The kingdom of God is at hand, still.

I just returned from visiting a friend in prison. Through a number of bizarre coincidences, or divine whispers, this friend ended up serving time twenty minutes from where I work at a prison where I was asked to lead worship this morning. We both shook our heads as we greeted each other, marveling at the handiwork of a power greater than ourselves.

As the inmates and I worshiped together, I was overwhelmed by the sense of solidarity. No, I have not been in prison, but I am well familiar with all sorts of captivity, and the spirit in the chapel was one of broken people gathered together in grace. There was no judgment, no divisions, just human beings being human together.

It was a powerful feeling, much like the feelings I had when I went to my first AA meetings, but as I drove home I saw a bumper sticker supporting a candidate I do not support. My blood began to boil, and soon I had to wrestle with the contrast of emotions. One minute I am in love with all humanity, the next I want to honk at someone whose political views are different from mine.

Somehow, I need to find a way to return to the feelings in the chapel and leave the feelings in the car behind. Whether it’s the up-coming election, a vote of marriage rights, this year’s baseball season, or another nauseating conversation about the differences between the North and the South, I need to find that deeper feeling of solidarity. Beneath the surface stuff, we are all just beloved children of God who are scared to death. We’re all broken human beings desperately trying to appear otherwise.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could live beneath the surface, dwell in the land of what we have in common? I suppose that’s what Jesus was talking about when he described the “kingdom of God,” a moment or place that was “at hand.” No wonder he spoke of it in gatherings of sinners, drunks, and other misfits. They were the ones able to see and live beneath the surface. They were the ones cracked enough for God’s grace to get in.

Such gatherings exist today. The kingdom of God is at hand, still. I just needed to go to prison to find it.