Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
NL Daily Devotion for Wednesday, March 17, 2021
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
“For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” So says Jesus, and it’s as true today as it was then. It’s hard to believe, in the midst of the current state of the world. I can point to a million places where to all appearances God is nowhere to be found. Yet at the same time, there are so many places God’s presence is absolutely clear.
In her book Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit talks about how perfection is the enemy of the possible. When we have this all-or-nothing view of the world, we believe that nothing but total victory is worth celebrating. An idealistic end point in which all is a perfect utopia. And failing to achieve that, we think nothing we do matters, so we throw up our hands and give up.
Solnit’s whole book is about pointing out the many ways change is happening, the many victories that have occurred and continue to occur, and how activism isn’t about reaching some ideological end-point, but is about the journey, that activism itself is a victory. I’m not doing her work justice—I highly recommend you read the book yourself—but that’s the general gist.
We live in the already and the not yet. The reign of God is already among us, even if it doesn’t look the way we think it should. If we look for it, we’ll see it everywhere, and we are called to continue to reveal it everywhere we can.
God of the journey, help us to see and proclaim your kingdom everywhere we look. Amen.
![Jonah 1:1-17; 3:1-10 [4:1-11], Jonah and God’s Mercy](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56b39b61ab48de92d991a40a/6bbb490e-4992-4659-a8be-02d8397d68af/24-11-10.jpg)
