Sermon 09.30.12 :: Subversive

There is a new administration, and it is neither Obama/Biden nor Romney/Ryan.  Since the first century, Christians have held the conviction that the Kingdom of God is a present reality.  The reign and rule of the Risen Christ transcends every president or king, every ideology or politic.  What does this Kingdom look like?  How do we combine the claims of this Kingdom with those of our society?  How do we live out the strange nature of God’s Kingdom while living amidst the norms of our present culture?  Through Mark’s gospel, we trace the strange traits of the Kingdom such as subversion, rejection, renewal, humility, love, and apocalyptic understanding.  Today we examine the subversive nature of the kingdom.

“There is hardly a detail in the gospel story that was not at the time (and still) overlooked because unlikely, dismissed because commonplace, and rejected because illegal.  But under the surface of conventionality and behind the scenes of probability, each was effectively inaugurating the kingdom:  illegitimate (as was supposed) conception, barnyard birth, Nazareth silence, Galilean secularity, Sabbath healings, Gethsemane prayers, criminal death, baptismal water, eucharistic bread and wine.  Subversion.”

                                                                                          -  Eugene Peterson

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New sermon posted at reliantchurch.org