Sunday, March 30, 2025

Sermon Notes

The concept of ‘Kin-dom of God’ (or Kindom) was first proposed by Dr. Ada María Isasi-Díaz. The Cuban-American originator of Mujerista theology (a branch of Liberation Theology from a Latina perspective). The idea is of a group that is based on family structure (kin) rather than a this-worldly ‘King’ (with all of the sinful patterns of power inequity that often comes with it).

Jesus has been proclaiming throughout this gospel the coming of the Kingdom of God, a kingdom that is radically different to the kingdom which in his day was in charge of Palestine, the great Roman Empire, and even the messianic kingdom that they are picturing.

The contrast is perhaps most clear with the Roman Empire, a brutal and efficient regime who uses coercive power (namely violence) to impose its will on all those lands and peoples that they have conquered. Rome began as a republic, using fledgling ideas of democracy, even then it was only land-owning men who had any say in their government. However, in 27 BCE, within living memory of the life of Jesus, the Republic of Rome was reorganized into the Roman Empire, and Gaius Octavius (a charismatic military leader) became Gaius Augustus Caesar (an autocratic commander-in-chief with a lifetime appointment). Under Augustus, the Roman Empire expanded greatly in territory, including the providences formerly ruled by Harrod the Great. They used the brute strength of the Roman Army to impose their will on the people they ruled over: rebellions and insurrections were swiftly dealt with, and the conformist Pax Romana (Peace of Rome) was imposed with the threat of violence. Rome also used the bureaucratic power of forced taxation to keep the people under their control, and to support their bloated empire.

The Jewish people longed for another kingdom, and in Jesus’ time that meant a Messianic Kingdom. During the time of the Second Temple, from the return of the Exiles from Babylon (538 BCE) to the destruction of the Temple (70 CE), there was a growing hope for a Messiah (anointed one) to come and rule. Rooted in the promise given to David for an everlasting kingdom and dynasty (2 Samuel 7), they believed that a/the ‘Son of David’ would return and defeat the parade of empires that had ruled over the Hebrew and Jewish people (‘Jewish’ being the name given to them by the Greek empires). The hope of a Messianic Kingdom was the hope of national sovereignty, to make their people great again, to restore them to a kingdom like the kingdoms of Israel and Judah before. Given the examples that they had seen of kingdoms, perhaps it is unsurprising that they were expecting a kingdom just like the Assyrian, Babylonian, Median, Persian, Greek (Ptolemaic and Seleucid), Herodic, and Roman ones. Their hope in the messiah was that he too would be a strong military leader who would claim his rightful throne, raise an army and kick the Romans our of Jerusalem, reclaim the land ‘from the river to the sea’ and the land claimed in Torah as their land, and perhaps even rise to be the kingdom of kingdoms, an empire in their own right. The people believed that unlike the dirty Gentiles, they would be able to handle such power and would rule with Justice and Righteousness as led by Torah (despite their own histories of injustice).

Many at this point had attempted to claim the title of Messiah, and bring freedom to their people. The Maccabean revolt won the people a glimpse of national sovereignty under the Seleucids, but they were soon defeated. Zealot groups would rise around charismatic leaders, who would try to beat back the Greeks and Romans with military force, or more likely complicate their rule with assassinations and guerrilla terrorist tactics. These attempts were brutally defeated by the powers. In 6 CE, Judas of Galilee lead a failed revolt, which ended in the mass crucifixion of his followers. Josephus credits this conflict, and the ‘fourth philosophy’ which it represented (the first three were Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes) as leading to the Jewish War which led to the destruction of the Temple.

Jesus, along with others like John the Baptizer, represented yet another way of dealing with the coercive violence of Rome (and the other kingdoms of men), non-violent resistance. Instead of a Kingdom: coercive, using dominating violence, built on hierarchical systems of elites and plebeians, and patriarchal; Jesus preached a Kingdom of God built on mutuality and love, non-coercive, non-violent yet resistive to the violence of individuals and systems, lifting up of the marginalized and outcast, and egalitarian. This Kingdom is so radically different, in fact, that Theologians like Dr. Isasi-Díaz suggests using “Kin-dom” for it, replacing the ‘g,’ and therefore supplanting a king, with a familial structure, ‘kin.’

Questions

– What kind of leaders do we expect, what kinds of qualities do they display?

– How well do we receive the counter-cultural message of the ‘scandal’ of the cross?

– How do we treat those who say the quiet part out loud?

– How do we receive and reintegrate those we have perceived as enemies back into the family?