Kindom Filled Spoons

 

It is that time of year when lectionary readings double-down on exploring God’s kindom. This is the focus given to us from now through the end of November.

 

The section of Luke we hear this morning is one parable in a string of parables, teachings, and sayings that follow a query by the Pharisees in Luke 27:20: Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and Jesus answered, “the kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”

 

Prof. Eric Barreto, at Princeton Theological Seminary, describes this passage as Luke’s eschatological statement. Eschatology being theology concerned with death, judgement, final destination, end of time. Before illustrating with parables, teachings, and sayings, Luke’s Gospel directly states Jesus’ understanding of God’s kindom. What follows in the text relates back to this statement. The parable we heard as today’s Gospel is understood through Luke 27: 20. Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees is that God’s kindom is not about time and is not something seen, rather it is experienced and felt. The kingdom of God is among you. Kindom is discernable where the faithful gather. Another translation is that Jesus promises that the kingdom will be “within you,’ that the kingdom reigns in the hearts of believers who, in their sojourn through this tattered world, bring God’s life in their wake.

 

When you contemplate the end of earthly life, your bodily death, and contemplate life-after, is it heaven and hell thinking? Is it individual or communal? Is it kindom oriented? Is it a realized fulfilment of God’s vision of the wholeness of covenant and creation?

Jesus’ parables, teachings, and sayings challenge these assumptions and beliefs. Jesus is quite adamant that God’s kindom is present, working, among us, and in us. Jesus’ concern and focus is not about later. Kindom is immediate.

 

The allegory of the spoons is a tale told in a variety of versions across cultures. The tale goes this way:

Once upon a time, a person approached God and asked to know what heaven and hell are like. God took the person to two doors. Behind the first door was a room with a large round table surrounded by chairs. In the centre of the table was a large tureen of soup which smelled delicious. Sitting around the table were a group of unhappy, frustrated, and angry people. They looked pale and sickly. Each person had a long-handled spoon which they dipped into the soup, but because the spoon was longer than their arm, they could not get the soup to their mouths. They were starving. God said to the person, “This is hell.”

 

Behind the second door was a room that appeared almost the same as the previous one. There was a large round table with a great tureen of soup in the middle. It smelled delicious. Gathered round the table were a group of happy, talking, and laughing people.  They looked well nourished and content. Each person had a long-handled spoon which they dipped into the soup, and because it was too long to feed themselves, they fed the person on the other side of the table. In the sharing of food and feeding the other, the kindom of heaven was present.

 

I tell this parable because during fellowship hour you are invited to gather at a table. At the centre of the table is an abundance of natural items and paint. There is a spoon for everyone!

In worship we practice how Jesus prefaces today’s parable, a need for us to pray always and not to lose heart.

Through the character of the judge, we know, that Jesus knows, that we know, that we live in a broken system of justice. The naming of a broken system opens us to offer compassion so God can bring healing; in bringing the kindom that is within us, to our current place, there is a chance- a hope for wholeness in the world.

The parable of the long-handled spoon is one that need not wait until life-after, but be the way a community is in the world. Feeding – nourishing everyone in the room, in the community’s proximity. Long handled spoons reach a long way.

The wooden spoons collected over the past few weeks, are long handled and are an immediate action of gratitude to share spoonfuls of joy and abundance. Together we present hope through a Spirit-spiced folk art exercise. Our thanksgiving, our persistent prayer, our persistent prayers for justice, our faithfulness in community prayer, changes our hearts and our living. Although injustice prevails, within the brokenness we hold to a rule of faith, we persevere in hope, compassion, and gratitude – persistence until all is whole.

Folk art brings our persistent prayer, our community heart, into a broken world; where for a moment – a kindom moment, the world’s perceptions, biases, brokenness, is interrupted by the art. Folk art is justice work. Like our arpillera it signifies inclusion, imperfection, justice, challenge, brokenness, hope, possibility – it describes a parable of the kindom of God without words.

Around the gathered table each of us is asked to fill a spoon with gratitude – God’s abundance, messages and morsels of bread for the hungry. Our gratitude spoons will be tied outside on the maple tree in the front yard, sharing a kindom perspective with passersby.  Our gratitude, stirring the air with a prayer for the wholeness – the fullness- of the world.

 

Luke’s text asks: And when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth.

Yes – as long as there are communities who persistently pray and do not loss heart; who continue to live the kindom that is within, and through present means share the persistent prayer and hope within a broken system of justice. Stirring the air  - stirring peoples’ hearts- stirring change. Once again, quoting Prof. Eric Barreto: Perhaps this is precisely the kind of faith Jesus wonders if he will find on his return – a faith that demands justice in a world coursing with injustice, a faith that persists in seeking life even in systems seemingly ruled by the forces of death, a faith that looks to God’s promises and lives as if they will be fulfilled today.

 

To the end of chapter 18, Luke’s gospel persists in faith that the kindom, God’s promises can be fulfilled today by the way the community lives. There is an emphasis of living humility in contrast to self-righteousness and self-satisfaction: a parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector and being humble before God, a teaching of letting the children come, a teaching on the question of what must I do to inherit eternal life, with a challenge to sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor.

 

This kindom is within us and works through us, and rests in a faith and hope in the words Luke ends this section with. Jesus states: What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.

 

And one last piece ends the chapter. The disciples – Peter – asks: look, we have left our homes and followed you.

Jesus’ response, truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.

 

In this age and in the age to come – faith looks to God’s promises and lives as if they will be fulfilled today.

Today I am fed and will be fed through eating with you Jesus’ community meal, where we pray an eschatological statement, kindom words: by your Spirit strengthen us to serve all in need and to give ourselves away as bread for the hungry.  May this be so. Amen.