the kingdom of God?

Good question, Ashley.  In fact, I'm not sure if I would know how to imagine a kingdom of God other than on earth.  I've been thinking a lot about what role God plays in this kingdom.  If it's really God's kingdom I've always thought God probably has a lot to do with it.  But as time passes I struggle to find room for a God that is anything other than human.  

We sometimes hear "God" tossed around in ways that don't have a lot to say to us and our neighbors in pain.  Words like atonement or sin and consolations like "God bless" or "everything works together for good" frustrate me when they are cast half-heartedly to strange faces in anguish as we hurriedly pass by or discretely lock our car doors.  The world is demanding a God that is just and human.

This is what captivates me about Christ.  If we believe Christ to be the revelation of the infinite and divine in completely human form, then perhaps our typical conception of God has been drastically domesticated.  

The Gospels reveal a radically other-focused Christ.  A Christ who is dangerously counter-cultural, sacrificing his reputation to associate with and serve the lowest in society – women, tax collectors, lepers, and foreigners.  Jesus is a human, a God, who washes dust-caked feet and calls us to “turn the other cheek,” “love our neighbor,” “give up all we have,” and treat the “least of these” as legitimately divine.  His parables inescapably describe an illogical ever-forgiveness that result in the reconciliation of a prodigal’s son and the healing of a beaten man left for dead.  This Jesus seems obsessed with a “kingdom” that apparently is a community marked by this insane Christo-logic and he is crucified by one that rejects it.

It seems like the kingdom of God then has a lot to do with the way we react to the face of our fellow humans.  If we need to love our enemy it makes it awfully hard to continue calling our enemy “enemy” – or to have enemies at all for that matter.  The plight of humanity becomes so much a part of who we are that surplus is never found until all mouths are fed.  Maybe we even need to absorb the violence of the world (social, verbal, physical) in an effort to end it. 

With this in mind, maybe today I can be less angry and more passionate; buy no more than I simply need; pass on a smile instead of returning a harsh remark; be thankful instead of grumbling; forget about fashion and recall my classmate’s name; stop thinking “charity” and start thinking “responsibility” and long for compassion instead of fairness.

This got really long… thanks for sticking it out J