Mindfulness And The Kingdom Of God
Thursday, December 1, 2016 20:09
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Mindfulness and the kingdom of God? Really? Well, yes. Let me explain.
The kingdom of God is a Biblical concept, in particular, a New Testament one. The phrase, the ‘kingdom of God’, does not appear as such in the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament) but you will find it in many, many places in the New Testament.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, in its article on the kingdom of God, explains that the kingdom of God means not so much a goal to be attained or a place – although those meanings are by no means excluded – it is rather a ‘tone of mind’ and an ‘influence which must permeate [our] minds’ if we would be one with the Divine Life and attain to its ideals. The kingdom of God refers to the rule or reign – the sovereignty – of God in our hearts and minds. The kingdom of God is a past, present and future reality all at the same time. It’s a very powerful concept, full of meaning and beauty and wonder.
The Bible says that the kingdom of God is within [or among] us (Lk 17:21). Who or what is God? Well, God is love (1 Jn 4:8) and God is Spirit (Jn 4:24). If you think God is a giant man, some supra-personal being with a penis – sorry to be crude – then you are horribly mistaken. God is love and God is spirit. God is reality, truth and life in their most absolute, infinite and eternal sense. God is pure Be-ing, and we have our be-ing-nessin God. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28).
The kingdom of God – also referred to in Matthew’s Gospel as the ‘kingdom of heaven’ – is the realm of divine ideas, producing their expression in us and others as the fulfilment of the nature of the Divine. The kingdom is a ‘heavenly’ one – that is, one of ideas, ideals, values and things not-of-this-world. The kingdom is an ideal state of society, an ideal way of being and living – our highest good.
In the classic book The Mission and Message of Jesus (New York: E P Dutton and Co, 1938), on pages 36-37, the authors H D A Major, T W Manson and C J Wright – all of them eminent scholars and theologians – write:
‘For Jesus the Kingdom was not objective, but subjective. Its sphere was in the minds and hearts and souls of men. Where God reigns in a human personality, there the Kingdom of God has come on earth, and it is for this kind of advance of the Kingdom that Jesus taught His disciples to pray.’
Now, if you have trouble with the word ‘God’, then substitute for it words such as life, truth and love – in fact, anything representing the highest good. And if you have a problem with the word ‘kingdom’, then substitute for it words such as ‘state of mind’, ‘presence’ and ‘positive influence and power’. It’s not the word or phrase that matters but rather the reality behind the word or phrase. Never forget that.
The Reformed Church minister Dr Norman Vincent Peale [pictured right], in his book The Tough-Minded Optimist (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1961), on page 66 of the Fireside edition, writes:
‘… The Kingdom of God is a powerful recreative force deep down in your personality waiting to be summoned forth. When you do summon it and put it to work in your life you will live with so much power that nothing can really upset you again, at least not to the point of defeating you.’
Dr Peale often wrote and spoke about the kingdom of God. And why not? After all, it was the very heart of Jesus’ teachings. Peale would often say, ‘All of God’s values of strength, peace, health, and happiness are built into you. All of the riches of God’s great Kingdom are potentially resident in your mind. Let them operate freely. Release them into abundance.’ In his book The Power of Positive Thinking (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1952), on page 62, Peale, wrote in reference to the kingdom of God that we have ‘within our minds and personalities all the potential powers and ability we need for constructive living’. Got the idea?
Yes, Jesus’ parables were all about the kingdom of God. Take, for example, this one. ‘First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens’ (Mk 4:28). The kingdom of God is like that, said Jesus. Then there’s this parable. ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches’ (Mt 13: 31-32). Now, thatis the kingdom of God in action and expression. The kingdom starts with an idea and a presence – the Presence – and it grows and grows.
Mindfulness is a lot like the kingdom of God. It is a presence – a watchful, mindful presence of the content, both internal and external, of the action of the present moment from one such moment to the next. Mindfulness is inthis world, but not of this world. It is a state of power and omnipresence. It is a state of pure be-ing-ness. Mindfulness can be secular or religious, but if it is divorced from the ideals to which I have referred it is an abomination. It is something to be shunned.
A mustard tree
Mindfulness is not inherently Christian, but neither is the kingdom of God. Did you hear that? Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian, and he taught the idea of the kingdom of God to Jews and to some who were not Jews. However, you don’t need to be a Jew, or belong to any religion for that matter, to experience the reality of what the Bible refers to as the kingdom of God. You don’t even need to believe in God to experience the kingdom. Wow, how’s that for heresy! But it’s true. My authority for saying that is the life, ministry and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. If you are seeking love, life, truth, peace, health and happiness, then the kingdom of God is for you – and is yours, right now!
I am firmly of the view that what I have said above is 100 per cent Biblical, but I suspect that it is still more than enough to give Christian fundamentalists apoplexy. Never mind. I don’t write for them. I don’t truck with them and they don’t truck with me. I have been a fierce and tireless opponent of religious bigotry and narrow-mindedness all my life, and I am not about to stop now. Too many so-called Christians preach a ‘gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ’ – their commonly used expression – which, with its butcher-shop theology, is about as far removed from the ‘gospel of God’ (cf Mt 1:14) proclaimed by Jesus as you can get. They have a religion about Jesus as opposed to the religion of Jesus. The latter is the religion Jesus taught and by which he lived and died. That is the true Christianity.
When you come to experience the fullness of life in a truly selfless, self-sacrificing way – living deeply and mindfully, and loving and growing better and better with each passing day – you are living in the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is a way of being and living – a state and tone of mind. So is mindfulness. Both are in the world but not of the world. Both can be yours – right now!
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Source: http://ianellis-jones.blogspot.com/2016/12/mindfulness-and-kingdom-of-god.html
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