Sharing the Kin-dom

Old Testament Reading: Genesis 2: 18-24
The Gospel: Mark 10: 13-16   

Today is World Communion Sunday - a day when we celebrate our interconnectedness to our brother and sister Christians around the world. The first celebration occurred at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1933 where Dr. Hugh Thompson Kerr served as pastor. He conceived of World Communion Sunday as an attempt to bring churches together in a service of Christian unity—in which everyone might receive both inspiration and information, and above all, to know how important the Church of Jesus Christ is, and how each congregation is interconnected one with another. In 1936 the Presbyterian Denomination adopted World Communion Sunday for all of their churches. In 1940 the predecessor to the National Council of Churches started spreading the practice of World Communion Sunday around the world. As World War II occurred, the practice of World Communion Sunday expanded: there was certainly a need to come together to recognize the connection of peace rather than the disconnection of war. 

Connection is something that all humans need. God recognized this almost immediately after creating Adam. As God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” God knew man needed someone to connect with but note that our Genesis scripture today does not have God immediately creating woman - first, in the task of finding a “helper as his partner”, God created “every animal of the field and every bird of the air” and while Adam named them, none of them actually fit the bill as a partner. While many of us who love our dogs and cats know that they can be good companions, they are not really helpers or partners in the full sense. So God kept working and to make the ultimate partner for man, God realized that the partner should be similar to him, thus another human was created, in this case, woman. The story of Adam and Eve reminds us of the need for connection and support and that while being alone is good at times, we still need others to work and live and, especially, to thrive. 

Our countries and world would not operate if we did not work together. There are very few businesses that create and control all aspects of their production. Restaurants do not grow all of their own food, create the cloth and sew the napkins and tablecloths, spin their own pots on a wheel or forge their pans just like we do not cut down trees and build our own houses, make the tile, spin the wool for the carpets etc. We must find help, partners beyond ourselves, in every aspect of our lives. In business, we do this to survive, to get all of the items we need to live. In our personal lives, we need companions on our journey as friends and supporters, so that we are not alone. When we find life partners, we can also sometimes extend beyond ourselves with children so that this whole cycle of life, cycle of connection, continues. 

And for this world of ours to work, we have to share the kin-dom. A kin-dom is a community of equals based on shared values and common humanity. Isn’t that what we are really celebrating on World Communion Sunday? We Christians have the shared value of faith in the triune God: God the Creator/Parent, Jesus the Child/Redeemer/Love Itself and the Holy Spirit as the Sanctifier or Breath of God. Our faith truly makes us kin and this is what we celebrate today on World Communion Sunday. 

On this day, across Christian faith traditions around the world, we join together as kin, as a community of faith. We are not all alike. Some are more conservative, some are more liberal, some live in poverty, some are wealthy, some live amid war, some live in peace, some look like us, most do not. And yet, we are kin. We are those helpers/partners that God created so we would not be alone. God did not mean for us to live in separate corners or countries of the earth and to never connect. God literally created us to connect!

That is why several years ago, many churches started to replace the term Kingdom of God with Kin-dom of God. In an article called “Kin-dom vs. Kingdom: Jann Aldredge-Clanton says, “Kin-dom' shifts the focus from hierarchy and patriarchy to equality and interconnectedness. 'Kin-dom' connotes community where all individuals are considered kin. It underscores our common kinship with one another and with the divine…This inclusive, egalitarian word challenges established power structures and promotes social justice and equity. “Kin-dom” advocates for an equitable and compassionate community, acknowledging the inherent worth and value of each person within it. It emphasizes mutual relationships over hierarchical structures. It envisions a community where everyone is valued and respected, regardless of social status, race, gender, or any other differentiating factor.”

Kin-dom therefore is really about love, which is certainly what Jesus is all about.
Of course if we think about it, God is King, the top of our belief system, the one whom we serve but when have we ever seen Jesus act like he wanted to be a King? He never demanded that people bow down to him, he never delegated the lesser work like healing the sick or helping the poor. He went to the people and he wanted the people to be able to come to him - all of them: young and old, sick and healthy, sinner and saint.  

He did not even want there to be a hierarchical structure keeping children away from him as we heard in the scripture today. I am sure the disciples thought they were doing the right thing in trying to shoo the parents and their children away from Jesus. They must have thought, “He’s too important, too busy to deal with all these people, especially little ones.” That is probably what most of society would have thought but Jesus came to show us how to think and act differently. Everyone matters, everyone is part of the kin-dom, even the smallest humans and creatures. 

Jesus was also honoring the wonder, innocence and untainted faith of children when he said, “Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And of course he uses Kingdom because that was the word people would recognize at the time. It is only in really studying Jesus’ teaching that we can now see that what Jesus was doing was teaching us to share the kin-dom. He isn’t saying only people who accept God as a child get to enter the kin-dom, forgetting those folks who came to faith later. No, instead he is saying we have to be child-like in our faith. We need to practice wonder and joy and acceptance in ways that children do, which is so much different from and better than the way we adults, tainted by all of the challenges of this world and caught up in laws and rules, do. It really all comes down to love: love of the helpers and partners that God created for us, love for the planet and love for all creatures and humans on it.

If we think of everyone as kin, how much differently might we act? Might people pause before judging, before fighting or going to war? Of course, there are challenges with kin as well, but we often work harder to fix them; I mean, they’re family right? Don’t we often put up with differences in our family members more than we might strangers? God created humanity as fellow helpers and partners: a kin-dom. Jesus showed us how we should treat everyone in the kin-dom: loving and caring for ALL of them, from the little children to the lepers, tax collectors and even enemies. 

Kin-dom. I think that is what World Communion Sunday is all about. The first definition of communion in the Oxford Dictionary is, “the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.” So communion is a coming together, a sharing, and we do not generally share intimate thoughts or feelings with strangers. The second definition is the one we are used to - the Christian tradition of sharing bread and juice or wine in commemoration of Jesus’ final meal with his disciples - an intimate coming together based on faith. It strengthens our bond with God and with each other. 

This World Communion Sunday, let’s envision a coming together: people around the globe in all different shapes, sizes and circumstances coming together at this table - reaching their hands across differences, reaching out to share a meal, united in our love of Jesus - love itself - and hopefully inspired by him to welcome all and love all, at the table and throughout all God’s kin-dom. Amen.

Pastor Michelle Fountain

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