"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke focus a lot on the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew uses the latter term. As a good Jew, he avoids saying "God" when possible.)
Modern Christianity seems to have lost any real expectancy of the Kingdom. If we speak of the Kingdom it often refers to the afterlife and not to anything here on earth. What a contrast to our gospel reading, where Jesus' arrival is connected with God's new day where the poor find good news, the blind are restored, the oppressed and captive are freed. Jesus also speaks of the year of jubilee or "the Lord's favor." In the Old Testament this was supposed to be a regular occurrence where debts were forgiven and land was returned to families who had to sell it because of bad economic times. Imagine the outcry is something such as this was suggested in our country. Charges of socialism would surely fly. And yet the Kingdom Jesus proclaims speaks of a leveling, of a lifting up of the poor and downtrodden, and and parallel pulling down of the well-off.
Now I don't believe that human beings can bring the Kingdom. Only God can do that. But while we cannot produce the Kingdom by anything we do, we are still supposed to be living as citizens of that Kingdom. Our congregations are supposed to be provisional outposts of the Kingdom, living in ways that help the world catch a glimpse of God's coming day.
But I am very much a part of this day, of its economic structures and its inequalities. And I must admit that I often am at a loss as to how I can reconcile my citizenship in the Kingdom with my citizenship in a world that is far from that Kingdom. O God, please guide me in how I am to live in this world but not be of it.
(Click here to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.)
From what I hear we had a speaker at a Sunday school class Sunday talking about immigration reform. When the question came up about which citizenship is most important...America or Christian there were many who struggled...and many who leaned toward America.
ReplyDeleteNot surprising when you remember that many of us were raised with the notion that American and Kingdom citizenship were completely compatible if not synonymous. Perhaps the dislodging of mainline churches such as my own from the culture's center may turn out to be great blessing, forcing us to wrestle with the nature of our dual citizenship.
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