Jesus came preaching "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near" (Matthew 4:17). Then Jesus went up a hillside and gathered around him the people who were interested in what he was saying and tried to explain to them what he meant. That was the Sermon on the Mount, and our scripture reading for today is the first part of it.

The kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are the same thing. This concept is one of the biggest ideas that you will find in the Bible. It is very important. It has many different levels of meaning. It is a metaphysical description of the true shape of all reality, and it is an eschatological vision of the end toward which all things move. (Aren't you impressed?) But the explanation that is closest to our front door is to say that the kingdom of God is a way …