NOTES for Luk 17:32

In the description of how the Kingdom of God comes, the word "left" looks unfamiliar. It is clear that the life of humanity bears little resemblance to what we know from Jesus' words about the properties and manifestations of the Kingdom. But it turns out that the choice for us will be exactly this: either to go into the unknown, or to remain here, but now forever. Enmity, wars, grief, sickness, and death will be eternal, which will please very few people. And one has to choose one of the two.

It seems that only in this way can today's Gospel reading be understood. But the mention of Lot's wife gives us a kind of instruction about how we must leave. Why did she look back then, despite the prohibition? Perhaps it was simple curiosity: what is happening there after you have left, how do they live, how do they die, what do they cry out when fiery rain falls on them? Perhaps it was one last look at the city where she had lived her whole life, with which so much was connected: home, family, children - everything was there, and she was sorry for everything good that had been there. Or it was the ordinary human desire to experience the past one more time, to replay in one's head several times all the fights after which one still wants to wave one's fists and come out the winner. Perhaps there are other reasons as well, sufficient from our point of view, for turning around and looking at what you will never see again. But walking with your head turned back is practically impossible: even if you do not become a pillar of salt, you will break your legs, or even your neck.

Today the Lord speaks to us about readiness—readiness to meet Him face to Face. On the day when He appears, the world will be occupied with its ordinary affairs. Yet we too have ordinary things that we must do each day—we need to eat and drink, buy and build. How, then, are we to be ready for the final meeting? Here the Lord recalls the rescue of Lot from Sodom (Gen 19)—he too lived in that sinful city, ate and drank, bought and sold. Nevertheless, he was different from the other townspeople. Lot lived there as a sojourner, by his own laws rather than by the customs of the Sodomites. This is what the Savior means when He says, “The Kingdom of God is within you”: although we do not see His face, we live by the laws of His Kingdom already now, in this life. These are the laws of faithfulness to God (so as not to become like Lot's wife, who turned into a pillar of salt), service and self-giving (so as to renounce one's own life and thereby bring it to life), and love for those around us (for Lot was saved because of his hospitality).

Today's reading continues the theme of the Kingdom in its eschatological aspect. In this case the subject is not a description of the end of time as the completion, or rather the rupture, of the historical process, but the very moment of the Savior's return and the final triumph of the Kingdom, apart from dates and concrete history in general. But the becoming of the Kingdom takes place in two stages: in the first stage it remains unseen, so that only a few know about it (vv. 20-21), and only later does it become visible to everyone; this visible manifestation of the Kingdom for all is the essence of the second stage (vv. 22-37).

It should be noted that in the first stage the Kingdom abides not only in the hearts of those who remain faithful to it, but also in their gatherings (the corresponding Greek expression can be translated not only as "within you," but also as "among you"). In fact, this first stage is unfolding before our eyes. We live in the age of the coming of the Kingdom, which has not yet revealed itself in all its fullness. And today's reading reveals to us the meaning of the Church's existence, which the apostle Paul calls "the body of Christ": it comes down to bringing the Kingdom into the world. Christianity is not a new religion and not a new morality, and Jesus is not a religious reformer or a teacher of ethics. He created neither a new theological school nor a new religious organization. He left in the world only a community of people who would live one life of the Kingdom with Him. The Church was founded by Him as just such a community. That is why bringing the Kingdom into the world turns out to be the Church's main task, and all its other activity is only forms and ways of solving this main task.

At the end of time, when the invisible becomes obvious to everyone, the Church becomes the spiritual core of the new, transformed world. And this end does not come naturally, not as the logical completion of the historical process, but as its rupture, as a supernatural event and therefore unexpected for everyone. The Kingdom cannot triumph by a natural path in a world spoiled by the fall and lying in evil; it can include that world in itself only by radically changing and renewing it, and such a process cannot pass smoothly, without affecting anyone or causing anyone trouble. Such a thing would be possible only if every person in the world accepted the Kingdom. But a person is free in choosing, and God does not predetermine anyone's fate. That is why the world is divided into those who are "taken" and those who are "left." The triumph of the Kingdom is predetermined, but each person chooses his own fate.

When asked when the Kingdom He preaches will finally come, Christ answers in a very strange way. On the one hand, it "will not come in a visible way"; it is "in your midst"; it is already growing in those who share in it. On the other hand, Jesus paints apocalyptic pictures of the end of the world, the day when the Son of Man, like lightning, "will flash from one end of the sky to the other."

What does He want to say through this contrast? How can the hidden coming of the Kingdom be reconciled with the thunder, lightning, and fiery rain of the Second Coming? Before us, it is not simply two different pictures of eternity entering our world, but also two ways of life: one can live in vain, "selling, buying, planting, building," drowning out with one's bustling activity the signs of the coming Kingdom; or one can already live in it, or rather bring it into being in life, in relationships with people and with God, cultivating the Kingdom "in our midst."