A republican on the Kingdom of God

It is time to rethink imagery in modern terms

It has always troubled me. The thought that I should give honour to a king is not something to which I have ever felt disposed or understood the need for. When you probe it further, the notion of trying to describe God as a king has always struck me as contradictory - a case of a God with clay feet.

My notions of kingship and monarchy are drawn from my experience of our own monarchist system. In that context the (self) chosen one is endowed with great wealth and privilege, set apart and the dispenser, albeit benignly, of patronage, cut down to size by earlier revolutions and uprisings to be an untouchable, largely unchangeable symbol of neutered power. Is this really an image or even a metaphor of our God? Well not mine!

Surely we can do better today than the epithet 'Christ the King'. But let's get something straight right up front. This is not some heretical push that tries to put mankind on an equal footing with the almighty. Nor is it a case of refusing to bend the knee and recognise in humility, one's puny insignificance in the face of the creator. Rather it is a genuine search for a way to speak of, and by so doing to ever so faintly describe our Christian God. To have the courage to try to move beyond anthropomorphic notions of God, which have limited value in comprehending the divine and often, in fact, hinder adult faith.

This can be a daunting prospect when one contemplates the kingly references that dot the scriptures and our common prayers. "Your kingdom come….my kingdom is not of this world…and…his kingdom will have no end", represent a pretty intimidating array of monarchical references. Essentially however references to the "Kingdom of God" are drawn from the synoptic gospels, principally Matthew and tap Old Testament conceptions of the Kingdom of Yahweh as universal, everlasting power, glory and splendour. The term is comparatively rare in other New Testament books - an implicit recognition of the difficulty the concept and its historical Jewish antecedents had for the Greek or gentile mind.

To the Jewish reader, however, those references to earlier literature were probably readily understandable. The coming of the kingdom was synonymous with the execution of the will of God. But Christ was intent on moving beyond that thinking, notwithstanding his own acknowledgment in response to Pilate that "Yes, I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this." In conjunction with this statement he clarifies that his kingdom is not of this world.

Matthew says that unless we become like little children we will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This is a proposition that we have not hesitated to de-construct in order to understand what is meant by becoming 'like little children'. So why should we be reluctant to seek a contemporary and meaningful interpretation of the other factor in this equation - what is meant by the 'Kingdom' of Heaven or the 'Kingdom of God'? It is clear that to really plumb the meaning we need to go beyond the literal sense of the words in each case.

In approaching this task we can be guided by the dictum: God is Love. Indeed some have asserted that the reign of God is the reign of Love; that the affirmation "Thy Kingdom come" is akin to saying "Let thy Love come". To the modern mind these statements have a decidedly different meaning. They move beyond a material concept of kingship to one that is intangible and conceptual, but all the more powerful for not being limited by the baggage that accompanies the monarchic terms.

Perhaps the most insistent references to the kingship of Jesus come in the liturgy for the feast of Christ the King, specifically the Preface of Christ the King. Speaking of Christ as priest and king, it says of the latter: "As king he claims dominion over all creation, that he may present to you, his almighty Father, an eternal and universal kingdom: a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace". This tract while recognising the supremacy of God over all creation, appears almost to contradict the statement of Jesus that his kingdom is not of this world. It would be just as meaningful, in fact more so in today's world, to speak of 'a community' that has these attributes.

While Vatican II, in its document on the Church in the Modern World, stated that "on this earth that kingdom is already present in mystery", perhaps it is time to rethink the language as a way of demystifying the message. Kingdom is not a term that has relevance or connection in today's world. In contemplating the mystery of our God, notions of King and Kingdom are unhelpful and we can and should go beyond them, because they inhibit a deeper, more meaningful understanding. This applies notwithstanding that Jesus described himself to Pilate as a King. He also invoked many other images and personae: I am the Good Shepherd; I am the Vine. Each and all of these cannot be taken literally. Each and all present us with the challenge of trying to understand what is meant by their invocation.

The danger of this type of language is that its literalness mires us in perspectives and concepts that actually limit our God and potentially limit us. Quite apart from the baggage that kingship carries in human history, it is unfortunately true that the concept of Christ as king has tended to feed a view of Church as hierarchical and imperial. Such images are unhelpful because they are theologically misplaced and irrelevant to a pilgrim Church struggling for relevance in a 21st century world. Not that this seems to deter those who hanker for a resurgence of the Church triumphant, focussed on hierarchy, haughty swagger and imperious gaze - monarchical in form and fashion.

However you describe it, we appear to have drifted some way from the humbler emphasis of the pilgrim people of God that infused Vatican II. It is ultimately the community of the pilgrim people of God, who ponder their insignificance in the vastness of space and the grandeur of the creation, who will gather around when the lord comes again. To fence it in with notions of kingdoms and monarchs is to limit the unknowable by ascribing imperfect frameworks drawn from earlier times.

But if we are to invoke human constructs then perhaps we can look to another of the great feasts of the Church to reinvent our theology and thinking. If Christ the King represents the apogee of the monarchical view of God and creation, then Pentecost has the potential to be seen as the great feast of the demos, the people gathered together. For it was at Pentecost that the spirit was given freely to all. There is a real sense of an empowered community, drawing strength from its collective consultation. In one sense it is possible to think of Pentecost as the democratisation of God - the sharing of powers and gifts among all.

Pentecost is republican in that it accepts people as they are and it draws strength from the people gathered together. It acknowledges the diversity of peoples. It is egalitarian. It is open and facilitates participation amongst believers. It is a model of collegiality. Sadly these are characteristics much in need of reinstatement across the Australian and the universal Church.

Pentecost speaks more the sentiment of a republic of God than a kingdom of God. This is not in any way to 'bring God back to the pack" or to seek to cut God down to size. Rather it is recognition that we have a God who wants us to have life to the full, who shared our own life to give us the opportunity. It was God who reached out and became part of the human community, who emphasises the innate value of every member of humankind. These are concepts that go far deeper than arid templates of kingship and approaches to God that merely replicate the sense of obligation that characterised subjects in kingdoms past. These are concepts that stem from conscious deliberate decisions to be open to God in our lives.

Biblical theology is essentially about the total availability of God. Pentecost tells us that our God is present with us in our everyday lives. As American theologian Richard Rohr puts it, the mutual relationship between us and God is the Holy Spirit. Rohr also suggests that "God comes to us disguised as our lives". Here is a theological framework that speaks to humanity in terms that engage with life as it confronts us all. The church risks failing in its fundamental missionary responsibility if it does not have the courage to move on from out-dated interpretative models, such as king and kingdom, and re-package its message, liturgy and theology.

It is time we rethought the need for a feast of Christ the King!

Terry Fewtrell is a Canberra layman and convenor of the Australian Republican Movement in the ACT.