Metanoia and the Kingdom of God

I wrote an article last week for the informational newsletter we send out at The Center for Christian Spirituality. http://www.centerforchristianspirituality.org/newsletter.cfm

I didn't intend to post the article here, but I realized that I have Gen-X friends who will not believe anything they can't find online. (You know who you are -- did you hear my deep SIGH and see me roll my eyes?) So here it is online. It must be true now.


Metanoia and the Kingdom of God

”Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.” (Matt. 3:2, 4:17)

John the Baptizer preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand” (Matt. 3:2). Jesus followed, repeating the same message (4:17): “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.”

What did they mean by “repent?” And what was the reality called “the kingdom of heaven/God” to which they pointed?

I read scholar after scholar try to couch the imagery of the New Testament idea of the “kingdom of God/heaven” in contemporary language. Sociologists dissect the political and social context of the first century to come up with contemporary analogies. Linguists try to find vocabulary equivalent to the “kingdom of God” that brings understanding to modern minds. Theologians attempt to place the kingdom of God into the larger movement of God in human history.

I’m still confounded. Their attempts point me in the right direction, but I’m still unclear about what the kingdom of God looks like. If it’s a physical place, I may have missed it.

Further, while the word “repent” is a gospel-word, it also has been used and abused in churches and among Christians. Thus, the word “repent” is loaded with a volatile emotional charge. Some of us may connect it with hell-fire-damnation preaching, or with evangelists preaching revival sermons, or with lengthy altar-calls.

At least in my history, “repent” connoted a change in behavior, especially in areas of morality. “Turn around,” “change your mind,” or “change your behavior” was the message. “Stop doing the immoral thing you’ve been doing and start following God,” the word suggested.

That idea of changing your behavior or turning around comes from the Hebrew word often translated “repent.” The word, shub, literally means to turn around or to change directions.

The Greek word used in the New Testament for repentance is metanoia. The prefix meta carries several possible meanings, including “beyond,” “outside,” “larger,” and “greater.” Noia is from the Greek nous which refers to the mind.

Actually, then, metanoia – or the idea of “repentance” – refers to taking on a different mind, a larger mind. It suggests movement out of a narrow living and seeing in order to adopt a larger frame of reference. We all have a narrow mind, a limited scope, a tunneled vision by which we view God, others, self, and the world. Repentance is the invitation not simply to change our mind or to change our behavior, but to see a larger God-world that is saturated with God’s presence, a world “charged with the grandeur of God” (Gerard Manley Hopkins).

And because repentance is so closely linked to the kingdom of God (by John the Baptizer and Jesus), perhaps within metanoia is the clue to the mysterious language of the kingdom.

I’m beginning to think that the kingdom of God is a state of being, an awareness or consciousness of God’s presence and action within me, others, and in the world. As a state of awareness, to enter or see the kingdom I have to see differently. The narrow, small ways I’ve seen myself, others, and the world have to be replaced by a broader, more expansive awareness. In effect, I’m trading in my small sight for the capability to see the largeness of God’s presence and work in the world.

Metanoia is the movement from the smaller to the larger, into this wider beyond-mind, while the kingdom of God is the state of being in this larger place, this alternative reality.

And those who enter the kingdom of God are those who take upon themselves this way of being that Jesus taught and modeled in his life.

The spiritual journey is about this movement of metanoia and this state of being deeply and intimately connected with God and the God-world. So the spiritual journey is about repentance and the kingdom of God.

Indeed, the kingdom of God is close at hand.