NOTES for Luk 13:18-21

We often confuse what depends on us, what belongs to the realm of our freedom, with what depends on God alone. We do not know when God will put the leaven of the Kingdom into our dough, but we can knead the dough. We cannot hurry the dough so that it rises faster. But we can make sure that flies do not settle on it.

We cannot decide for ourselves when the Kingdom of God will begin to grow within us. We do not know when God will sow this seed in us. But preparing the soil in the garden does depend on us. We cannot do this by ourselves, but God will not enter our garden without permission; He stands at the door and waits for us to open it to Him. With God's help, we must weed the garden so that the seed of the Kingdom of God is not destroyed by weeds from the very beginning. We must make sure that pests do not take up residence in the garden. But we are not responsible for the seed itself or for the speed at which the tree will grow. Most likely, we will not see its growth.

Before the coming of Christ most of the Jewish believers expected that the Kingdom will come immediately the day of the arrival of the Messiah, that it will be seen by all and each, such that nobody can any more doubt of its reality. Jesus speaks differently: He compares the Kingdom with the leaven, the presence of which is imperceptible at first, and the action takes time. He speaks about the history of the Kingdom, which has already with Him entered the world, but did not yet reveal itself in it to the end, then at the beginning of its history one can completely not notice it at all, as if nothing changed with the arrival of the Savior. For many, His words seemed probably strange and incomprehensible: why, If He Himself has already brought all the fullness of the Kingdom in the world, a certain time was still needed for this Kingdom to reveal itself. Why not to reveal it all on the very day of His arrival?

If the Kingdom that Christ brought into the world was such as expected to see it most of the believers, everything would have really happened that way. Indeed, most of those who waited for the Messiah and for the Kingdom, waited for something completely earthly, even if built differently than the heathen States, but existing by the same earthly laws, by which exist all human societies. The laws of the messianic Kingdom had to correspond to the Torah, the Messiah Himself had, unlike the heathen rulers, to be a righteous King, and for the rest nobody waited for anything particular from the Kingdom, if of course we do not consider the miracles, which, as expected many believers will spill abundant flow on the Messiah and His Kingdom. Such a Kingdom could have really appeared, if it is not suddenly, then fast enough, within the life of a generation.

But Jesus spoke about another Kingdom, which had to cover the whole world, having beforehand transformed it in a way that it receives the possibility of living according to other laws. Time is needed for this transformation, that is why the Kingdom has in our world being transformed its own history, about which speaks the Savior comparing the Kingdom with the leaven. Is it possible that there was an immediate transformation of all the creation the day of the arrival of the Christ? Probably, yes: because for God nothing is impossible. But the chance to enter the Kingdom would then have been only to very few chosen ones. But God wants to save if possible everyone, and thus, the chance must be also given to each of those who are destined to be born on earth. And time is needed for that, about which says the Savior. Time, which in such a situation becomes the practical manifestation of God's love to each of us.

When speaking of the Kingdom, Jesus often uses comparisons that suggest its gradual, imperceptible influence on our world as it undergoes transformation, changing it step by step in the right direction. At first glance, this may look like a kind of spiritual progressivism: the gradual, imperceptible spiritual improvement of individuals and society as a whole eventually produces the desired result. In reality, however, things are not so simple.

Had the world not been corrupted by the sin that entered it after the Fall, gradual spiritual progress might perhaps have been possible. But in its present state, the world cannot simply receive the spiritual influences coming from the Kingdom: it will inevitably resist them. Thus everyone who chooses the Kingdom finds themselves in opposition to the world: it is no accident that Jesus speaks of the ‘narrow gate’.

How, then, can transformation—especially gradual transformation—be possible under such conditions? Evidently, it is possible only through the participation of people who already share in the Kingdom, without waiting for the process to be completed, so as to live its life. This is precisely what Christianity is: to live the life of the Kingdom that Christ has brought into the world, and thus to share one life with Him, for He bears the whole fullness of the Kingdom within Himself. Of course, it is possible to live the Kingdom's life not because of the fallen world, but in spite of it.

Yet this is the only way to ensure the presence of the Kingdom, with its transforming breath, in our world: its bearers are its inhabitants, who carry the Kingdom's life within themselves, like the Saviour Himself, and bring it into a world undergoing transformation but not yet transformed. They bring it in despite the forces of evil, which will evidently resist the Kingdom's advance to the very end. And at the end, on the day of the Saviour's return and the Kingdom's final triumph, its inhabitants, who have borne witness to it in the world undergoing transformation, will share that triumph with the Victor whom they followed and whose path they shared.

Today's reading continues the theme of the Kingdom, but now in a somewhat different, eschatological aspect. Eschatology is often confused with apocalyptic, yet they are not the same. Eschatology is a rupture in time and history through which the Kingdom can be seen; apocalyptic is a philosophy of history in which history is viewed as the process of the world's movement towards the Kingdom.

Jesus often speaks of the coming of the Kingdom as a rupture in time, when the former order of things comes to an end. It then becomes clear that, in the face of the new reality revealed at the moment of rupture, former assessments and criteria prove inadequate. This is manifested first of all in a change of priorities: if outward proximity previously played the decisive role, spiritual relationships now do.

When speaking of outward proximity, of course, one must not have only territorial or geographical proximity in mind. National, religious, and every other kind of proximity determined in one way or another by the structure and laws of the untransformed world is also implied here (vv. 25-28). Spiritual proximity, by contrast, becomes decisive (vv. 29-30). This is why the path into the Kingdom proves narrow (vv. 23-24): it begins in a world not yet transformed, living by laws very far from the laws of the Kingdom, but in order to enter the Kingdom, one must begin living by its laws here and now.

This is neither a whim nor a test of loyalty. One can follow the path into the Kingdom only by living according to its laws. For the Kingdom itself, in our world which is not yet fully transformed, depends on those who seek it. It is no accident that Jesus draws His listeners' attention to the fact that at first the Kingdom is completely imperceptible in the world that rejects it and becomes visible only at the end, when the world is transformed (vv. 18-21). Only the person who bears the Kingdom within can find it, and such a person cannot live according to the laws of the world lying in evil. This is why the path leading into the Kingdom proves narrow. But at its end lies the fullness of life awaiting everyone who follows this path to the end.

We have read many times already that Christ's Kingdom is not like all our human "kingdoms." It is like salt in food, like yeast in dough, like a seed in the ground that has not yet sprouted. It is real, but not visible to the "naked eye." It cannot be defined by our concepts, but its presence irreversibly changes this world.

That is exactly why it is so hard to limit "membership" in this Kingdom, however much "chosen ones" of every kind try to do so. The question asked of Jesus about the number of those being saved, that is, the participants in God's Kingdom, in essence means a demand to mark the boundaries of salvation: "who is inside, and who is outside?"

This question remains unanswered: instead of a limited sect, there is a call for everyone. Yes, entering by the "narrow gate" is hard, and the chance of being left out is quite real. But the gate is not closed; it is merely narrow. And everyone for whom this is truly important and necessary can find himself at Christ's feast with those who have also passed along this path.

The Kingdom of God, the presence of Christ in our life, is often imagined as something great and bright, something impossible to miss. But in the parable of the mustard seed the Lord Jesus gives us a completely different image. The seed of the mustard tree can barely be seen with the naked eye. It is so small that it is unnoticed by an outsider, and often even by its owner.

That is, the Kingdom has already been given to us as if in potential, in the form of a tiny seed. It does not look like a great tree, like the tangible presence we long for so much. And yet, just as genetically the seed and the tree are one and the same organism, so the small particle of the Kingdom that each of us has and that must grow is the same Kingdom that appeared in its fullness in the person of Jesus.