Primary Scripture: Luke 17:20–21
Supporting Scriptures: Mark 1:14–15; Luke 4:16–21; Mark 10:42–45; Matthew 5:1–12; John 18:36

“The kingdom of God is among you.” — Luke 17:21

Introduction: What Did Jesus Actually Preach?

Ask many Christians what Jesus preached, and you may hear something like this:

“Believe in Jesus so you can go to heaven when you die.”

There is just one awkward problem.

That is not how the Gospels summarize Jesus’ message.

Mark gives us something considerably more disruptive:

“The kingdom of God has come near.”

Jesus preached the Kingdom of God.

Again and again.

But the word kingdom can mislead modern ears. We imagine castles, crowns, thrones, rulers, subjects.

Jesus lived in a world where kingdoms were anything but abstract.

Rome had conquered Palestine. Caesar claimed authority. Taxes flowed upward. Soldiers enforced imperial order. Crucifixion stood as Rome’s brutal warning against resistance.

And into that world Jesus announced:

Another kingdom is possible.

Not another empire with Jesus replacing Caesar on the throne.

Something far stranger.

A kingdom that undermines the very logic of domination.

A kingdom without domination.

A kingdom where the poor are blessed.

Where enemies are loved.

Where strangers become neighbors.

Where children become models of greatness.

Where leaders wash feet.

Where the first become last.

Where power becomes service.

Perhaps we might dare call it:

the Kingdom without a king.

I. Jesus Announced an Alternative World

Historical Jesus scholarship has helped Christianity recover something churches sometimes spiritualized away.

Jesus was a first-century Jewish teacher living under Roman occupation.

When he proclaimed God’s Kingdom, his listeners did not hear merely:

“Someday your soul will go somewhere nice after you die.”

They heard a claim about how the world should be ordered.

New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan has repeatedly emphasized the social and political implications of Jesus’ proclamation of God’s Kingdom.

The contrast was unavoidable.

Rome proclaimed Caesar’s order.

Jesus proclaimed God’s order.

Rome’s peace came through victory.

Jesus said:

“Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Rome honored wealth and status.

Jesus said:

“Blessed are you who are poor.”

Rome ruled through hierarchy.

Jesus told his disciples:

“The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them… But it shall not be so among you.”

Those words may be among the most politically explosive Jesus ever spoke:

“It shall not be so among you.”

Empire operates one way.

You will operate another.

II. Empire Is More Than Rome

Empire is not simply an ancient government.

Empire is a logic.

Empire says:

There must always be somebody on top.

There must always be somebody underneath.

There must always be insiders.

There must always be outsiders.

There must always be winners.

There must always be losers.

There must always be people considered more valuable than others.

Empire whispers:

Dominate before you are dominated.

Jesus proposes another possibility.

Serve.

Forgive.

Share.

Welcome.

Heal.

Love.

This is why the Kingdom cannot simply mean replacing Caesar with a Christian Caesar.

If Christians seize Caesar’s throne and behave exactly like Caesar, Caesar has won.

We have simply baptized empire.

III. The Temptation Jesus Refused

Remember the temptation story.

The devil shows Jesus:

“all the kingdoms of the world.”

And offers them to him.

Think about the temptation.

Jesus could supposedly possess political power.

He could command.

Control.

Rule.

Perhaps even accomplish good things through domination.

But Jesus refuses.

That refusal matters.

Jesus does not defeat empire by becoming a better emperor.

He creates an alternative community.

Tables replace thrones.

Bread replaces swords.

Servants replace rulers.

Neighbors replace enemies.

And love replaces domination.

IV. The Kingdom Is Among You

Then comes the remarkable saying in Luke:

“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation… behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”

Many contemporary translations render the final phrase:

“The kingdom of God is among you.”

That translation fits the social character of Jesus’ proclamation particularly well.

The Kingdom is not merely an invisible spiritual feeling hiding inside individual hearts.

It happens between people.

The Kingdom happens when relationships are reorganized around compassion rather than domination.

When hungry people eat—

the Kingdom happens.

When enemies reconcile—

the Kingdom happens.

When rejected people find a table—

the Kingdom happens.

When debts are forgiven—

the Kingdom happens.

When someone considered worthless discovers their dignity—

the Kingdom happens.

The Kingdom is not merely somewhere we go.

It is something that happens among us.

V. Caputo: The Kingdom as Event

Here the radical theology of John D. Caputo becomes especially helpful.

Caputo describes God not primarily as a supernatural sovereign controlling history, but in terms of event, call, promise, and insistence.

God insists.

But God does not coerce.

The Kingdom therefore does not arrive like an invading army.

It arrives as a call.

Justice calls.

Mercy calls.

Hospitality calls.

Peace calls.

The stranger calls.

The hungry person calls.

The Earth itself calls.

But the call possesses no army.

Love cannot force itself upon us without ceasing to be love.

So the Kingdom waits for bodies willing to embody it.

God insists.

We exist.

The call becomes flesh through human response.

VI. The Weakness of God

This is what Caputo provocatively calls the weakness of God.

Traditional theology often imagines divine power according to Caesar’s definition of power:

the ability to make things happen by force.

But look at Jesus.

Born among animals.

Living among peasants.

Eating with outcasts.

Touching untouchables.

Entering Jerusalem on a donkey.

Washing feet.

Dying upon an imperial cross.

Where exactly is omnipotence supposed to be hiding?

Perhaps Christianity has spent centuries trying to make Jesus look like Caesar when the Gospel was trying to make Caesar look ridiculous.

The power revealed in Jesus is different.

Not coercion.

Invitation.

Not domination.

Solidarity.

Not control.

Love.

VII. Whitehead and Persuasive Power

Process theology reaches a similar conclusion.

Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead rejected the idea that God’s relationship with creation should be understood primarily through coercive control.

God works persuasively.

Creation possesses genuine freedom.

God calls each moment toward richer possibilities of beauty, relationship and life.

This means divine action may look less like supernatural interruption and more like possibility continually offered.

Perhaps grace is the universe’s persistent invitation:

There is another way.

Violence happened yesterday.

There is still another way today.

You failed yesterday.

There is still another way today.

Humanity has hated for centuries.

There is still another way.

Empire says:

Nothing will ever change.

God whispers:

Something else remains possible.

That whisper is the Kingdom.

VIII. Howard Thurman and the Religion of Jesus

The great Black theologian and mystic Howard Thurman understood Jesus from the underside of history.

In Jesus and the Disinherited, Thurman emphasized that Jesus belonged to an oppressed people living under imperial domination.

Jesus’ teachings therefore sound different when heard from the margins.

“Love your enemies” is not sentimental niceness.

It is resistance to allowing the oppressor to determine who you become.

Empire can imprison your body.

It must not colonize your soul.

Hatred allows the enemy to reproduce themselves inside you.

Jesus offers another freedom:

refuse to become what wounded you.

That is not passive submission.

It is spiritual rebellion.

IX. Liberation Theology: God Has a Location

Liberation theologians pushed Christianity even further.

Gustavo Gutiérrez helped articulate what became known as the preferential option for the poor.

This does not mean God dislikes wealthy people.

It means that when society is organized unjustly, neutrality favors those already possessing power.

If a house is burning, firefighters do not divide the water equally among every house on the street.

They direct attention toward the one on fire.

Likewise, biblical justice repeatedly directs attention toward widows, orphans, immigrants, debtors, prisoners and poor people.

Why?

Because these are precisely the people empire teaches us not to see.

The Kingdom begins by seeing them.

X. Religious Pluralism and the Kingdom

But if the Kingdom is an event of justice, mercy, compassion and liberation, then Christians must face another beautiful possibility:

The Kingdom may be happening outside Christianity.

Jesus himself hints at this.

The hero of one of his most famous stories is a Samaritan—a religious outsider.

The Samaritan possesses the wrong religious identity according to Jesus’ audience.

Yet he does the right thing.

He shows mercy.

Jesus does not ask:

“Did the Samaritan believe the correct doctrine?”

He asks:

“Which of these three was a neighbor?”

The answer is the one who showed mercy.

That should humble every religion.

Whenever a Muslim feeds hungry people—

the Kingdom may be happening.

Whenever a Buddhist practices radical compassion—

the Kingdom may be happening.

Whenever a Jew pursues justice—

the Kingdom may be happening.

Whenever a Hindu recognizes sacred dignity in another—

the Kingdom may be happening.

Whenever a Pagan protects the Earth—

the Kingdom may be happening.

Whenever an atheist defends human dignity—

the Kingdom may be happening.

The Kingdom is larger than Christianity.

Perhaps Christianity exists to serve the Kingdom, not own it.

XI. Christianity Must Choose Between Jesus and Empire

This brings us to an uncomfortable truth.

Christianity has frequently betrayed Jesus by choosing empire.

Christians have blessed armies.

Defended slavery.

Participated in colonialism.

Persecuted religious minorities.

Marginalized LGBTQ people.

Accumulated extraordinary wealth.

Protected institutions instead of victims.

Christian symbols have sometimes stood beside systems Jesus would have confronted.

We cannot erase that history.

Nor should we pretend every Christian participated equally in it; Christian history also contains abolitionists, peacemakers, mystics, reformers, caregivers and martyrs who resisted domination.

But repentance requires truth.

Christianity does not become faithful by pretending it has never failed.

Christianity becomes faithful by hearing Jesus again:

“It shall not be so among you.”

XII. What Does the Kingdom Look Like Today?

Perhaps the Kingdom looks surprisingly ordinary.

A community refrigerator filled with food.

Someone visiting a prisoner.

A church welcoming the person other churches rejected.

A family opening its home.

A protest against injustice.

A caregiver sitting beside someone who cannot remember their name.

A garden planted on abandoned land.

Someone choosing reconciliation instead of revenge.

People protecting a threatened neighbor.

A meal where everyone has enough.

None of these looks like Caesar.

There are no trumpets.

No armies.

No throne.

Just people helping other people live.

And perhaps that is precisely the point.

XIII. A Fuller Life for Everyone

Jesus says in John:

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

That gives us a beautiful test for theology.

Does our theology produce fuller life?

Does it increase compassion?

Does it deepen justice?

Does it enlarge hospitality?

Does it protect vulnerable people?

Does it heal relationships?

Does it help creation flourish?

If our religion continually produces fear, domination, exclusion and misery, perhaps something has gone terribly wrong.

The Kingdom moves toward life.

Not merely life after death.

Life before death.

Bread.

Dignity.

Belonging.

Freedom.

Beauty.

Relationship.

Meaning.

A fuller life for everyone.

Conclusion: Stop Waiting for the Kingdom

Perhaps we have misunderstood Jesus.

We keep waiting for God to establish the Kingdom.

Maybe the Kingdom is waiting for us.

Not because human beings replace God.

But because divine possibility seeks human participation.

God does not build the Kingdom through domination.

God calls.

God insists.

God promises.

And we respond.

So when someone is hungry—

the Kingdom calls.

When someone is rejected—

the Kingdom calls.

When racism dehumanizes—

the Kingdom calls.

When war destroys—

the Kingdom calls.

When the Earth groans—

the Kingdom calls.

When religion excludes—

the Kingdom calls.

When loneliness overwhelms—

the Kingdom calls.

And whenever somebody answers,

“Here I am,”

the future breaks into the present.

A table appears where there was a wall.

Bread appears where there was hunger.

Welcome appears where there was rejection.

Forgiveness appears where there was hatred.

Hope appears where there was despair.

And suddenly Jesus’ strange words make sense:

“The kingdom of God is among you.”

Not above us waiting to descend.

Not merely beyond death waiting to receive us.

Among us.

Fragile.

Unfinished.

Insistent.

Waiting to become flesh.

So perhaps Christianity’s task is not to conquer the world for God.

God needs no empire.

Our task is far more beautiful:

Make room for what love is trying to become.

Live simply.

Love boldly.

Resist domination.

Welcome the stranger.

Feed people.

Protect the vulnerable.

Forgive courageously.

Build longer tables.

And wherever empire says,

“There is no alternative,”

answer with the Gospel:

“The Kingdom of God has come near.”

Another world remains possible.

Another way of being human remains possible.

A fuller life for everyone remains possible.

God insists.

May we answer.

Amen.