Reflection
Faith in Jesus is not about notional assent to a set of doctrines and rules. It is primarily about a relationship in which the incarnational body of God in our world grows and flourishes into that fullness of life, a new “reign” in which all are invited as active agents. It is not for those sitting on the fence waiting…It is a vision embracing the far flung horizons of of time and space, the cosmic and planetary landscape that becomes “the new earth and new heaven” for all those committed to the creative task of building up God’s kingdom on earth.
Diarmuid O’Murchu
Prayer
O Lord, give me the courage and vision to follow you.
Action
Reflect on what it means in this context.to be sitting on the fence waiting. How does this reflect on your spirituality?
Suggested Reading
And he said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’
Mark 4:30-32
The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took, and put in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.
Matthew 13:33
“The kingdom of God is among you!,” says Jesus. God comes to establish His dominion in our history, in the ‘today’ of every day of our lives; and where it is accepted with faith and humility, love, joy and peace flourish.
Pope Francis
The person who does not seek the kingdom first does not seek it at all, regardless of how worthy the idolatry that he or she has substituted for it.
Richard J. Foster
Those who teach by their doctrine must teach by their life, or else they pull down with one hand what they build up with the other.
Matthew Henry
The kingdom of God is available to you in the here and the now. But the question is whether you are available to the kingdom.
Nhat Hanh
The Kingdom of God is not a matter of getting individuals to heaven, but of transforming the life on earth into the harmony of heaven.
Walter Rauschenbusch
The Christian ideal has not been found tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried.
GK Chesterton
When God wants to sort out the world, as the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount make clear, he doesn’t send in the tanks. He sends in the meek, the broken, the justice hungry, the peacemakers, the pure-hearted and so on.
N.T. Wright,
Being a Christan is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
If the Kingdom of God is in you, you should leave a little bit of heaven wherever you go.
Cornel West