Eating the Kingdom

meditation as a path to receptivity

It must surely be a great shame to have the most wonderful meal made for us, and not be able to eat it.

Jesus famously likens the kingdom to a meal. The kingdom, which in the early Christian centuries was understood to mean contemplation, enlightened awareness, is like a meal to which all are invited.

In the gospel of Luke, Jesus says:

‘A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many. When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, “Come, everything is now ready.” But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves. The first said to him, “I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.” And another said, “I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you, consider me excused…’ (Luke 14:16-19).

The Poverty that Prepares us to Receive

Those who give their excuses are distracted by material concerns. Who gets to enjoy the feast of the kingdom of enlightened awareness? The poor.

What is necessary to enjoy the meal? To become poor in spirit. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 5:3).

The great medieval mystic Meister Eckhart speaks about being poor in spirit as receptiveness.

Just as a cupboard which is bare is ready to be filled with food and a glass which is empty is ready to receive the wine, those who are poor in spirit have ‘abandoned all things to God’ and come with a naked mind, open and ready to receive. As our eyesight is ‘poor’ in being bare of colour, says Eckhart, and yet receptive of all colours, the person who is poor in spirit ‘is receptive of all spirit, and the spirit of all spirits is God.’ (1)

Letting Go in Meditation

I’ve said a few times recently that it can seem strange, even unsettling, at first, to encounter a way of meditation, an ancient way of silent prayer, that invites us to let go of our thoughts, words and images.

This invitation can seem like an invitation to abandon the very tools and guide-ropes we use to navigate life, that help us make sense of our world.

And it is. That is exactly what we do during our time of meditation.

Despite Jesus teaching about the dangers of what you might call spiritual materialism, many expressions of Christianity place a great deal of emphasis of getting hold of things, and holding on to them tightly. We can very easily become preoccupied with what we consider to be spiritual possessions and, distracted by these, miss the meal of the kingdom.

Meditation as Dispossession and Receptivity

Meditation is a path of dispossession, of letting go, of helping the mind to become poor, a point of pure receptivity.

We discover that this work of dispossession is not a loss, but a doorway to discovering something beyond what our mind can grasp, more wonderful than we can imagine. Seek the kingdom before all else, Christ teaches (Luke 6:33). Don’t get caught up in worries about tomorrow, in thoughts about this and that.

‘The maturing contemplative,’ writes Martin Laird, ‘is too poor to be concerned with spiritual progress,’ (2) ‘too poor to have anything to defend.’ (3)

Of all the crucial skills for meditation, writes Laird, ‘perhaps the most important are a richness of desire too poor to seek an object of desire, self-forgetful openness, and blind trust. For “we walk by faith [trust] and not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7).’ (4)

The Kingdom is Right Here

It doesn’t come as something we can observe, says Jesus. It won’t be possible to say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ But behold, see, says Christ, the kingdom is within you (Luke 17:21).

The kingdom is always here. It’s part-and-parcel of who we are. We never need to ask whether the kingdom is present. The question is always the degree to which we are present.

Don’t be distracted by thoughts about the kingdom, what it might look like, or feel like, or sound like, what sort of ‘spiritual experience’ you may or may not have.

The meal is ready and waiting for us.

When we meditate, we come to eat it.

This blog is based on one of the teachings given in a recent online meditation group gathering. You are warmly welcome to join one of our future gatherings.

(1) See The Book of Divine Comfort in The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart, translated by Maurice O’C Walshe (New York: Crossroad, 2009), p.535. Also, see Sermon Four, p. 56: ‘…it is the potential of receptivity in which you will be perfected.’

(2) Martin Laird, An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation, and Liberation (Oxford University Press, 2019), p. 128.

(3) Ibid. p. 131.

(4) Ibid. p. 169.