The Bible says there are many for whom "the Kingdom of God has come close." Close is not good enough. What is preventing us from experiencing the presence and power of God in our midst?
Winston Churchill had just delivered his tremendous "Blood, Sweat and Tears" speech. Harold Nicholson heard it, went home and wrote in his diary: "Winston makes a very short statement, but to the point." (Harold Nicholson, Diaries and Letters 1930-64, ed. Stanley Olson [New York: Atheneum, 1980], 83.)
A newspaper editor in Harrisburg, 35 miles away from Gettysburg, heard Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. He wrote in his paper the next day: "We pass over the silly remarks of the President; for the credit of the nation, we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they should no more be repeated or thought of."
One of the worst things that can be said of people is that greatness passed by, and they did not recognize it. Yet in the words of Henry David Thoreau:
The morning wind forever blows;
The poem of creation is uninterrupted;
But few are the ears that hear it.
Every one of us here this morning has at one time felt that morning wind blowing by; every one of us has been privy to that uninterrupted poem of creation. Yet how many of our ears have really heard it; how many of our eyes have truly seen it? What is preventing us from seeing the kingdom of God and letting it into our lives?
1. Blindness and Deafness: Frantic busy-ness seems to be the natural order of postmodern life. The tasks and tediums that make up our days encourage us to keep our heads down, our eyes on the ground and our ears closed. In an effort to become more specialized, more proficient at completing our daily agendas, we have become nearly blind and deaf to the sights and sounds of the kingdom.
In 1836, in the little village of Rushville, New York, Marcus Whitman heard the call of the kingdom in the West a summons to go to those thousands of Native Americans beyond the Mississippi who had never heard the gospel. And so he packed his belongings and, with his new wife Narcissa, set out as a missionary to the Oregon country, where they were destined to become two of the great figures in the history of the Pacific Northwest. After looking at the old record books of the Rushville church, the pastor reported about the activities of the church in his annual report: "Nothing of any importance ever happens here. We had one addition to the church this year, but he married one of our finest young women, and now they are both gone" (Eugen M. Austin, The Harvest of Spirit [New York: Abingdon Cokesbury Press, 1943], 87.)
In his devotion to head-counting and just keeping things going, this pastor missed the movement of the kingdom within his own congregation. Instead of celebrating the kingdom's arrival in Marcus and Narcissa's lives, he could only grouse that Whitman stole one of his parishioners.
2. Ego: Ken Blanchard says EGO is an acronym for "Edging God Out." At times, we let the kingdom pass us by because the wonder of its greatness threatens our own sense of importance. We do so enjoy ruling our own domains no matter how small and insignificant they may appear to others.
In the 1930s, the two greatest physicists of the modern era and the two architects of the golden age of theoretical physics, Paul Dirac and Werner Heisenburg, traveled around the world. They showed up unannounced at the University of Hawaii, and the president of the university told the rest of the story a few months later:
A couple of guys turned up, said they were Heisenburg and Dirac and wanted to give a lecture; but I saw through them and had them shown out.
Faced with a chance to experience even a tiny glimpse into the vast complexities of the universe through the brilliance of two gifted men, this bureaucrat confidently announced, "I saw through them." When we insist too loudly and too proudly that we know best, then greatness passes by. There are many mediocre buildings out there designed by people less concerned with "architecture" than "egotecture."
3. Rigidity: The kingdom doesn't always play by the rules we recognize. Jesus counseled his missionaries to forget about the letter of the law, the preciseness of etiquette, so that they might become flexible enough to extend the Good News to all. Our reaction to a new way to do things is rarely, "Hey, what a great idea!" More common are observations such as: "It will never work," "But we've always done it this way." "This will make things worse, not better."
In a favorite "Charlie Brown" comic strip, Lucy and her brother Linus have just finished a chicken dinner, and Lucy is explaining to Linus how to make a wish on the wishbone: "This is a wishbone, Linus," she says. "We both make our wishes and then pull it apart. Whoever breaks off the biggest part gets his wish." Lucy begins the wishing: "Let's see now. I wish for a new doll, a new bicycle, four new sweaters, some new saddle shoes, a wristwatch and about one hundred dollars." Then Linus gets his turn: "I wish for long life for all my friends. I wish for peace in the world. I wish for great advancements in the fields of science and medicine, and.... "But by this time, Lucy is throwing away the unbroken wishbone in disgust, grumbling, "You seem to have a knack for spoiling everything."
Our rigidity makes us resent those who see things differently. Rule-benders, short-cut-takers and independent thinkers make us nervous. When Christ offered people the chance to participate in the kingdom, he didn't come with the military might and political power that many expected. Because they could not see a new incarnation of God's love, they let the moment, the kingdom, pass them by.
4. Fear: There are times we know what to do and we know how to do it, but we remain frozen by fear. Fear keeps us immobile while it murders our hopes and nurtures our doubts.
The greatness and glory of God does not always descend like a whirlwind. Sometimes greatness passes by with only a tiny whisper. Someone once asked Albert Schweitzer to name the greatest person alive in the world at that moment. The good doctor, whom many would have named as deserving the honor, replied quietly: "The greatest person alive in the world at this moment is some unknown individual in some obscure place who at this hour has gone in love to be with another person in need."
How many people have stood numb and dumb while greatness passed by? How many people have kept on with their lives without missing a step, without changing their pace, without turning their heads or even turning around, while greatness passed by? Let it not be said of us that we stood in the presence of greatness, in the midst of the kingdom, and disbelieved or were ungrateful.