TODAY IS THE THIRD SUNDAY of Advent. In many churches this Sunday features readings from John the Baptist and eschatological warnings of God’s coming kingdom. This reflection — from Freeing Jesus — wonders whether “kingdom” is the best way to understand the promise of God’s kindness toward humankind and creation.
Window 12
When I first encountered a prayer using “kin-dom” instead of “kingdom,” I remember thinking that it was a sort of liberal watering down of the robust vision of Christ the King in glory, diminishing the power of his lordship. The noted theologian Ada María Isasi-Díaz recalls originally hearing “kin-dom” from a friend who was a nun as an alternative to the language of “kingdom,” a word fraught with colonial oppression and imperial violence. “Jesus,” she wrote, “used ‘kingdom of God’ to evoke . . . an alternative ‘order of things’” over and against the political context of the Roman Empire and its Caesar, the actual kingdom and king at the time.
“Kingdom” is, however, a corrupted metaphor, one misused by the church throughout history to make itself into the image of an earthly kingdom. Indeed, Christians have often failed to recognize that “kingdom” was an inadequate and incomplete way of speaking of God’s governance, not a call to set up their own empire. Isasi-Díaz argues that “kin-dom,” an image of la familia, the liberating family of God working together for love and justice, is a metaphor closer to what Jesus intended.
If that sounds more like contemporary political correctness than biblical theology, it is worth noting that Isasi-Díaz’s “kin-dom” metaphor echoes an older understanding, one found in medieval theology in the work of the mystic Julian of Norwich. Julian wrote of “our kinde Lord,” a poetic title, certainly, summoning images of a gentle Jesus. But it was not that. Rather, it was a radical one, for the word “kinde” in medieval English did not mean “nice” or “pleasant.” Instead, in the words of theologian Janet Soskice:
In Middle English the words “kind” and “kin” were the same—to say that Christ is “our kinde Lord” is not to say that Christ is tender and gentle, although that may be implied, but to say that he is kin—our kind. This fact, and not emotional disposition, is the rock which is our salvation.
To say “our kinde Lord” was to say “our kin Lord.” Jesus the Lord is our kin. The kind Lord is kin to me, you, all of us—making us one. This is a subversive deconstruction of the image of kingdom and kings, replacing forever the pretensions and politics of earthly kingdoms with Jesus’s calling forth a kin-dom. King, kind, kin.
From Freeing Jesus
It was a time like this,
War & tumult of war,
a horror in the air.
Hungry yawned the abyss —
and yet there came the star
and the child most wonderfully there.
It was time like this
of fear & lust for power,
license & greed and blight —
and yet the Prince of bliss
came into the darkest hour
in quiet & silent light.
And in a time like this
how celebrate his birth
when all things fall apart?
Ah! wonderful it is
with no room on the earth
the stable is our heart.
— Madeleine L’Engle
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Whatever we may say about Jesus and what the Christian life is about it is decidedly about the kingdom of God. That was Jesus’ message and mission: the kingdom of God. And I will be so bold as to say that anything other than that is gloss.
What is the kingdom of God? I suggest that the kingdom of God is not a place or a destination. It is not heaven. It is not an economy or a strategy and it is not some quid pro quo. The kingdom does not expect reward. The kingdom of God is not a system or regime. It is not about sovereignty or omnipotence or power. It is not a theocracy. . .
The kingdom of God is rather like a rose that blossoms because it blossoms. It blossoms because it blossoms. And sheds its fragrance on the just and unjust. Which hardly seems fair.
But the kingdom of God. That is worthy of the name!
The kingdom of God is living a life worthy of the very gift of life itself.
— Marianne Borg
O Eternal Keeper of the Promises, we enter this sacred season like the evergreen tree. Just as it is ever green, we are ever hopeful that the Kingdom of peace and justice which you promised will come to our weary, worried world. As the darkness of winter surrounds us, so the darkness of doubt and despair seems to encompass our earth. Make each one of us green signs of Advent hope, living Christmas trees, in the gray gloom of our age's forest of fear. As the hope of Abraham and Sarah gave birth to a son, may our hope give birth to Christ among us.
— Edward Hays
An Advent Event
Shane Claiborne has picked Freeing Jesus as the December book of the Red Letter Christian Book Club! Read the book and join us in conversation via ZOOM on December 19 at 7pm. This is a free event. Click here for the sign-up link.
I learned years ago (probably something associated with Westar Institute) that the Greek "basilea" can be translated as Kingdom (especially in the KING James Version) but it can also be translated as Empire to emphasize that the Empire of God (in which peace is achieved through love) is a direct challenge to the Empire of Rome (in which peace is achieved through violence).
The end of L'Engle's poem brings to mind a favorite choral anthem by Randall Thompson, setting the lines from 17th Century poet Robert Herrick: "Christ, He requires still, wheresoe'er He comes / To feed or lodge, to have the best of rooms: / Give Him the choice; grant Him the nobler part /
Of all the house: the best of all's the heart.". The heart is surely the seat of kin-dom.