S E Talk
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
by Kenneth Barnes
What do we each of us think of when the word Heaven is mentioned? I sometimes think of the ideas of Heaven in the negro spirituals:
I got a robe, you got a robe,
All God’s chillun got a robe;
When we go to heaven, gonna put on our robes,
Gonna walk all over God’s Heaven.
Heaven, Heaven, everybody what talks about Heaven ain’t a goin’ there.
Heaven, Heaven, gonna walk all over God’s Heaven.
For the negro, obviously Heaven is a place where he can have everything he has been denied on this earth.
Then sometimes I think of the two Yorkshiremen. This is a story that was first told me on a London bus. It was a very long story and it seemed to last all the way from the centre of London to the suburbs. But I’ll shorten it now. These two Yorkshiremen died, and a few weeks later they met, as you would naturally expect, in - Hell. Said John to Joe: “Eh, lad, Ah nivver expected to see thee down ere. Ah thowt ye were oop at t’other plaace.” Said Joe to John: “That’s reet enough; so Ah were – until yesterday.”
“Got the sack?”
“Appen Ah did.”
“Eh, Joe, Ahm that sorry t’hear it. Ow did it appen?”
“Well, twere like this. All joost as Ah expected t’begin wi – Gowden paavements, blue sky, wi nivver a cloud; everlasting flowers and fountains ivverywhere; lashins of food and free baccy. But then wun day when Ah were sittin eatin mi breakfast, knees oonder table, alf-way through a pork pie ---- Eh, that were a grand pork pie, that were! ----- oo comes in but owd Saint Peter issen. Mawnin, Joe ses e. Mawnin,ses I. Ows tricks, ses e? Fine ses I. Ahm likin eaven – bettern Bootlins at Filey. Well then, sees e, ow about a bit of arpin? Arpin, ses I, wot’s that? Eh, Joe, doant ye know, ses e, Ah thowt ye came from Yorkshire Musical instrument! Oh yes, ses I, Ah know; seen em on stage at Y.S.O. Well, Ah’ll ave a bash. So Ah gets oop and goes out and does a bit o arpin.
Well, next mawnin abaht saame time, Ahd ad me breakfast and Ah was avin a smoake and doin a bit of fishin int beck at back o t’ouse, when there was a tap on me showder. There was owd Peter again. Mawnin Joe ses e. Mawning ses I. Wot doin? Ses e. Fishin, ses I. Ahd like thee t do a bit more arpin, ses e. O Ah doant mind if Ah do, ses I. So Ah goos and does a bit more arpin.
Next day Ah was sittin on t’front door step watchin cherry-bims clockin in at pearly gates, when sure nough theer was owd Peter comin along. Mawnin Joe, sees e. Mawnin ses I. Wot doin, ses e? Nowt , ses I. Then ow abaht a little more arpin, ses e. So Ah goos and doos a bit more arpin.
Next mawnin Ah was lookin out winder at greaate wite throane wi t’rainbow round it, and Ah heerd a knock at door. Mawnin Joe, ses e. Mawnin ses I. Wot doin, ses e. Nowt, ses I. Then ow abaaht a little more arpin, ses e. So Ah good and doos a bit more arpin.
Next day Ah was out in t’garden, lookin at me chrysanthemums and watchin angels landing and takin off; but owd Peter e coom in t’gardin gaate and caught me again. Mawnin sees e. Mawnin ses I. Wot doin, ses e? Nowt, ses I. Bit more arpin ses e. So Ah doos a bit more arpin.
Next mawnin Ah were shaavin and owd Peter e walked right into t’ouse and knocked on bathroom door. Mawnin, ses e. Mawnin ses I. Time thee were doin a bit more arpin, ses e. Coom on, get crackin. Thee can do it theesen, ses I oonder me breath like. Eh, Ah was that angry, but Ah went and did a bit o arpin.
Next day were Soonday, so Ah thowt Ahd stay in bed a bit. But at nine o’clock there were owd Peter at bottom of t’stairs bawlin oop. Aint thee doin thee arpin, Joe? No, ses I, it’s Soonday; day of rest. Not in eaven, ses Peter, short like. Coom on with thee arpin.
DA-A-A-MN t’ BLO-O-O-DY ARPIN, se s I; and that’s why Ahm down ere!
It was probably quite unnecessary for me to tell that story in order to show how absurd some of the old ideas of Heaven – of a material Heaven where everything that was unsatisfactory on earth was put right and there was no work to do – except “arpin”. There are probably not many children in these days who grow up with such ideas of Heaven. But what sort of idea does the modern child grow up with? I’m going to consider what idea of Heaven Jesus tried to give to his listeners. It was certainly not the idea that I have just made food for laughter. Most of the things in that – the golden pavements, the pearly gates, the great white throne and the rainbow – were taken out of the book of Revelations, which is a record of man’s dreams.
Let us turn to the way Jesus used the term “Kingdom of Heaven”. He uses it in so many different ways that to an ordinary mind the result is at first confusing. He was evidently trying to convey to his listeners an idea or a feeling that was exceedingly difficult. He thought that his disciples had understood it, for he said to them “unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given.” Jesus was evidently discouraged, and he was almost bitter in his disappointment. “…..because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.”
I will recall the things he said about the Kingdom:
“It is like a man that sowed good seed, while his enemies sowed weeds among the good seed. Together they grew to the harvest.”
“It is like a tiny seed, exceedingly small to begin with, yet that can grow to a great tree, large enough for birds to settle in its branches.”
“It is like yeast. You begin with a very little of it, yet it can work its way through dough made from three measures of meal, so that it all rises.”
“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hid in a field, or like a very wonderful pearl, so valuable that a man will sell all the rest of his possessions in order to be able to keep it.”
“The kingdom of Heaven is like a net which bring up a great catch of fish from which you can sort out the good and throw away the bad.”
Jesus spoke in parables. Why? Often people cannot understand a plain logical statement; they may not have the right sort of intelligence. But the same people may be able to catch a glimpse of the truth for a parable just as they can from a poem. But there is something more important. Parables, like poetry, contain much more truth thatn (sic) the words themselves ordinarily express. However much we use a parable or read a poem, we need never come to the end of its meaning. It is something we can always dip into afresh, and as we grow older and gain experience, we find more and more meaning in the parable, or poem. It is dangerous to try to give the meaning of a parable in ordinary speech, just as it is dangerous to paraphrase a poem in the way they expect candidates to do in an exam. So much is lost. However I shall try to give ideas that the parable suggests to me emphasising that they can only be very partial and inadequate.
The Kingdom of Heaven is something in one’s heart or spirit which is very small to begin with but can grow until it covers the whole of life. Alongside the good thing that grows in this way, the weed of evil can grow too. As we grow up, both good and evil can grow together stronger in us, until the time comes for us to decide which we are going to keep.
The Kingdom of Heaven often does its work unseen and unrecognised. We put a little yeast in dough or the juice of grapes. It is lost, hidden from sight. Yet it spreads right through the material, unseen yet working vigorously, permeating everywhere, raising the whole mass. So can the Kingdom of Heaven work in us without our recognising it; and just so it can spread through our community or nation, profoundly affecting its outlook and standards of judgement. When a man recognises what a valuable thing he has, he will give up everything else in order to keep it in his own heart and in the community. Then lastly, the Kingdom of Heaven enables us to collect together the whole of our experience and judge it to discover that there is in it that is of eternal value. Without the kingdom, a man is like a fisherman without a net, who hangs over the side of his boat, grasping vainly at one fish after another. Without the Kingdom life is just one-damn-thing-after-another; both good and evil mean but little; they just happen.
An important thing to notice is that the kingdom of Heaven is not something distant, to be reached only after death. It is here and now and we can choose whether we will be in it or not. In fact we are choosing all the time and we are often in it when we least realise it. Often quite young children will recognise the Kingdom of Heaven without being able to put words to it. Once I watched a small boy of five being bathed. He started chattering about the Kingdom of Heaven, having perhaps heard some adults talking about the idea. His mother said: “What do you know about the Kingdom of Heaven? Do you know where it is?” “ Look,” said the little boy” there it is!” And he pointed to the open window. It was May and an apple tree with its branches covered with blossom was spreading right across the open window of the bathroom. Oh, I know that young children are often, so to speak, the very devil, but there are times when they quite lose themselves in wonder as they look at some quite simple but lovely thing, such as a flower of a nest. At their own level, that is truly an experience of being in the Kingdom of Heaven. If it is unfortunate that people often lose this capacity for taking delight in simple things, as they grow up. But they can regain it.
As children become older their minds and eyes range further. They may become aware of the injustice and misery in the world, and as a result they may become exceedingly critical of religious phrases and ideas. They may say “I’ve no use for the idea of Heaven. I’m not interested in what happens after death – pie in the sky when I die! or for any mustical ideas of Heaven. If I want a Kingdom of Heaven at all, I want it to be on earth. I want to get rid of injustice and oppression. Fair shares for all; freedom and friendship for everybody. That’s the kingdom of Heaven I want.”
Yes, they are right in their way; that is the kingdom of Heaven in one of its aspects. But it is not all of it. If it were, the struggle would end in disillusion and despair.
As we grow older we realise that this battle for a good world is never lost, but it is never won. We see an evil that we hate. We must get rid of it. In blood and tears we throw ourselves into the struggle and the evil thing is destroyed. But then, in its shadow we see another evil equally hateful and intolerable. We remove an injustice, only to find that there is yet more injustice to remove.
A little more than a hundred years ago little children worked in coal mines, opening and shutting doors as the trucks passed. Many of the trucks were drawn along the rails by their mothers or sisters, straining nearly naked in a sort of harness, like ponies. A few sensitive people felt the full horror of this and set out to prevent this employment, of little children and women. They succeeded. But are children no longer allowed to die or suffer unnecessarily? On our roads today we kill and maim more children every year than were actually employed in the mines, I believe. This is because we always want to travel faster and faster. Those people who do not lose children, or see them suffer, hardly give a thought to this yearly slaughter; but a few people do care and are trying to find ways of preventing it, realising what a disgrace it is to our so-called civilisation. So the struggle for the Kingdom of Heaven goes on in every generation, and it is never finished.
We often think of medicine as a noble activity; perhaps we can say that doctors fight for the Kingdom – to free people from the fear of disease. We are elated when someone discovers penicillin and thereby saves hundreds of thousands of lives. We think of it almost as a miracle and we give the discoverer a knighthood. But look, we turn round and we see that another scientist has been given a knighthood. What for? For helping Britain to hold up its head among the nations as the equal of America and Russian (sic); for possessing a bomb that will destroy a hundred thousand in a second of time.
So, I’m afraid, those of us who at 20 felt a great urge to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, find ourselves at 50 wondering whether we have moved the world a single inch. We’ve had to get used to the world seeming never to get any better. But when I say get used to it, do I mean give in to it? Not a bit. People who work unceasingly for love and justice, who go wherever they are needed to relieve suffering and to root out evil, in the course of time make a discovery. They discover the Kingdom of Heaven growing in their own souls. And they discover that they are not alone in this. They find that it links them with countless others in the common fellowship of the Kingdom of Heaven. They find that the Kingdom was there all the time, unrecognised, in the people who went before them, who passed on to them their generous spirit, their sensitiveness and their love, who gave them their purpose and direction. They discover that they had been often in the Kingdom before, - in fact whenever they had cast aside their own pettiness, their own preoccupation with their own interests – whenever they had lost themselves in the contemplation of beauty, in the world around them, in the great works of man, or in someone they loved.
But they could not have made this discovery by just looking within to start with. To become conscious of the Kingdom that is within us and between us in our friendships, we have to care about the Kingdom outside ourselves and work for it.
So Heaven is not a place that is beyond or after this life, but it is an experience that goes with this life. We can be on earth and in Heaven at the same time. We can live an earthly life and a heavenly one and make of them not two lives but one life. But because I say this, it should not be imagined that the Kingdom is limited to this life. The Kingdom is a mystery that stretches far beyond this short life of ours so include the whole of truth.
The kingdom of Heaven holds for us not only pleasure and joy. It holds pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness, joy and woe, success and failure. Is that surprising? Nothing was so false as the old conception that Heaven was a place of perfect peace, a refuge from all pain and all difficulty. That made it a place of escape from life, and the contemplation of the prospect of that sort of heaven made people not more fit to face the battle of life but less fit. Let us think for a moment of the two different ways in which we may be affected by pain, sadness, woe, failure, bereavement. They can sap our spirit, drain the life out of us, ultimately destroy us. But if we are in the kingdom these experiences will contribute to our growth, making us not weaker, but stronger, better able to understand the world and people, and to draw a deep satisfaction from life. Two musicians who seem to me, from their music, to have lived in the Kingdom of Heaven, were Mozart and Beethoven. Both suffered intensively; one died in depression, ill-health and apparent failure, the other the tragedy of deafness. Yet both built their pain and sorrow and suffering into their music and made them part of its beauty.
Those who live in the Kingdom are sometimes made to do surprising and wholly unexpected things: things quite contrary to habit, tradition and what is thought to be the wise and safe thing to do. Mautake in that delightful story of Sir Arthur Grimble’s must have been in the Kingdom. He didn’t do the expected thing; he did an insane thing. But it was an action that the Kingdom required of him; he went unarmed into the camp of his enemies. He not only went unarmed, but he laid himself down to sleep unarmed and unprotected among them. An unarmed man may sometimes by the brave look in his eyes hold armed men at bay, but this man cast aside even that protection. When I say that he lived in the Kingdom, I mean that his loyalty was not to the ordinary world with its casual wisdom. His sensitive spirit made him aware of another loyalty that claimed him and made him do something that cut right across ordinary wisdom and prudence.
Supposing he had been killed! Would that have proved him a fool? Would it have proved that what I call the Kingdom was sham, an illusion? No, the kingdom often calls people to be faithful unto death, and we know how much those people who have died for the kingdom, have done to sweeten the otherwise bitter course of human history. It isn’t sufficient, however, to have an idea of one’s aim in life and the sort of world one wants – however good that world may be - and to be prepared to die for the achievement of these things. The preparedness to die for a cause does not make it a good cause or make it the right one for us to undertake. The Nazis were people of that sort. If we belong to the Kingdom of Heaven, we shall try to make what we do to each man and woman fit in with what we want for the world as a whole. The Nazis’ utter lack of concern for the suffering of individuals condemns their outlook straight away before ever we begin to look at their hopes for the world.
It is easy, however, to find this fault in Nazis and Communists, we are not free from it ourselves; only rarely do we find methods that are wholly consistent with noble aims and intentions. Mautake , however, would not hurt even his enemies, for that would have been to deny what he wanted for the whole island community – peaceful agreement and friendship. Mautake seems to have been, judging by this brief account of an incident in his life – one who could be said to be wholly in the Kingdom of Heaven, a man of the nature of Jesus. As will be seen also, he was in the Kingdom even before he became a Christian. What a significant and moving experience it must have been for Grimble too; I envy him both his opportunity and his courage. How well too the story illustrates Jesus’ parable of the yeast. The thing that grew from the brave action of Mautake spread right through the whole community, so that it veritably fizzed and bubbled, so that not only did the islanders turn to each other with a new and friendly feeling, but they began to roar with laughter at their own lies and stupidity, even to the length of making a song and dance about them that lasted six months!
Well, after all this, perhaps my listeners are still mystified by the idea of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Yorkshiremens’ idea made them laugh; but perhaps this one has left them scratching their heads. They are left wondering and bewildered as were the multitudes that Jesus addressed. I have not attempted to present a logical, scientific explanation of the Kingdom of Heaven. They may be saying: “I don’t know what you mean, first the Kingdom is one thing, then it’s another, then again it is something quite different. It is in the world, but not of this world. It is all very confusing, very mysterious.”
Yes, it is indeed a mystery; but then so are all the deepest, most moving and satisfying experiences of our lives, we cannot explain any of them in cold and logical terms, nor can we provide instruction for attaining them in the manner of recipe out of Mrs. Beeton. We can only speak of them in parables and in poetry, giving sudden glimpses of their truth and depth, momentary feelings of their intense reality. One encouraging thing is that these glimpses and feelings do not need superior brains or great cleverness; they often come clearest to those whose minds are not too complicated.
There is no harm at all in the Kingdom of Heaven remaining a mystery, so long as we don’t from wilfulness or sheer flatness of mind, insist on remaining outside it. We can be in it, enjoy it, and be moved to action by it, while it yet remains beyond the grasp of our minds.
Document reference PP KCB 3/7/2 document 08