The Kingdom of God, The Quilt Making Team of God

I continue working with different images to capture what God is doing in our world.  You might use the words of Jesus, according to popular translations:  "The Kingdom of God/Heaven is like . . . ."  I've written many times about the problems with "The Kingdom of God" and "The Kingdom of Heaven."  I've been trying to create some imagery that would work better with 21st century listeners and believers.  Jesus isn't talking about some future time when we all go to the family reunion in the sky.  Jesus is talking about a creator who isn't done yet, a concept which is often described as "both now and not yet."  We might hear about "the inbreaking Kingdom of God"--but how do our brains process that?

I fear that this language leads many of us to a vision of a rescuer God, someone who swoops in and fixes things.  Or worse, a Santa Clause God who gives us everything we want if we pray hard enough.  And I understand the appeal of that.  But I don't think it's true, and I worry about the danger of expecting that kind of God.  How does that theology handle the times when God doesn't swoop in or doesn't deliver what we prayerfully request/demand?

I've spent a lot of time issuing those warnings, but not a lot of time trying to create other ways of thinking about the concept.  Now I'm making that attempt.

A few weeks ago, I played with the idea of the Cosmos of God in this blog post.  This morning, I want to think about the quilt making team of God.  I've played with the idea of God as a quilter before.  But I haven't thought about being part of God's quilting team.  God invites us to be part of creation, which means that our vision gets to be sewn into the larger vision.

We have agency:  we get to choose fabric, we get to choose thread, we get to work with patterns that we choose.  The quilt can support a variety of stitches, a variety of approaches to quilting.  There will be purists who insist on hand stitching, there will be wealthy team members who have a fancy long arm sewing machine, and there will be all sorts of sewing approaches between the two.  All can be part of the quilt making team of God.

I've been doing a morning watch broadcast on Facebook each morning since late March of 2020, and I try to end with both inspiration and comfort.  A week ago, on February 26, 2021, I developed this idea of the quilting team of God and that our mission is to find the right material, the right fabric, the perfect thread, the stitches and pattern that will make us feel most complete.  How can we be on the lookout for that? 

I realize that it may be a scary/alien concept to many believers.  It gives us credit for having skills and talents that we may not realize we have.  It gives us a commission to develop skills--we might protest that we don't know how to sew!  We can't be expected to do all of this measuring and cutting and maintain accuracy!

The beauty of the quilt making team metaphor is that we can develop these skills, but even when we're inept, God can work with that.  The quilt can still achieve its purpose.  

But when we're all a bit more skilled, how much better the process is--and we can also be part of the teaching of the skills.

The inbreaking quilt making team of God--the quilt of creation is both now and not yet.  You might think you see a perfectly fine quilt already, no need to improve on what's here--but God has an even better vision of it.  And we bring something to the sewing table.  God incorporates our visions and creations--and I believe that God then changes the master vision to something even better, something that would not have existed, had we not been part of the team.  If we choose not to contribute, the quilt making will continue.  But the more who contribute, the stronger the quilt, the vaster the quilt, the more beautiful a creation we will make.

It's a metaphor that speaks to me.