The Kingdom of God! So often we Catholics like to future think. Daily we pray in the Our Father "Thy Kingdom come!" For so many of us the kingdom of God is to be an experience after death. In response to a Pharisees question, Jesus describes the Kingdom of God. It is not something to be observed when it comes -- like Election Day and Inauguration Day are the unofficial and official beginning of a new government administration. Jesus knows his answer is a surprise or a challenge to the Pharisees and even to many of his followers then and now. He says "behold" -- a kind of surprise word. "look around you" might be another translation. "... the Kingdom of God is among you."
Fundamental to the preaching of Jesus is the Kingdom of God. It is Jesus' presence among human beings in his bodily presence as he goes about preaching and teaching. It is his presence today among us in the Eucharist, in the words of Scripture and in our brother and sister sojourners on this earth. It is his calling of human beings to a new way of life as individuals and as a community. So, as faithful followers of Jesus, we live in the Kingdom of God today. Our earthly lives are the beginning of the Kingdom for each of us. Ultimately and permanently the kingdom will our experience of heaven.
Through our faith in Jesus Christ and more explicitly at the time of our baptismal initiation into the Church and our living in union with all who are a part of the Church community we are members of the Kingdom of God.
Although we daily pray "thy kingdom come," we must not forget in one sense that the Kingdom of God is already present in Christ's passion, death, and resurrection as well as in and through our Church.
St. Paul's request to his friend Philemon (fih-LEE-muhn) that he welcome back his run-away slave, Onesimus (o-NEH-sih-muhs), not as a slave but as a brother is a sign of what the kingdom is like. It is a divine kingdom built upon justice and mercy: where sins are forgiven, the sick are made whole, enemies are reconciled, captives are freed and the needs of the poor are met. This is the kingdom that is so much of who we are today. So often it is, as in Paul's example, a challenge to popular beliefs and practices.
Can we live this life? Can we make this a standard way of living? Well, to borrow a phrase that has become quite popular in the last two years: "YES WE CAN."
