The reality of God’s rule, and all of the instrumentalities it involves, is present in action and available with and through the person of Jesus. That is Jesus’ gospel.

Jesus came among us to show and teach the life for which we were made. He came very gently, opened access to the governance of God with him, and set afoot a conspiracy of freedom in truth among human beings. Having overcome death he remains among us. By relying on his word and presence we are enabled to reintegrate the little realm that makes up our life into the infinite rule of God. And that is the eternal kind of life. Caught up in his active rule, our deeds become an element in God’s eternal history. They are what God and we do together, making us part of his life and him a part of ours.

“Already during Jesus’ earthly activity,” Hans Küng has pointed out, “the decision for or against the rule of God hung together with the decision for or against himself” (italics mine). The presence of Jesus upon earth, both before and after his death and resurrection, means that God’s rule is here now. “In this sense,” Küng continues, “the immediate expectation… [of the kingdom]… has been fulfilled” (italics mine). 12

But they were only responding to the striking availability of God to meet present human need through the actions of Jesus. He simply was the good news about the kingdom. He still is.

The obviously well kept secret of the “ordinary” is that it is made to be a receptacle of the divine, a place where the life of God flows. But the divine is not pushy. As Huston Smith remarks, “Just as science has found the power of the sun itself to be locked in the atom, so religion proclaims the glory of the eternal to be reflected in the simplest elements of time: a leaf, a door, an unturned stone.” 11 It is, of course, reflected as well in complicated entities, such as galaxies, music, mathematics, and persons.

Dogma is what you have to believe, whether you believe it or not. And law is what you must do, whether it is good for you or not. What we have to believe or do now, by contrast, is real life, bursting with interesting, frightening and relevant things and people.

At the beginning of time there is love. At the bottom of the universe there is love. Admittedly freedom allows for other things too—from cancer cells to atomic bombs—but at the bottom of the universe it’s love all the way down. Cancer cells and atomic bombs will not have the final word. At the end of things there is love. When the last star burns out, God’s love will be there for whatever comes after. In the end it all adds up to love. So when calculating the meaning of life, if it doesn’t add up to love, go back and recalculate, because you’ve made a serious mistake.

This is why for most of church history the sacrament, not the sermon, has been the central aspect of Christian worship. Christian faith is more about connecting our lives with Christ than it is about gaining spiritual information. Making church more about the sermon than the sacrament is a move toward secularism.

Jesus condemned the systemic sin that preserved the status quo for the Herodians and Sadducees, but showed compassion to publicans and prostitutes. This is grace. But the church, courting the favor of the powerful, has forgotten this kind of grace. We coddle the mighty whose ire we fear and condemn the sin of the weak who pose no threat. We enthusiastically endorse the systems of greed that run Wall Street while condemning personal greed in the life of the individual working for the minimum wage. We will gladly preach a sermon against the sin of personal greed, but we dare not offer a prophetic critique of the golden calf of unfettered capitalism.

“The purpose of a book,” suggests Thomas Merton, “is to teach you how to think and not to do your thinking for you. . . . As soon as any thought stimulates your mind or your heart, you can put the book down, because your meditation has begun.”