Write the Vision: God’s Kingdom Come

One of the things Sick Pilgrim has done, and does well, is to open space for those who for whatever reason, do not fit or have been hurt by the Church. Despite Christ’s exhortations to the contrary, there are invisible people in all of our churches. There are invisible people in every community, and these people on the margins are holy. When we choose the invisible, the poor, the misfit, we have chosen like Jesus. We have chosen Jesus. Advent provides the perfect time to pause and remember that God chose to throw God’s lot in with the poor, invisible, oppressed and weird.

With that in mind, a new series at Sick Pilgrim, “Write the Vision: Writing God’s Kingdom Come”,will examine the words and images used to describe God’s Justice and these themes explored by writers reflecting on a particular social justice issue near and dear to them. As our series unfolds, we will hear from a diverse collection of writers as they unpack their vision of God’s coming Kingdom.

God’s Kingdom Come

We say the words. We stand in churches hot and crowded or empty and cold, and say words so ridiculous that only the craziest among us could mean them: Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Could more terrifying words be spoken? If God’s Kingdom came, descended swift like a bird of prey and snatched away all our pretense, who would be left standing?

Sometimes I think about this during the Our Father at Mass –  collective raised voices praying for something radical, wondering if any of us mean it. What would happen if God’s kingdom came right now, in this space? How would my upper-middle class suburban church change? How would I change? What faces would be seen, which are now invisible? Who would approach the altar to consecrate, the lectern to preach? Can you imagine what God’s Kingdom come would look like?

In Scripture, the prophet Habakkuk (2:2-3)  tells us of this vision, gift and curse that it is,

“Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay.

What is the vision of God’s Kingdom? God told us, when Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. Does your church look like the sermon on the mount? Does your heart? Blessed are the peacemakers, the mournful, the merciful, those hungry and thirsty for justice. A community where the works of mercy are the measure by which we judge, and being in right relationship with Earth and all parts of creation is the highest attainable goal – can any of us honestly claim to be part of such community today?

I have heard enough pious words from the mouths of the powerful. I want to hear redemption preached from the mouths of the broken.  I have heard enough of treating human bodies in all their tremendous diversity and capacity for love like problems to be solved rather than mysteries to be explored. I want to hear wholeness preached from the mouths of different bodies. God’s Kingdom is a place where the oppressed speak first and are listened to longest. In God’s Kingdom women and children are safe and believed, war is the stuff of myth, and no matter what else we are, we are each other’s keepers.

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done…

The vision feels so often like an illusion in the face of our world and churches today. Violence against women, children, and vulnerable people goes unchecked. Thousands of lives are snuffed out at the end of a gun each year, and thousands more are injured. Racism is the poisonous current undercutting everything around us, including our sacred spaces. The poor, the people among whom God walked the earth and called his own, are demonized and blamed for choking on the rotten fruit of injustice, fruit they did not sow but are forced to reap.

Yet the prophet calls us – shouts above the trauma, the rage, the bullshit – do not forget the vision. Cling to it as though your life depends on it. The vision does not lie. The world will lie. Sin lies. Sometimes the churches lie. But the vision will never lie. Cling to the vision, because your life depends on it. My very life depends on it.

Those of us clinging to this vision, holding the broken vessel called church, and trying to find the gold called God inside it, we know that not only do we need the vision, but the vision needs us. The vision calls us further up and further in, not to abandon what at times deserves to be left, but to light the fires that hold within them the embers of justice. The vision lets us build, brick by holy brick, thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.

Sarah Margaret Babbs is a writer, mother, fertility counselor, social justice advocate and frequent contributor to Sick Pilgrim. She blogs at Fumbling Toward Grace.