Luke 10:1-24

The Invasion

The Kingdom of God is an alien force to the world. Of course it is more ancient than the world system and was on this planet before the present world system came sliming its way over the face of the earth. Nevertheless, from our present perspective it is clearly alien. It is so unlike what we are used to. And how very used to we are to that which we know.

The problem comes because we want to spread the message of the kingdom but we think it is our responsibility to establish the kingdom as well. Really we have only been told to announce the kingdom. God will do the establishing. When we try to do the establishing we end up with something like the Crusades. That didn’t exactly end up saving a lot of people.

Let’s say that we are beyond this desire to create the kingdom ourselves and are willing to simply announce it. Well, we are still not quite out of the woods. We are supposed to offer peace to everyone. If they are willing peace will rest on them. If they are not willing we smash them, right? Not exactly. If they are not willing then our peace is supposed to return to us. We still have peace. We still are people of peace.

In fact the worst it gets is for us to wipe off the dust from those who refuse to receive but still let them know, “The kingdom of God is in fact near.” Can we do that? Can we just figure out that being obedient is more important than being “successful”? It is so simple and so wonderful. The only way the gospel can fail to reach the hearts of people is if we mess it up.

But when we get it right there is joy in the ranks of heaven that goes all the way to the top.