Growing the Kingdom inside out

There is a great story told about a man that maybe you have never heard of but has had an impact on the life of the Diocese of Caledonia, just for being who he was. What was  his name? Wilson Carlile. He was a priest in the Church of England and the founder of Church Army.  And therein lies the connection. Our Church Army can be traced back to him and the work that he did in England in the later half of the 19^th Century. But there is something that he said in his later years, after ministry had been entrusted to others, that has remained with me. While celebrating his 90^th birthday, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang said in his remarks at the party that the Chief had worked to turn the Church upside down. Immediately, the elderly gentleman retorted, “No sir! Not upside down! Inside out!”

We consider this week the only parables that are written in the Gospel of Mark (4.26-34). In a sense Jesus was working to turn people’s understanding of the kingdom inside out instead of upside down. Why the difference? Because turn the church upside down can be perceived as us trying to right the ship; fixing human structures in human strength while the other allows for God to work from the inside out, allowing God’s grace and strength to move and to make transformation happen. God’s work is often hidden and unseen, at least for a time because the life and the growth that happens within the kingdom is eventually seen and known.

And in that thought, the kingdom is essentially about 2 things: (1) the kingdom is about the rule of God in all life and (2) being in a place where God rules. Much of the Scriptures speak to us of the relationship that God has with us and how God is ruler and king. Learning to live within the rule of the King is a lifelong task that we do not finish until the day of Christ Jesus and is a task that is completed when God is finished renewing his creation (Philippians 1.6). We are learning to live into the life and the world that will exist when the kingdom is finally, totally here. We also need to recognize that throughout the Old Testament, the people of Israel had to be constantly reminded (as we need to be) that the whole world belongs to God and the he is the Lord of all creation. There is no where that we can go and nowhere that we can hide, because God is there with us. Even if we make the grave our bed or travel to the farthest parts of the sea, we remain in his presence (Psalm 139).

What God gives are not great gifts, great leadership or even amounts of gifts and greatness to people. God gives gifts and moments in which we can use and thus in the eyes of others become great and  our faith in God grows. Whether we exercise those gifts or become great people depends on how we are at offering ourselves to God that we might used of his kingdom and his purpose. As we are reminded by St. Paul, “neither he who sows nor he who waters is anything, but it is God who makes things grow.” (1 Corinthians 3:6+7) The great things of God and of the kingdom are not preceded by bold announcements and blaring trumpets. Like a seed, they begin in the darkness of the soil; the in the quiet and in the unseen but then, our time grow and spring forth into greatness and giftedness while the praise and the glory goes not the farmer, but to God.

Jesus is the sower and we are the seed he scatters. What we will be and how we will grow is not in our hands but in God’s... we are his planting and in his care. God will enable us to grow too, from the inside out.