would see it.

And to another he said, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Let me go first and bury my father.”But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” And another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.” Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:59-62

These can be interpreted several ways, not all of which suggest that the Kingdom is coming soon. It might only teach whether people are fit for it.

For some really mind bending paradoxes about the Kingdom, check out this section from Luke 17:

Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he said in reply, “The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed,and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the kingdom of God is among you.” (Luke 17:20-21)

This might suggest something different from a standard apocalyptical understanding - that God is about to destroy and remake the world. Sounds almost warm and fuzzy. But check what follows immediately after:

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all.So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, a person who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise a person in the field must not return to what was left behind. Remember the wife of Lot.Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it. (Luke: 7:26-33)

Basically, Jesus here is talking mass cataclysm. And one where, when it happens, you have to run like hell, not falter, not look back and not try to save the photo albums.

So what do we make of all these verses? Are they all true simultaneously -- that the arrival of the Kingdom will coming like the destruction of a flood, but is also already present?

Obviously, no cataclysm has occurred, which suggests to some (Paul, for instance) that it is still in the future. But if the arrival of the Kingdom was really in the future, then why the big hurry? Was it, in effect, a manipulation to keep us always on our toes? Doesn't seem like the approach of a loving Father to me.

Another solution is to see the cataclysm as a spiritual one -- perhaps as the death and restoration to life of Jesus himself. That takes us off the hook, with Jesus's somehow taking on the whole guilt of humanity, cancelled the need for the destruction that John the Baptist warned about. Jesus not only took the bullet, but the H-bomb of God's wrath.

Still another solution is to see the Kingdom as wrought by God's people, rather than directly by God. That's the point of view that gives us songs like City of God ("Let us build the city of God," etc.). Warm and comforting, but maybe leaves God curiously not in charge.

And there's also the possibility that Jesus, John and Paul were just wrong, caught up in the deluded messianic and apocalyptic vibe of their day.

But I wonder if we can hearken back to another of Jesus's parables, about the mustard seed.

He proposed another parable to them. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.’” Matthew 13:31-32

This parable has none of the eschatological drama of Jesus's other teachings. It suggests slow growth, not sudden destruction. Like the parable of the yeast, it suggests a gradual process that, given time, will suffuse the whole. It suggests a process that takes place out of sight, unguided by the hand of humans.

Did Jesus start out as a raving apocalyptic preacher (in the mold of John), but who tempered his preaching as his ministry progressed? Do the various proclamations of the Kingdom (and its terrifying arrival) represent a melange of stages in a progression of thought rather than its paradoxical, yet coherent, expression? Did the evangelists collects Jesus's true words, but present them out of sequence?

Only God knows. But after two thousand years, we need to wrestle with the idea that the catastrophe has not come, and is only useful to those pushing the idea of mankind's wickedness and need for destruction. Perhaps that alone is enough to embrace the mustard seed rather than the ax