MALKUT

(go to 1:25 in this video)

Re-reading Joseph Ratzinger’s magnificent Jesus of Nazareth, I am struck by his discussion of the Kingdom of God. I’d long worried about one aspect of it: the fact that in English it is called the Kingdom but in Latin regnum and in French règne, which means reign or kingship. It is not a place, not even in Heaven or in the hereafter. In Heaven, we may hope and trust, God’s kingship, His reign, will be complete, thus making Heaven His kingdom; but meanwhile, there is the regnum Dei, the kingship or reign of God.

Jesus talks about it in varied and often startling ways, of which (says JR) the common denominator is Christocentric: for Israel, and from Jesus on for everyone, the regnum Dei is: following him. In the Sermon on the Mount, which is the new Torah – the Messiah’s Torah --, he keeps saying “You have heard it said . . . but I say unto you . . .” He does not abrogate the law of Moses but “fulfils” it: in him it has reached its full range and weight. He is the embodiment of God’s Law, the incarnation of it.

What he has done is to internalise the Law. At one point he says, “The Kingdom of God has come upon you.” (Mt 12:28) In other words, it is present to his hearers, they can enter it at that moment. How? That depends. You have to fulfil the law and commandments with the inner identification with him that the Sermon suggests; and sometimes you have to do something more in your own individual case. The rich young man kept all the commandments, yet he felt shut out of that regnum. So Jesus said to him, “Go, sell everything you have, and then come and follow me.” Not, sell your stuff and go to Temple regularly, or, sell your stuff and pray more; no, sell it and “follow me”.

For us, JR suggests, the true regnum accessible in this life is described by Paul in his letter to the Galatians: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:.” (Gal. 2:20) In other words, we have a lot of baggage to get rid of. Which is sometimes a pleasure: many of us have moments of wishing we could see less of ourselves. We need to become hollow, like a water-pipe or a pen. Hollow in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit, like John the Baptist (Lk. 1:15) . And not just for the Spirit to fill us and remain in us: hollow at both ends, for the Spirit to flow through us to reach others. (What others? Any and all: see the Samaritan.)

Lent, as Sr Emmanuelle Billoteau wrote, means learning to stop taking the relative for the absolute, the partially important for the absolutely important. That’s what turning away from idols boils down to. When we do so – whether by fasting, or seeing our cell phone for what it is (and no more: see video, above), or discerning the relative importance of the next board meeting --, and then, set free, internalise not only the teaching of Christ but the person of Christ; then we are in the basileia, the malkut, the regnum, the kingdom, and it is in us.

After that, Heaven is simply a change of dimension, like going from caterpillar to butterfly.