Download Why *Sinners* Sometimes The Kingdom of God before Christians

 Imagine
for a
moment going into
a modern day
Christian
conference. You
know, one of those
big events where
you know you will
experience God
 In
the midst of all the
powerful teaching,
anointed worship, and
prophetic proclamations
you walk down to meet
with the pastors and
church leaders only to
give them a message that
gay people, foreigners,
and non-Christians were
entering the Kingdom of
Heaven before they were.
Ka-boom!
 One
would
probably find
themselves
crucified (if today,
thankfully, only
figuratively)

But thats exactly what Jesus did in Matthew Ch.
21. Jesus enters the temple courts and starts talking
with the senior leaders and elders. He tells them this
parable:
“What do you think? There was a man who had two
sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work
today in the vineyard.’
 “ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his
mind and went.
 “Then the father went to the other son and said the
same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
 “The first,” they answered. (Matthew 21: 28-31)


See, common sense
told them the right
answer. But in the
religious leaders real
faith they instead
prefer the man who
says the right thing
despite ignoring the
father’s intent over the
one who does God’s
will but does it outside
the proper framework
or with the right
words…so to speak.
 Then
Jesus drops the bomb on them just so
there is NO misunderstanding:
 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax
collectors and the prostitutes are entering
the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John
came to you to show you the way of
righteousness, and you did not believe
him, but the tax collectors and the
prostitutes did. And even after you saw this,
you did not repent and believe him.


Can you imagine? Jesus
wasn’t just trying to make a
point in order to get the
pastors and elders to “up
there game” so to speak.
He was actually telling them
that people who sold their
bodies for sex as well as
their fellow countrymen that
were working against Jewish
nationalism to collaborate
with the Roman imperialists
were seeing, understanding,
and entering the Kingdom
of God ahead of the morally
pure church leaders

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

When someone has been told from a young age
that in order to:
go to heaven
have God’s favor and / or protection
avoid God’s wrath and /or hell
make God happy!
you must
do things,
say things,
attend things,
and avoid things
in a certain way it is VERY hard to get them to see
past that “conditioning” to the Kingdom Jesus
came to announce.
Jesus comes to affirm the outcast, the foreigner, the
broken, the seeking to which the “sinner” (often)
says, “Hey, that’s really cool, that’s Good News. I
like what this Jesus says” but to which the
Christian often counters, “Yes, thats
truuuue, but…”
I was recently in England
where I had the
opportunity to catch up
with a pastor friend of
mine. We are roughly the
same age with similar
ministry backgrounds
and we both found
ourselves asking why,
after all these years in
Christian ministry, are we
only now starting to SEE
what Jesus was really
talking about.

It’s as if this clearer revelation of who
Christ is was not the result of having
studied or learned something new.
No…
Instead it seemed to be the result of
scales falling from our eyes so the
“kingdom” became clearer. Like
cataracts being lasered out,
suddenly I was seeing colors and
hues in what Christ was saying that I
had never saw before. I guess
sometimes you are so immersed in a
system you can only see it for what it
is once you have stepped out of it for
a bit and see it from a different
angle..
 Jesus
admonishes the
religious leaders in
Matthew 23 as well as
John 9 that their
biggest obstacle to
what he has to say to
them is that they are
blind and they are
actually leading
people away from the
Life he came to bring:




“Woe to you, teachers of the law
and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
You shut the door of the kingdom
of heaven in people’s faces.You
yourselves do not enter, nor will
you let those enter who are trying
to.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law
and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
You travel over land and sea to
win a single convert, and when
you have succeeded, you make
them twice as much a child of
hell as you are.
“Woe to you, blind guides!Matthew 23: 13-16
Often it seems the “world” sees
sections of God’s Kingdom that
remains invisible to large portions
of the church

John the Baptist came
preparing people’s hearts to
receive Jesus’ announceme
nt that God was reshaping
society. The sick, the poor,
the powerless, the
marginalized and others on
the fringes were hearing
that the current way society
was ordered, a system of
power being reenforced
through violence, was being
replaced by a society of
compassion reenforced by
mercy and forgiveness



Then the Good News got even more
good. This new way of ordering
society was open everyone. It was
not open only to rich or the
powerful. It was not to be exclusive
to a particular nationality or
ethnicity. There no moral litmus
tests to be passed in order to gain
entry.
No…
In order to participate in this new
Kingdom, you simply had to be
“born again” so you could “see” the
Kingdom. The religious leaders of
Jesus’ time however were to vested
in the current system to entertain
notions of a new one…especially a
system that offered a place to people
they despised.
 In
the end, those “Men
of God” chose to reject
the messages of both
John and Jesus
 The “sinners” on the
other hand where
much more
enthusiastic and
receptive to real Good
News…
 …and the same goes
for today!


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The parable Jesus confronts the
Pharisees with in Matthew 21
presents a conundrum for many
Christians today. How do we
respond to:
a Muslim helping to end human
trafficking?
an atheist couple who are
addressing poverty needs in
their community?
a person perceived to be
“immoral” who volunteers their
time to help the handicapped?

These “brothers” may
not be saying all the
right things (Matthew
21:29) yet they are
doing what the Father
has asked. This is in
contrast to the person
who says all the right
“Jesus” stuff on their
lips and speaks the
“Christian lingo” but
actually do nothing to
really heal the world
and advance that
Kingdom defined by
compassion.
 In
Matthew 25 when
Jesus rewards his
followers for the
works of compassion
they did for others,
they are surprised
that it was Jesus who
was receiving those
works of compassion
all along

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“Then the King will say to those on his right,
‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take
your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you
since the creation of the world. For I was
hungry and you gave me something to eat, I
was thirsty and you gave me something to
drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I
needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick
and you looked after me, I was in prison and
you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord,
when did we see you hungry and feed you,
or thirsty and give you something to
drink? When did we see you a stranger and
invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe
you? When did we see you sick or in prison
and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever
you did for one of the least of these brothers
and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

More than 25 years of
Christian ministry has
shown me that most
Christians see the
Kingdom of God as a place
we go when we die Sure
we can, through God’s
grace, experience
glimpses of God’s
dominion here and now at
times, but mainly are job
on Earth is to get people
“saved” so that when they
die they can go to heaven
instead of hell.
When Jesus though is
asked by a Pharisee
when God’s Kingdom is
coming Jesus answers:
 “The Kingdom of God
can’t be detected by
visible signs.You won’t
be able to say, ‘Here it
is!’ or ‘It’s over
there!’ For the
Kingdom of God is
already among you!
 Luke 17:20

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But cosigning the Kingdom of Heaven to the
afterlife rather than the “here and now” offers the
present religious establishment some tempting
options. It allows them to:
dangle heaven’s entry as a carrot enticement for
good behavior and / or “correct” belief to the
church’s congregations.
invest themselves into the present power systems
economically, nationalistically, politically, and
socially without the guilt that they are in any way in
conflict with God’s Kingdom
ignore humankind’s original mandate to govern this
planet in a way that reflects God’s image on
it. Christians can treat the Earth like a motel room
we are in for just a few nights and not care to much
if it gets a little trashed.
 In
contrast, the “sinners” have a great
interest in a “Heaven” that we can bring
to Earth now. That we can choose to
bring healing to ourselves, our
communities, our cultures, and our planet
now is a message that they are much
more open to.


When Jesus said the
prostitutes and tax collectors
were entering the Kingdom of
Heaven AHEAD of the chief
priests and faith leaders he
meant it. He knew those folk
often could see God’s
Kingdom, longed for God’s
Kingdom, desired God’s
Kingdom and were open to
God’s Kingdom in a way that
the church leaders of that day
couldn’t even understand.
But things are changing. As
C.S. Lewis is fond of
saying, “Aslan is on the move.”