I write often — because the Gospels speak often — about the difference between the kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of God. The former are about the domination of the many for the benefit of the few, and are run on fear and violence and a desire for control masquerading under the name of order. The latter is a way of life and doing community based on reciprocal good-faith relationships, where grace and compassion abound, where debts and sins are forgiven, where it is the meek, the mourning, and the poor who are blessed, where the sick in spirit, mind, and body find healing, and where captives are released and the oppressed freed. While the ways of the Kingdom of God are always going to be elusive in this life, as Christians we are called to live into them as much as possible in the here and now, within the kingdoms of this world.
As it happens, this is why ‘Christian nationalism’ is a contradiction in terms, a logical impossibility. We can be good patriotic citizens, certainly, but nationalism of any kind is a fundamental betrayal of Gospel message. As Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6.21). Any nation or state is at best the weakest imitation of the Kingdom of God, where our true treasure lies.
If there is any time when we’re to set aside everything to do with the kingdoms of this world it’s during our Eucharistic celebrations. It’s often said that the whole traditional Eucharistic liturgy was designed as a kind of Kingdom play, with the various prayers and movements symbolizing different parts of the Christian story. It’s no accident that, in the Eastern rite, known as the Divine Liturgy, this ‘play’ starts with the celebrant proclaiming:
Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Now and for ever and unto ages and ages!
To which the congregation answers with a resounding “Amen!”
It’s so easy to get caught up in the cares and concerns of the kingdoms of this world. Sometimes we need a proclamation like this to cut through the noise. And make no mistake about it: Our world of competing priorities and pressures, of manufactured fear and scarcity, of wars and rumours of war, and where the greed of the few triumphs over the needs of the many, is very very noisy. In the midst of it all, may these first words of the Divine Liturgy always be in our hearts and minds, blessing God and God’s kingdom:
Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Now and for ever and unto ages and ages!
Amen!
Matthew Root 