What is the Kingdom of God?
>> Friday, July 31, 2009
When a minister goes on vacation, where to go to church while out of town is not always one of his or her first considerations. It’s a bit like what we used to call “a busman’s holiday.” I’ll admit that I often don’t seek a church in which to worship while I’m out of town. But my present parish identified two consecutive Sundays each summer as “Reach Out” Sundays – Sundays where we’re encouraged to worship with other Christians in different settings. (The alternate reason we do this is that these two Sundays coincide with the county fair, and so many of our parishioners are involved there that staging a worship service back home is awkward.)
Dotti and I had planned our two weeks of vacation in northwestern lower Michigan, a return trip to an area we had visited two years earlier, and left early on Monday morning of the first week. We arrived safely, and soon began our exploration. Fairly early that first week, Dotti spotted a sign along a roadside that read: “Historic Greensky Hill Native American United Methodist Church” with an arrow pointing north. 
We decided to explore. The church was found down a dirt drive about a quarter mile through a wooded area. The sign at the entrance to the dirt drive listed the Sundy worship time as 9:00 a.m., and we decided we’d return.
The sanctuary was a small six-pew-deep hewn-log meeting house. I compulsively scanned the order of worship listed in the bulletin handed to us when we were seated. That is where I learned that the pastor was in the midst of a series called “What is the Kingdom of God?” The printed order of worship got interesting when I noticed that several components of this worship were not in English, but rather in Ojibwa. I also discovered that beside me in the pew was a loose-leaf Ojibwa hymnal, from which we would sing one of our hymns.
Time afforded me a chance to look around at the congregation before the service began. The congregation was diverse, both ethnically and economically. But mostly, I noticed that they weren’t benign: they actively engaged each other. I would soon learn that such engagement did not end when the pastor called worship to order with an Ojibwa greeting. All twelve pews (six on each side of the aisle) were filled, and before sharing their joys and concerns, they stood and greeted each other – not just a polite handshake with those you could reach from your pew, but a walk-about that lasted until everyone in the sanctuary was greeted. The recitation of joys and concerns was equally interactive, with persons asking details so that they could celebrate or pray more accurately. The voices exhibited genuine concern for those whose names were mentioned. (For those who could not hear the speaker, the item was repeated aloud by someone nearby.)
Then came the announcements: a rummage sale was upcoming, not for the benefit of the church, but for the benefit of some who were not making it economically. The anticipation was that people would tend their own tables and that the church merely provided a venue where people could help themselves economically. Other area fund raisers and benefits were announced for those in need, whether members of the church or not.
The remainder of the service was a mix of English and Ojibwa. During the Lord’s Prayer (which was offered in Ojibwa in unison), I was reminded of an older lady in an earlier parish of mine who always prayed the Lord’s Prayer in German (as loudly as any of us prayed in English). How God must enjoy that prayer offered in multiple languages simultaneously. The interactive sermon reminded us that “forgiving” is one of the characteristics of the Kingdom of God.
I came away from this worship experience feeling that the pastor’s question had been answered by what I had seen and heard. Here, the Kingdom of God was multicultural. It was interactive. It was caring. It was creative. It was about helping others. It was about reaching out into the community. It was not ashamed of its own needs, or of the needs of those around it.
By taking a Sunday morning of our vacation to expand our horizons, Dotti and I had been offered a glimpse of what the Kingdom of God really is.
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