In my last posting I concluded that what Jesus said about “the Kingdom of God” just didn’t jive with the standard, popular messianic meaning of his time. I dealt with the realization that Jesus had a radically new interpretation that was a spiritual meaning.
In today’s language we would say that re-interpretation given by Jesus was so radical that it seems like he was ridiculing in order to change the desperate, misguided desire of most people of his time. When we consider how much he was trying to change even the hope people placed on their longing for a messiah, we can see why he ran into so much trouble. He was showing how wrong it was to expect God to come crashing into history with a messiah leading an army of fiery angels to quickly save the people from their oppressive enemies. In that sense it was like saying that God didn’t work that way.
The words and actions of Jesus showed a completely different understanding. He wasn't willing to pander to the frantic religious zealots of his day. (And so for the following 2,000 years, people should have followed his lead and dismissed similar desires when they were piled on Jesus' memory.)
So to gain perspective, I focused on the parable of the mustard seed, and put it beside Paul’s description of God’s agape in Rom. 5:5. That led me to see that Jesus was giving a very good description of the beginning of spiritual life for those people who are able to pay attention to the way God wakes us up. As Jesus said, “Don’t you see? God’s kingdom is already among you.” (Common English Bible) (Or “The Kingdom of God is within you.” (New International Version)(Luke 17:21-22) And as he said in the Beatitude: “Happy are people who have pure hearts, because they will see God.” (Mt. 5:8 Common English Bible)
And then I asked, what kind of “power” was Jesus talking about “arriving?” Obviously it could not have been the materialistic power that everyone else at that time expected, because that did not happen. But it is as Paul discovered -- in spiritual “agape.” Clearly, Jesus and Paul were talking about spiritual power. It is only from such an awareness that we can possibly make sense of the “kingdom parables.”
But most people at the time of Jesus used "the Kingdom of God" in political terms. So a better translation than the English expression “the Kingdom of God” would be found by using spiritual terms rather than political terms. This is especially true for Americans, because we have added to the long history of cultures the profound political insight that when societies were organized, the kingship model had not been good for the development of the human race. American history has been able to demonstrate to other nations that the spiritual development of the human race was messed up during the thousands of years when the kingship model was used to order societies. So since we Americans finally have been able to demonstrate the end of kings, emperors, princes, and all forms of royalty; then it makes no sense for us to use “kingdom” as a theological model.
That means it makes much better religious sense to speak of the influence of God’s Presence in people’s lives and society. So even though the expression would be a little too bulky, still a much better translation than “the Kingdom of God” would be something like “the spiritual influence of God’s Presence” (or maybe just “the influence of God”).
The influence of God’s Presence grows up from the depths of my heart to slowly, completely change my whole perspective on Life. Or as Paul so profoundly said, “the agape of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom God has given us.” (Rom. 5:5 Common English Bible)
In that sense, agape fits the description of a mustard seed. The metaphor would apply to the way God ‘plants’ agape in our hearts to open us up to the Holy Spirit as we slowly grow in our consciousness of God’s power in our relationships. Such growth could then be called “agape consciousness.”
That’s how we become aware of “the spiritual influence of God’s Presence.” So as we act on that influence in our relationships, feeling the power of patience, and experiencing the growth and power of kindness (1 Cor. 13:4), we truly realize that God's Presence is “among us” or “within us.” That is what Jesus was describing. That is what Jesus was making possible for people to have. And so that is what we need to open up to and allow to happen in our lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment