The Gospel on the Move: Kingdom
We Do Not Build the Kingdom
Acts 3:12-19
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. April 18th, 2021
The Kingdom of God is not up to us. Sometimes we make it seem like it is. I have heard preachers and read books that make it sound as if the fate of the Kingdom of God rests in the hands of the Church. And while God is certainly very helpful, whatever the Kingdom is it is something very tangible. The Kingdom of God may be the vast number of souls that are saved through the work of the Church. The Kingdom of God may be a just social order brought about by the political interventions of Christians. The Kingdom is, in the end, something that we are called to build. People will say that: “build the kingdom.” And it really grates me.
It grates me because you will never find a single line of scripture that says we are called to build the Kingdom of God. But what are we told? We are told the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, that though it is the smallest of seeds yet it grows to one of the largest of trees. And when it is grown the birds find rest in its branches. What else? The Kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field. A man discovers the treasure, covers it up, and sells all he has to buy that field. What else? The Kingdom of God is like leaven in dough. What else? The Kingdom of God is among us. And what else? The Kingdom of God is something we are called to seek, and the rest will be added onto us.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, Jesus tells us, for theirs is the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is not in any way, shape, or form, dependent on us. It is not ours to build. But the Kingdom of God is a matter of grace. The Kingdom is God’s gracious gift to us, that grows on its own, that may be discovered, and loved, and rejoiced over. We aren’t called to build it, we are called to find it and to celebrate it and to watch it grow.
The Apostles do not seek to build the Kingdom of God. How could they? They know very well that the Kingdom is something Jesus makes happen, not themselves. But they do seek to find it, and to celebrate it. This morning Peter is preaching to a crowd in the Temple. He and John arrived in the Temple at three in the afternoon to pray. At the gate was a man who had been lame from birth. His friends would set him in the gate to beg for alms. When he begged Peter and John for alms, Peter confessed that he did not have any money. But what he did have was the powerful name of Jesus, and in that name he healed the crippled man.
The man could not help but leap and jump for joy. Just imagine being able to jump for the first time! He praised God loudly and the crowds watched him in amazement, because they recognized him as the one who had begged in the gate. This gave Peter an opportunity to preach the Gospel.
“You Israelites,” he proclaimed, “why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?” Peter is emphatic that the power to heal, the power to bring forgiveness, the power to save, is not a human power. Peter did not possess the ability to heal. But Christ chose to heal through his words. Peter does not possess the ability to save. But he has the words of salvation, because he is a witness to the risen Lord.
In this healing we have a sign of the Kingdom come. The lame walk. But it is not because Peter put his power or his piety to work. He is very quick to throw that suggestion aside. It’s the first thing he says! The Kingdom does not come by his power or worthiness. The Kingdom comes by the invocation of the name of Jesus Christ. It is Jesus who brings the Kingdom. It is for us to discover it.
It is also significant, I think, that Peter and John do not go out searching for people to heal. They’re not roaming the streets of Jerusalem looking for all the beggars. Instead they are given opportunity. They go to worship God, and there is a man who is in need. God is present. The Kingdom is among them. And at the invocation of Jesus there is healing. There was no plan. There was no grand program. There was the chance encounter. The moment of grace. The gratuitous gift. The beggar asked, and God more than he could have ever hoped.
When we mistake the Kingdom of God as something God charges us to build, then we hazard missing out on the grace God freely gives. The apostles aren’t Kingdom building, they’re Kingdom proclaiming and Kingdom discovering and Kingdom celebrating. And the Church’s mission needs to remain that way. We need to proclaim, discover, and celebrate the Kingdom. Because God freely gives to all who ask.
I’ve seen both styles firsthand. I was part of one ministry that called us to “evaluate needs” and let me tell you that is an awkward position to be in. That is a position of judgment. It creates distrust. But we need to evaluate need because our resources are limited, and we are called to be judicious in distributing them. And they are, in the end, our resources, and it is up to us to disperse them, and we hope that in meeting the evaluated needs the kingdom is being built. But I’ve also seen ministry that was based on not the assumption of need but simply on friendship and celebration. People from different walks of life simply joining together in their common love of Jesus. Welcoming others to celebrate with them. Joining in a common meal, helping out as their friends needed help. And I have to think the latter was a greater image of the Kingdom than the former.
It is not by Peter’s own power that the lame man walks. It is by the power of God. He does not possess the ability to build much of anything. But he can witness to the gracious love of God, the God mighty to save, whose good pleasure it is to give us the Kingdom.