at the heart of the Gospel
At the heart of Jesus’ gospel is the kingdom of God. This phrase sums up Jesus’ entire ministry and life’s work. The “kingdom of God” points to God’s active rule over human social relationships.
When we read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we see that every thought and saying of Jesus was directed toward one thing: the realization of God’s reign—marked by love, compassion, justice, and peace—within human society.
a vision of transformation
The kingdom of God, as Jesus preached it, envisions a profound transformation of both human beings and human institutions—social, political, economic, and religious—so that they express the character of a God of love. It brings together personal and social transformation.
Through metaphors and stories, Jesus described the kingdom as the work of a social and political movement inspired by divine love, restoring what he believed to be God’s intention for humanity from the beginning. Rather than longing for a divine restoration of political and religious power, Jesus painted a vision of God changing the world from within—by creating a new community bonded by egalitarian relationships.
Jesus took the long-awaited dream of a just and compassionate society and made it a living vision that could transform the world.
a vision is like a seed
A vision is like a seed planted in the hearts and minds of people. When it takes root and is nurtured, it can grow to produce astounding results. Jesus used this imagery for the kingdom of God.
He asked, “What is the kingdom of God like? It is like a mustard seed”—the smallest and seemingly most insignificant of seeds—“that someone took and tossed in the garden.”[1]
Some scholars note that in first-century Judaism, a mustard plant—really just a common weed—was forbidden in household vegetable gardens because it spread rapidly and disrupted order. In Jewish thought, order symbolized holiness, while disorder symbolized uncleanness. Rabbinical law forbade mixing certain plants in the same garden. So, when Jesus said someone threw a mustard seed into a garden, his audience understood he was sowing disorder and subverting rule-based holiness.
Like an invasive mustard plant in a tidy garden, the kingdom of God takes root in the world’s domination systems, spreading its subversive message even today.
the enduring domination system
Throughout history, nearly every society has favored an elite minority at the expense of the majority. For thousands of years, economic elites have rigged systems for their own prosperity and control. They extracted wealth from the sweat of slaves, peasants, and laborers, while contributing little to the common good. Social control was maintained through violence and military might, often with religious support. Such societies were patriarchal, with men dominating the lives of women and children, and they often favored one race, tribe, or ethnicity over others.
Biblical scholar Walter Wink (1935–2012) called these societies manifestations of an enduring “domination system” that has shaped human history since civilization arose in the ancient Near East. Wink described it this way:
It is characterized by unjust economic relations, oppressive political relations, biased race relations, patriarchal gender relations, hierarchical power relations, and the use of violence to maintain them all. No matter what shape the dominating system of the moment might take (from the ancient Near Eastern states to the Pax Romana to feudal Europe to communist state capitalism to modern market capitalism), the basic structure has persisted now for at least five thousand years, since the rise of the great conquest states of Mesopotamia around 3000 BCE.[2]
We see the domination system in kingdoms, empires, and dictatorships. Patriarchy has been enforced through customs and religion. Even democratic societies, when controlled by the wealthy and powerful, reproduce the same injustice: massive tax cuts for the rich, bloated military budgets, corporate welfare, vast prison systems, and cuts to social services for the poor are all signs of a corrupt domination system.
overcoming the domination system
Walter Wink argued that Jesus’ teachings were a prescription for dismantling the domination system of his time. The kingdom of God is an antidote to its injustices—a vision that turns the domination system upside down.
In God’s reign, domination values are reversed: the first shall be last and the last shall be first; the greatest will be servants; the powerful will be brought low and the lowly lifted up; the hungry will be fed and the rich sent away empty.
The kingdom belongs especially to the poor, the hungry, and the grieving because they long for its arrival. The rich, entrenched in the domination system, find it nearly impossible to enter.
Every act of resistance against unjust laws, every effort to transform oppressive structures for the common good, is a sign of the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed.
a people and a task
The kingdom of God is more than a vision—it calls forth a people inspired to transform society through small daily actions. “Kingdom people” lead radically different lives that challenge injustice and disturb the status quo. Their actions form a conspiracy that persistently prods the powers and principalities toward social transformation.
The kingdom of God thus involves a VISION, a PEOPLE, and a TASK. Continue reading
