Rethinking the Kingdom

By After Edmund • Aug 20th, 2008 • Category: Artists in Residence

Up all night, working all day, gone more than home, an endless list of “to do’s” and ideas (most of which will never materialize from within my cluttered mind), never enough money or gadgets or toys, and, as always, to many mindless and seemingly useless tasks to be done. Welcome to my kingdom.

My kingdom, for the most part, is a comfortable one. I have more junk than would ever be necessary to entertain even the most A.D.D. of minds. Technology and every latest form of communication affects my every choice and move. In my kingdom of comfort it is far too easy to forsake the roots and gospel of my Savior in favor of living the American Dream, spending 87% of everything I earn on myself and the ones I love the most. Armed with an arsenal of excuses, I can weasel and justify my way out of most any uncomfortable situation to the point of becoming completely self absorbed, worrying only about what moves my career up or makes my life better. But I know that I am wrong. And that is the first step to recovery. Right?

I was prompted to this series of thoughts as I listened to latest album by UK rockers Delirious? (not so ironically named Kingdom of Comfort) and as I read author Shane Claiborne’s liner notes, “The truth is that it is far to easy to forget that our entire existence can and should be boiled down to only two commands of Jesus: 1. Love God (Matt 26:6-13) 2. Love Others (Matt 25:34-40).” I encourage you now to actually read those two passages.

Not what you were expecting I know, but those two passages are a clear guide for where our priorities should lie. First, we see a woman forsaking all money, pride, and even the poor in favor of blessing Jesus. Second, is the clearest picture of what it means to love others and spread the good news of Christ, to be the hands and feet of Jesus to Jesus. In the words of Claiborne, “This is the gospel that should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” I’m not proposing a strict “social only” gospel or that we all take a vow of poverty, but I am calling us to compare the way we live our lives verses the call of Jesus that we bear fruit of God’s Kingdom (Matt 21:43; Ouch!).

I met a friend of mine for dinner at a taco shop a few weeks ago. After we parked we noticed a man sitting behind the building near the dumpster, the man was dirty, smelly, and yes, hungry. My friend showed me the most pure picture of what Jesus meant in Matthew 25 because my friend talked with the man for a bit and then spared no expense and took the guy’s order of exactly what he’d like from the taco shop. And then my friend asked, “What would you like to drink? Would you like a Coke?” My friend served the man, preparing him salsa and a drink and brought it right to him in the name of Christ. And after fulfilling his physical needs we stood there and prayed with and for the man that God would give him new life. And this isn’t just a one time event for my friend it is the way he lives his life. No score is kept, no list of good deeds. Instead he quietly goes about his life following Christ’s commands of love. (also see Matt 6:3).

That is the picture of Christ’s love for others, and is where I want to be. The truth and gospel of our Savior, relevant to all, can pull us with equal force from the loneliness of poverty and of wealth. It’s going to take a lifestyle change to get there. It’s going to take us constantly moving away from our selfish pride and desires and toward the laws and joys of God’s kingdom.

- Yates

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