A new President and Congress in the United States. A truce in Israel and Gaza. A new regime in Syria. War in Ukraine. Political alliances in Europe realigning. Balance of power, geopolitical landscape, nations rise and fall, tipping the scales. This is how it is and will always be in the kingdoms on earth.
Greece had Persia. Babylon had Egypt. Rome had Carthage. The Mongol Empire had the Holy Roman Empire. England, France, and Spain had each other. Japan had China. Germany took on the world – twice. In the aftermath, Russia had the United States. Nations v. transnational companies. And all the while these earthly kingdoms and all that attends – money, power, prestige, lands, wealth, culture, custom, language – they compete for the loyalty and fealty of the people of God.
Where does that leave us? Where we have always been since God promised Abraham that his descendents would be the People of God, people of an unbreakable covenant – on God’s part at least. We are the covenant People of God amidst the earthly kingdoms.
We all carry many identities at the same time. I am son, brother, friend, Franciscan, priest, naval veteran, former entrepreneur and business owner, Tampa Bay Lightning hockey fan, swimmer and so much more. We can all make such a list. But how often do we identify with the most important: we are one of the people of God, child of Abraham, heir to the kingdom of God.
It is the same now as it has been in each age. As covenant people of every age, we make our choices. As a Church we have made choices, We have our own history perhaps paralleling the choices the people of Jerusalem made. The superpowers come and go. I am sure Rome thought they would last forever. All the while what the Lord has planted through the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus endures. The Church is planted, it puts forth its branches and bears fruit. Sometimes it is like a “vine, dense and low-lying” that “produced branches and put forth shoots.” Sometimes it is like the majestic cedar.
I think of all the places in which I have worshiped and received Holy Eucharist over the course of my life. The list is testimony, however weak, of the promise of God. I have celebrated the Kingdom in 40 some-odd States in our nation, Central and South America, the countries of Western Europe, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Tanzania, South Africa, New Zealand, Hawaii, Guam, afloat in ships large and small. I have received Holy Eucharist in the grandest of cathedrals and the most modest of chapels. I have received while under a sail strung between trees on an island in the middle of Lake Victoria. I have been with the people of God, celebrating the kingdom while the moon rose over the Serengeti.
“This is how it is with the kingdom of God” It is as we live and spread the Faith as best we can. We sleep and rise the next day – and through it all the kingdom grows. And we think we have no idea of how it happens. Let me suggest that we do know how it happens. It happens because it was always God’s work and not ours. What is ours to do is this: when given the choice between the earthly kingdom and choosing for the Kingdom of God – choose God. Choose God every day, every week, every year, for the whole of your life – in things small and great.
The superpowers come and go. We are the covenant people of this age called to make our choice for the Kingdom that endures forever.
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