Mark often describes Jesus explaining “the kingdom of God” in parables. Rather than be direct, Jesus uses analogies to try to get through to people who were not on his wavelength (Mk 4:26-34). We may also have a problem getting on Jesus’ wavelength, but for different reasons than his original audience.
We’re very familiar with his stories and analogies, so we think we’ve got this down. But we bring our own background and perspective to what we are hearing, as does any audience. When it comes to the kingdom of God, we’re probably not so familiar with kingdoms as such, but we do know they represent areas of control with borders. You can be in the kingdom or out of it. Hence a great deal of Christian thinking revolves around what it takes to be on the inside vs the outside, and who gets to decide or control that.
The difficulty with this perspective is that it doesn’t fit very well with the analogies in these parables. These analogies are organic, and concern plants and growing. There is nothing here about inside and outside, those concepts just don’t apply. The kingdom as described in these parables is more like a state of mind, or a state of being, than a place. And the way it evolves or develops is not under our control at all, there is nothing we do that makes any difference – it just grows through God’s creative spirit. Beyond that, anyone can be part of it, or it can be part of anyone. That point is also made by Ezekiel in our first reading (Ez 17:22-24).
The Jews of Jesus time had spent huge energy on defining who was in and who was out. So too, Christians through the ages, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, have spent not just energy but blood to define who was in and who was out. Defending the borders of this kingdom has been a major preoccupation, as though it was somehow under our control.
There are no borders to God’s kingdom, and even He does not attempt to control it – he lets it grow. We may grow with it if we let God do his work in us.