Kingdom of God
When Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, he teaches in parables and metaphors to help us understand things that are mysterious and don’t quite fit into our context of a world that isn’t what it was meant to be. He describes the kingdom of God as a group of sheep, a field of wheat, and a pearl, among other things. It’s easy to read all sorts of things into these stories because there really are all sorts of things there. However, if we’re not careful, one thing we may gather from the teachings of Jesus is that everyone in the kingdom of God should look the same. But the fact that the kingdom is represented by a homogenous group in one parable or another is less about how they look and more about where their allegiance lies.
In the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25: 31-46), Jesus teaches about what will happen at the end of all things. Some call it Judgment Day, some call it the end of the world, I don’t know that the timing of this is as important as the fact that it will happen. Jesus is trying to teach us that there will be some accountability for how we lived our lives. There will be those that are a part of his kingdom (sheep) and those that aren’t (goats).
A simplistic reading of this creates an “us vs. them” mentality. We could take this teaching on the importance of actions in our lives and turn it into a treatise for calling people “goats”, for telling them that they are out and that we are in.
The only problem is, in this parable, when Jesus tells the goats that he doesn’t know them, they freak out and ask when exactly they were supposed to have done all the things that he valued and required.
There’s a whole sermon in that right there. Jesus tells the sheep that they are in because they took care of the poor, outcast, and marginalized. That’s what it means to be in the kingdom of God because that’s who the King identifies with. He says, “if you care for the poor, outcast, and marginalized, then you care for me”. The goats are out because they failed to care for the poor, outcast, and marginalized. And they are all like, “but we didn’t know that was YOU Jesus. If we had known it was YOU, well, then, we would have done differently.”
You see, it’s not about being a sheep or a goat, per se. Jesus told other parables where he said that there were some walking around among his people (sheep), who were dressed like sheep, but were actually wolves. Meaning that there are imposters in our churches and faith communities. There are people who, for whatever reason, want to look like a sheep but they aren’t: they’re a wolf bent on destruction. You can look like a sheep all you want, but it won’t change who you really are.
If you’re in the kingdom of God, then you’re a sheep. Full stop. It doesn’t matter if you’re a black sheep or a white sheep. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got spots or only three legs. It doesn’t matter if you’re a ram or a ewe. It doesn’t really matter what you were before you got here. Being in the Kingdom of God makes you a sheep, not the other way around. That’s why mis-interpreting this parable is so devastating. If you think that it’s about who cleaned up their act so that they could be a sheep, then you’re going to spend your whole life trying to make yourself a sheep- a fruitless endeavor. You can’t make yourself a sheep. You can put on sheep’s wool and try to fit in, but as we saw above, that makes you an imposter at best and an enemy at worst. Only the King can make you a citizen of his kingdom, read: a sheep.
This, along with the body of Jesus’ teaching, is not about who looks the right way or does the right thing. It’s about where your allegiance lies.
I’m sure that you can think of a number of communities, not just those of faith, that are all about doing the right thing and looking the right way. I’ve been a part of some communities that aren’t just about looking the right way and doing the right things, but about having the right ideas. The actions and the presentation are all secondary and implicit, making them worse and more toxic. The explicit part of belonging in some communities, particularly those of faith, has to do with having the right ideas.
Now before you write me off as some whack-a-doodle theologian, what I’m not saying is that there are no rules and we don’t have to agree on anything. I hate squishy theology. I believe that the Bible is true and that there are several non-negotiable, black-and-white truths that we have to agree to to be a part of the kingdom of God. These things are what make us come to the King in the first place and ask for a place in his kingdom. BUT, the non-negotiable, black-and-white things that we have to agree to are far fewer than many would have us believe.
The Bible, and, thus, the Christian faith, is chock full of mystery and grey area. Again, this doesn’t mean that there is nothing solid or unshakable. It means that the solid and unshakable things are so solid and so unshakable that they support the mystery and the grey area. You can stand firm on the essentials and allow for varying degrees of uncertainty in all else. You can even change your mind.
I’ve been a part of faith communities that would have had me believe that, if I had the wrong ideas about baptism, communion, sexuality, marriage, parenting, etc, then I was a heretic and I might not know Jesus. I’ve written about this elsewhere. For a time, I actually bought into this way of thinking. My major error was thinking that I had to be certain about things that the Bible didn’t offer certainty about. I treated God and his Word like he’d set some sort of escape room test for me and he was waiting to see if I was good enough to figure it out.
Hear me loud and clear: God is not like that.
Churches and faith communities might be, but God is NOT.
You don’t have to look a certain way to be included in the kingdom of God. You don’t have to do certain things to be included in the kingdom of God. You don’t have to have certain ideas to be included in the kingdom of God. Only the king can grant you citizenship. Only by his grace can you be turned from a goat to a sheep.
Jesus isn’t interested in building a kingdom of “us vs. them”. He’s interested in a kingdom of “all y’all”- every single one. “Come to me ALL you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28, emphasis mine) All. All y’all. Not the ones who look the part or are trying to look the part or are thinking about the part. All who will come.
Take heart, if you come to him, you’re in.