Kingdom of God/Now & Not Yet
Gregg’s Reflection
Scott Armstrong, our pastor at CityChurch Eastside, introduced to me the expression ‘now and not yet.’ It is a lovely way of encapsulating the reality that we get glimpses and tastes of God’s kingdom that stoke our yearning, while we still live broken lives in a broken world.
Just as we get glimpses of beauty as we walk the mountain by our home, wildflowers, tiny leaves already turning red, birds flitting through the aspens, so God gives us glimpses of his Kingdom, showing up as the synchronicities in our lives, the love we see on display from those anchored in your grace. These moments of delight pull us out of our thought loops, drop us from our minds into our hearts, and bring us into the present moment, the only place we can experience God.
One of the ways that help sensitize me to the small movements of God in the mundane of everyday life is a Jesuit practice, the Examen of Consciousness: Reflect on moments in the last day when you were aware of God’s presence, and moments when you were distracted.
Our spiritual journeys take us into Liminal Space, where the old is passing away, but the new hasn’t fully appeared yet. Richard Rohr tells us:
We have to allow ourselves to be drawn into sacred space, into liminality. All transformation takes place here. There alone is our old world left behind, though we’re not yet sure of the new existence. That’s a good space where genuine newness can begin.
The admonition that we are ‘in this world but not of this world’ comes to mind. We live in the now, while yearning, tasting, and praying to manifest the not yet. It is a wonderful example of non-dualistic, both-and thinking. When Luther said, “I am both saint and sinner.” The dualistic mind wonders how that can be true. The world is broken and yet redeemed. Living in the paradox is the way of the deeper journey. So come along on a journey into the Now and Not Yet.
Blessings, Gregg
Journaling Prompts
How have you caught glimpses of the Kingdom of God in the mundane of daily life (now)? What can you do to help usher in the Kingdom (not yet)? What might be your life’s calling in God’s great symphony as the Kingdom unfolds (now and not yet)?
Scripture
Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.
1 Chronicles 29:11
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.
Matthew 3:2
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:3
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Matthew 6:9-10
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Matthew 6:33
When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
Luke 9:1-2
“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Mark I:15
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Romans 14:17
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.
Hebrews 12:28
Ancient Writings
Do not pursue the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. The past no longer is. The future has not yet come. Looking deeply at life as it is. In the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom.
Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received—only what you have given.
St. Francis of Assisi
The Peace Prayer
Lord, Make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred; let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
St. Francis of Assisi
See that I am God. See that I am in everything. See that I do everything. See that I have never stopped ordering my works, nor even shall, eternally. See that I lead everything on to the conclusion I ordained for it before time began, by the same power, wisdom and love with which I made it. How can anything be amiss?
Julian of Norwich
Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.
Catherine of Siena
The seeking of the kingdom of God is the chief business of the Christian life.
Jonathan Edwards
Modern Writings
The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God.
Leo Tolstoy
We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.
Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.
If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving to death for.
The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all homesick for it.
Fredrick Buechner
You Are at Home While Still on the Way. When God has become our shepherd, our refuge, our fortress, then we can reach out to him in the midst of a broken world and feel at home while still on the way.
When God dwells in us, we can enter into a wordless dialogue with him while still waiting on the day that he will lead us into the house where he has prepared a place for us (John 14:2). Then we can wait while we have already arrived and ask while we have already received.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 1/19/24
This kingdom of God life is not a matter of waking up each morning with a list of chores or an agenda to be tended to, left on our bedside table by the Holy Spirit for us while we slept. We wake up already immersed in a large story of creation and covenant, of Israel and Jesus, the story of Jesus and the stories that Jesus told. We let ourselves be formed by these formative stories, and especially as we listen to the stories Jesus tells, get a feel for the way he does it, the way he talks, the way he treats people, the Jesus way.
Eugene H. Peterson
God gives us just enough tastes of God’s realm to believe in it and to want it more than anything. In the parables, Jesus never says the Kingdom is totally now or totally later. It’s always now-and-not-yet.
When we live inside the Really Real, we live in a “threshold space” between this world and the next. We learn how to live between heaven and earth, one foot in both worlds, holding them precious together. We only have the first fruits of the Kingdom in this world, but we experience enough to know that it’s the only thing that will ever satisfy us. Once we have had the truth, half-truths do not satisfy us anymore. In its light, everything else is relative, even our own life.
Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 11/15/20
There are always two worlds. The world as it is usually operates on power, ego, and success. The world as it could be operates out of love. One is founded on dominative power, and the other is a continual call to right relationship and reciprocal power. The secret of this Kingdom life is discovering how we can live in both worlds simultaneously.
Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 11/16/20
We are downloading the eternal into the now. There is tremendous exchange between the realms.
Cynthia Bourgeault
God’s Kingdom is present in it s beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (expecting all change now). In this stage, we embrace the reality that while we’re not yet what we will be, we’re also no longer what we used to be.
Tim Keller
The “already/not yet” paradox was developed by Princeton theologian Geerhardus Vos in the early twentieth century. Supported by Holy Scripture, it concludes that the Kingdom of God is already here as it has been promised and pronounced, but in actuality it is yet coming. Until it manifests, we are to be faithful in our efforts to host the promises.
Barbara Holmes, Joy Unspeakable, p. 178
In God’s kingdom order becomes opportunity, stability melts into movement and change, status-quo government gives way to a revolution of community and neighborliness, policy bows to love, domination descends to service and sacrifice, control morphs into influence and inspiration, and vengeance and threats are transformed into forgiveness and blessing.
Brian McLaren, CAC Morning Devotion, 11/21/20