ONE WOMAN’S EXPERIENCE

I remember meeting a woman in a retreat centre who told me she was a recovering alcoholic. I can only tell you that she sparkled in the way that people who have been given a second chance of life sparkle. She described her life with a self-deprecating humour that was infectious, while never denying the truth of her trauma. She had been married three times and had six children, none of whom spoke to her because of the way she had treated them down the years. She described the lies she had told, the one night stands she’d had. She said the low point in her life was when she ended up on the streets drinking cheap cider.

NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD

What made the difference? She stumbled into a church one night and heard the preacher telling the truth that there was nothing that could separate us from the love of God. It made her think. She went back to her squat and poured away the cider she had hidden. She fell off the wagon several times but the Holy Spirit had worked within her and she began to know the truth that she was loved, accepted and forgiven and so she battled on, finally putting her life back together until she had become this wonderfully rounded human being that I had met.

LIVING IN THE KINGDOM

That woman I believe was living in the kingdom of God, but she didn’t fit in with those we normally consider to be witnesses to the kingdom. This was what the Scribes and the Pharisees found so difficult to understand. When you’ve been brought up believing one set of truths, it’s difficult to abandon them and take on a new set but that’s what Jesus says has to happen, a very hard thing to do.

LOOK WITH FRESH EYES

And so in today’s Gospel Luke invites us to struggle with that call to let go of what we think the kingdom is about and learn how to see with fresh eyes. The Scribes and the Pharisees think it’s all about following rules and regulations. Jesus says it’s about the willingness to give up everything, family relationships, churchmanship in order to build a kingdom that lasts – and they don’t like the challenge. Maybe we need to learn the lesson that when we’re challenged by others that we have to struggle with that challenge rather than just disregard it because it doesn’t fit with our understanding.

WE NEED TO BE CHALLENGED

As church we’re called to be challenged by people to build the kingdom. People with vision that can’t be contained, free spirits who think outside the box, people who open wide the windows of the church and let the fresh air of the Holy Spirit flow freely in. We need to be challenged by people who free us from being a stale bureaucratic institution obsessed with numbers, property, rules and regulations, so we can become a Spirit-led church that talks more about the kingdom than heaven, hell or sin; a church that sees potential and isn’t obsessed with the past; a church which as Pope Francis says: is a field hospital for sinners, not a museum of saints. We all need hearts which beat with authentic love for every human being – no matter how broken, lost, be they young or old – so their stories can be heard.

TIME TO GROW THE KINGDOM

The challenge is there. Will we open up to it and allow the kingdom to grow in our midst? If we are searching for the Kingdom, then what is this Kingdom all about? I think the key word in understanding it is ‘relationship’. Our Christian tradition hangs or falls on the quality of relationship. We are called into a deep, intimate relationship with God. That depth of intimacy with God is God’s desire for each of us and that leads us into a quality of relationship with everything else as well. Our relationship with the world we live in, and with our brothers and sisters should have that same depth of intimacy.

NEW LIFE

Our hearts and minds are to be so caught up with God that we discover a new way of living where life is not about me and yet is profoundly about me, and my fulfilment. To live in that relationship, with the constant inner change and letting go that it demands is, I think, to be on the road to conversion, the metanoia which is at the heart of the gospels. So let’s not run away from the challenge the gospel gives us to be ready to build the Kingdom of God.