God’s kingdom is not of this world

In the Old Testament, the Israelites asked for a king so they could be like the other nations. God told the Prophet Samuel: “It is not you they have rejected but me, not wishing me to reign over them any more” (1 Sam 8:7).

God gave them a king but warned that, besides the tithing for the priests, the Israelites would have to pay more: “The king will tithe your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.”

When Jesus was being interrogated, Pontius Pilate asked him: “Are you a king?” Jesus told him: “My kingdom is not of this world” (Jn 18:36). After Pentecost, when the first Christians were spreading the Gospel, they firmly believed that Jesus would one day reign over all creation.

 In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul wrote (15:24): “After that will come the end, when [Jesus] will hand over the kingdom to God the Father, having abolished every principality, every ruling force and power. For he is to be king.”

Mark the word Saint Paul uses here. In God’s kingdom, the kind of “ruling force” we are used to in this world will be “abolished”. No more politics. No more elections. And, above all, no more taxes. This will truly be a kingdom “not of this world”.

That is why there is a tradition that goes back many centuries to pray this prayer for the Feast of Christ the King: “He will reign in an eternal and universal kingdom: a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.”

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