The more I get to know God, the more my “either/or” questions seem to get answered with “both.” Is Jesus man or God? Both. Lion or Lamb? Both. Friend or Lord? Both. I am consistently finding my two-fold categories are too simplistic and exclusive. I found this out again during class on Thursday.
I have for some time now wrestled with the idea of what our goal should be in seeking the Kingdom of God when we don’t live in a theocracy like Israel. I realize our government doesn’t submit itself to the rule of god, but i can’t exactly fault it for not doing so, because it was never set up under that pretense. God didn’t covenant with America; He didn’t set us apart like He did Israel. And i know He calls His people to seek justice and to give to the poor and to forsake adultery and greed and a host of other things, but i’ve always wondered what that should look like in a nation like ours? What does it mean globally when we are in this era where God has expanded His covenant to all nations? And what does it mean for a society that seperates its components into categorical spheres: politics, religion, economics, culture. In America today, everything has a “place,” but in ancient Israel, everything was interwined and so the wholistic transformation Jesus brought was more easily understood.
The question I’ve had for a few years now is this: Are we as Christians supposed to be an alternative community, living by the principles of the Kingdom of God? Or are we supposed to make the systems around us look more like the Kingdom of God (this has been the battle of the conservative Right for years)? I asked this “either/or” question in class on Thursday, and got an answer of…”both.”
It shouldn’t really surprise me. i don’t know why i didn’t think about it before. Ryan described the difference between living as an alternative community, in line with Jesus and Kingdom principles, and living as a witness, when you’re outside of that community, where you can proclaim the Kingdom of God and manifest it in what you do. Since our society has been so categorically broken down into seperate spheres, it makes it difficult for followers of Christ to live wholistically in an alternative community (I suppose the Amish are the only ones who have come close). But our witness to the Kingdom of God in whatever sphere we’re in will aid in eventually giving those systems back to God and His rule.
I was asking the wrong question. Perhaps the goal is not to make this world the Kingdom of God; it already exists apart from time and space. But perhaps we can allow room for it to break through and be visible here on earth. It isn’t completely here, and it isn’t completely there…it’s both.
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