The Kin-dom That Cannot Be Seized

Reading Matthew 11:12 Without Becoming What We Resist

Entering the Gospel’s Warning

Matthew 11:12

12. From the days of John the Baptizer until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.

We are called by the gospel of Jesus Christ to spread the kin-dom throughout the earth, the kin-dom that is within and among all of us. In Matthew 11:12, Jesus warns us that the kin-dom suffers violence and that the violent try to seize it and plunder it. If we are ever to understand our relationship to the kin-dom and how it has been co-opted by empire, greed, and fear for so long, we have to understand what Jesus is trying to tell us about and warning us against.

A Kin-dom Spoken in a Colonized World

Every time we read the Gospels, it’s important for us to remember that Jesus was a refugee who lived in a colonized land. The Romans had conquered the Galilee and Judea, and before them, the people had suffered under many colonial empires stretching back further than any could remember.

John preached a new kind of liberation where one could not just wash the sins from their body but from their soul and spirit, reconnecting to God and the kin-dom that God promised here, now, even under that colonial power. No one who spoke out against the empire lived long. Both John and Jesus understood that.

When Jesus says, “Until John, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent try to plunder it and seize it,” this was the lived experience of the people he was talking to. They had witnessed firsthand the cruelty and extraction of the empire, taking from them in taxes, in lives, and in time. They understood how force had been used to corrupt, co-opt, and coerce people into doing what the empire willed them to do.

What the Kin-dom Evoked

When Jesus talks about the kin-dom, the audience would have thought of many things, from the kingdom of David to the short-lived kingdom of the Maccabees. They would have thought of either a golden age that was all too brief back in ancient times or a hope that through struggle they could have a kingdom of their own again.

Jesus takes this a step further. The kin-dom is here. It has not fallen and it never will fall. It can only be seized by the violent who seek to plunder it. That is a very different way to see the circumstances that he and the other people lived in.

This seizing and plundering wasn’t just the purview of the empire, but the priests and those who claimed to mediate the relationship between the people and God, who hoarded great wealth to themselves and who prospered even in these troubled times. They plundered the people for their own gain and did not do the work of God. This was the cry of most of the prophets.

While he does not say it explicitly, the text shows us a resistance. John did not side with the empire, nor did he aggrandize or plunder the kin-dom for his own sake. He lived in service to the kin-dom and to the people within it, and as such became a model for such service. John opened the way so others could walk through it, and that way, like it was for their people before, was through the waters of the River Jordan, through the waters of baptism.

A Kin-dom That Cannot Be Destroyed

Jesus describes a kin-dom that is ever-present, one that cannot be created or destroyed, but one that is always here. It was here when John came, and it will be here after him, which means it was here when the Assyrians came, when the Babylonians came. It was here when David came. It has always been here.

It has survived all of these people, and it has survived Rome. They plunder, and they take, and they seize, but they cannot destroy it.

Many have misused this passage to say that they should become violent, that they should be those who seize the kingdom and join in the violence done against it. They see themselves as the oppressors who bring the kingdom through force. John did not bring the kin-dom through force but through baptism. Jesus did not bring the kin-dom through force, but through submission to death on the cross.

The kin-dom cannot be brought into the world through violence. It can only be plundered through it. Once we learn to see that, we see that we always have a home. That the kin-dom is here, where two or three are gathered in his name. Christ is there amongst us. The kin-dom is now. Every moment.

It cannot be taken away. It cannot be co-opted, because God is the eternal King, the giver of life, the one in whom we live, move, and have our being. And his kin-dom, his reign, is through the triumph of life itself.

What It Means That the Kin-dom Cannot Be Co-Opted

The kin-dom of God cannot be co-opted, even though it is constantly plundered and misused. That sounds like such a grand statement, and one that on its face feels false. Churches, empires, and preachers have plundered the kin-dom of God since it was first proclaimed so long ago.

But they have never co-opted it, because the kin-dom of God is not a thing that can be colonized. It is the relationships that we have one with another. It is the relationship that we have with God. It exists in the still small moments within us and among us that the empire cannot see and thus cannot touch.

They have threatened it, outlawed it, and sought to destroy it over the millennia. But they have never laid hands on it because no hand can touch what God has perfected in the heart.

Belonging Without Scarcity

As we accept this truth and begin to live in it, we discover a belonging that is beyond any church, group, or movement. Our home is in the one in whom we live, move, and have our being. We indwell this life, and it indwells within us.

We live God. We live the kin-dom into the world through our actions, our presence, and our refusal to submit to the whims of empire, fear, and greed.

Living in this state of interconnection, we lose our fear of scarcity because we know that amongst us we have enough, and together we can share what we have, to rise up together and to be strong. We lose our sense of urgency because the kin-dom is, was, and will ever be.

It will always be victorious because life always finds a way. We align ourselves with life, with love, and with this ever-present kin-dom. We move together collectively towards that day where it is fully manifest and realized in the world.

Letting Go Without Withdrawing

We cannot stop simply at the wonder and awe of the ever-present kin-dom. We have to let go of so much baggage that wants to be brought along with us. We have to let go of our need to control, so we do not become the empire that we are opposing.

We have to replace our desire to win, dominate, or prove ourselves with a desire to bring other people into this loving, right relationship with themselves and with others. We have to let go of the urgency and panic born from our fear of loss or irrelevance so that we do not overreact and do something that harms the gospel or the cause.

When we refuse to seize the kin-dom, we are letting go of the conceit of our own hearts and the domination of others. We are allowing the freedom and liberty of God to spread out and bring salvation to all that it touches.

We are inviting people to the great banquet on the holy mountain so that they can be part of the kin-dom and celebrate the great day of the Lord. We are not withdrawing from responsibility. We are claiming what is our birthright to go forth and to proclaim the good news.

And the good news is that we are free. And through our collective and mutual efforts, that freedom can fully be recognized and realized in this earth.

Living the Gospel Together

If we are going to win the day, we have to build a shared life for ourselves. One born out of right relationship where we honor each other and the gifts that we bring together, one that is rooted in consent and reinforced through mutual aid.

We have to practice what we preach and live a life that shines out like a bright city on a hill, calling people out of the darkness of empire into its glow, safety, and sanctuary.

To do that, we have to constantly reimagine and reinterpret how we live together so that we do not fall into the stale trap of empire, believing that we have ever solved it, made it right, made it perfect, because perfection is a trap. It is a cage that holds us in and holds us back and prevents us from doing the work that we are called to do.

We can’t merely tell people the gospel. We have to live it.

The Long Work

If we are going to transform this world and bring the kin-dom fully manifest within it, we have to reject false ideas of purity because none are pure and without stain or blemish. This requires us to have a sense of forgiveness and to understand that people can and do change.

We can never choose to be passive, hoping that the storm will pass us by. This transformation has to happen deep down within us at the heart level. It will change ourselves, our lives, the habits we engage with, the systems that we create around us, and how we collectively engage with the world itself.

We refuse to take up the sword even when coercion, threats, and violence might appear effective because we are just entrenching ourselves in the cycle that has devoured this world for so long.

We choose the work of formation, helping people to grow and change, and to cultivate lives of meaning, purpose, and enrichment so that they can live fully in their own purpose and meaning, discovering it as we all do through the things that we do, not the things that we believe.

This makes us fully realized citizens of the kin-dom of God, moving strongly from our own center, which is love and compassion. To go out into the world to do justice and equity, to bring balance and homeostasis, where all things have a place, and that place enriches and nourishes everything in the system.

This is long work. There are no quick solutions. Anyone who peddles quick and easy paths to this kind of change and transformation is peddling snake oil.

This path is the hard work that we have refused over and over again because the work is so, so hard that in winning a battle we choose to believe that we have won the war and we go home, but the struggle for freedom, liberty, equity, justice, and liberation goes on.

Staying in the Struggle

When the times are dark, and it is hard to see the light, we huddle so close to it deep in our heart and pray our anguished prayers. It can be hard to see the future.

We do not seize the kin-dom because no one can seize the kin-dom. The struggle is the struggle to stay alive. And I don’t just mean breathing. I mean to have life and have it more abundantly, to enter into that place where we truly feel alive.

That can breed a certain sense of urgency in us, a desire to coerce other people so that we can get there faster, and we can spend time fantasizing about that eventual victory. None of those things actually help us achieve it.

We stay in the struggle because we are mindful of the world around us. We know what blessings it has and what lacks need repair. Our compassion has been quickened, and we know that we can only achieve the work together. And if we give up, there will be nothing but darkness.

We stay in the struggle because our spirits yearn for freedom. And the law of liberation that guides our hearts and minds cries out for everyone to hear.

There’s a time for healing and restoration. There is a time for recuperation and rest. But there is a time for struggle and striving forward to reach ever farther towards what we yearn for.

One day in the gym does not make us fit. Every day we strive, we yearn, and we stretch just a bit farther, not to break, but to strengthen ourselves and the world that we live in so that it becomes better inch by inch.

Built on the Rock

The kin-dom has always suffered violence, and the violent seize it and try to plunder it. We do not participate in that cycle of violence.

Through the work of formation and transformation, we equip ourselves to live in the kin-dom no matter what transpires. Our lives become resilient. Our work becomes doable.

We are rooted in God, who is the ground of all being and becoming, and does not require a temple built by human hands or an institution to flow through this world.

God is in all things, and all things are in God. That is the heart of the kin-dom. Building our lives there is, as Jesus said, building our house upon the rock, not upon the shifting sands of organizations and empire and the things that change according to the whims of those in power.

Power is the illusion. No one can own the kin-dom. The kin-dom is spread out throughout the world and many do not see it.

For more check out our Creation’s Paths episode discussing this further: