i've realised.
that it's different now. where in the past i genuinely wasn't bothered, played along even, these days it matters a bit more, so that when someone (<- this being a person whose regard matters) asks if the x label i've been given is true, i sigh a little inside.
it didn't use to matter. people i cared for knew me beyond the rumours, and never bothered with them. then one day i was told i couldn't be trusted because of label xyz, and it's never really been the same since.
i never want it to happen again. not that i can help it. if the other party is content with hearsay and so locks me in, that's merely a right exercised. no protests, game over. i could wish with all my heart you'd fought that bit more to exonerate me, or took the time to see that who i was is no longer who i am, but not everyone can make that distinction.
p/s i read this over and realised it sounds gloomy. i'm not gloomy! just thinking aloud, guess the subject's inherently kind of sad.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
in limbo
i don't know, i felt like changing the template. acts of impulse make for an interesting world. (:
in the spirit of spontaneity then, i proceed to make a few observations on Things That Have Been Changing Recently:
1. i am rarely on msn these days.
2. the thought of shopping is no longer accompanied by chimebells and floating flowers in the wind. (why? :/)
3. me.
so anyway, i came here to type a bit. i suppose it quietens me down somewhat. not that anyone senses it, because my restlessness is the inward sort; i am discomfortingly tranquil outside.
i borrowed six books on tuesday, and by night had finished 3. i have since finished the rest. i went to the cage last night, and remember it was green. i don't fall asleep much anymore, i have wrecked my body clock. i lie in bed and pretend to dream. my room's door is closed and there's tv playing outside.
but it's not all bad. one merely waits for time to kill itself, like a storm blowing out and going meekly home. energy in the meantime runs low; i need to learn to haul. heave and haul lesson 2; my previous mechanisms should be trashed. i need new ones.
i shall rouse myself in awhile more, in the meantime i nestle lower in my beanbag for the rest my body needs. and place the keyboard on my lap and type. i have no idea how to perform perfunctionarily for the evening function tonight; perhaps i shall- my mind's a blank. no worries; there's always chocolate like a medical drug. or i can always ungo. stash my chole dress and japanese four inch heels determinedly away in the dr. dolittle bag and pretend the world consists of only trees. not too difficult actually. watch the people walk me by because i've turned on the invisibility veneer.
~
am hungry again; i get hungry at the oddest times, like in bed knowing it's 2am when my stomach starts panging. i leave the darkness of my room to the fridge, eat fruits and throw the seeds out of the window. hopefully next year there will be four baby durian trees on the soil below my block. sometimes i eat cheese and do a little inward jitty. i like cheese. last night i wanted horfan gravy.
can you believe i signed in intending to write about submission? haha. i did, actually. last night during ag we covered colossians 3:18-4:1, which generated a good discussion albeit at the theoratical level. but you can't expect much when no one's actually married. all good.
we also talked about flaws; i read somewhere (i do know where) that we love the other hoping s/he is all that we are not, and not what we know we are. but how can that work? it cannot ever work. because of who we are, who i am, who you are.
so many times even who i am, who you are isn't enough because we're layers. we're uneven layers and blocks and glitter and scar tissue that's thick and fused uglily. how do you spell uglily?i have a feeling i spelt it wrong :) but mm yeah, loving not just past the layers, but loving even the layers. kind of like christine daae in leroux's novel.
we can always face it. i shall brave the evening. hoorah.
in the spirit of spontaneity then, i proceed to make a few observations on Things That Have Been Changing Recently:
1. i am rarely on msn these days.
2. the thought of shopping is no longer accompanied by chimebells and floating flowers in the wind. (why? :/)
3. me.
so anyway, i came here to type a bit. i suppose it quietens me down somewhat. not that anyone senses it, because my restlessness is the inward sort; i am discomfortingly tranquil outside.
i borrowed six books on tuesday, and by night had finished 3. i have since finished the rest. i went to the cage last night, and remember it was green. i don't fall asleep much anymore, i have wrecked my body clock. i lie in bed and pretend to dream. my room's door is closed and there's tv playing outside.
but it's not all bad. one merely waits for time to kill itself, like a storm blowing out and going meekly home. energy in the meantime runs low; i need to learn to haul. heave and haul lesson 2; my previous mechanisms should be trashed. i need new ones.
i shall rouse myself in awhile more, in the meantime i nestle lower in my beanbag for the rest my body needs. and place the keyboard on my lap and type. i have no idea how to perform perfunctionarily for the evening function tonight; perhaps i shall- my mind's a blank. no worries; there's always chocolate like a medical drug. or i can always ungo. stash my chole dress and japanese four inch heels determinedly away in the dr. dolittle bag and pretend the world consists of only trees. not too difficult actually. watch the people walk me by because i've turned on the invisibility veneer.
~
am hungry again; i get hungry at the oddest times, like in bed knowing it's 2am when my stomach starts panging. i leave the darkness of my room to the fridge, eat fruits and throw the seeds out of the window. hopefully next year there will be four baby durian trees on the soil below my block. sometimes i eat cheese and do a little inward jitty. i like cheese. last night i wanted horfan gravy.
can you believe i signed in intending to write about submission? haha. i did, actually. last night during ag we covered colossians 3:18-4:1, which generated a good discussion albeit at the theoratical level. but you can't expect much when no one's actually married. all good.
we also talked about flaws; i read somewhere (i do know where) that we love the other hoping s/he is all that we are not, and not what we know we are. but how can that work? it cannot ever work. because of who we are, who i am, who you are.
so many times even who i am, who you are isn't enough because we're layers. we're uneven layers and blocks and glitter and scar tissue that's thick and fused uglily. how do you spell uglily?i have a feeling i spelt it wrong :) but mm yeah, loving not just past the layers, but loving even the layers. kind of like christine daae in leroux's novel.
we can always face it. i shall brave the evening. hoorah.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
it's still about passion-
but before that, chamber's argument on obedience has been pretty interesting too: http://utmost.org/the-submission-of-the-believer/ ; although it might be helpful to first read the previous day's : http://utmost.org/the-mystery-of-believing/.
so yes, naomi zacharias' writings on crazy christians, and the paragraph that was heatful-
Here, we might further discover that God not only encourages hospitality for the sake of the one who would receive it, but also for the sake of the world that sees it. In a recent article in The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof makes the observation that in certain countries where danger and instability are constant threats, "you often find that the only groups still operating are Doctors Without Borders and religious aid workers: crazy doctors and crazy Christians." He continues, "In the town of Rutshuru in war-ravaged Congo, I found starving children, raped widows, and shellshocked survivors. And there was a determined Catholic nun from Poland, serenely running a church clinic."
that God would let me be someone like that!
so yes, naomi zacharias' writings on crazy christians, and the paragraph that was heatful-
Here, we might further discover that God not only encourages hospitality for the sake of the one who would receive it, but also for the sake of the world that sees it. In a recent article in The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof makes the observation that in certain countries where danger and instability are constant threats, "you often find that the only groups still operating are Doctors Without Borders and religious aid workers: crazy doctors and crazy Christians." He continues, "In the town of Rutshuru in war-ravaged Congo, I found starving children, raped widows, and shellshocked survivors. And there was a determined Catholic nun from Poland, serenely running a church clinic."
that God would let me be someone like that!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
an exercise in metathought
"I have always been fascinated by the history of ideas. Why do we think the way we do about particular subjects, and where do those thoughts come from? Nine times out of ten, the ideas we ruminate on today are recycled compilations from what was said long ago. As the writer of Ecclesiastes rightly attested, "That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So, there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Nevertheless, not many of us take the time to trace the "genealogy" of many of our ideas. Doing so reveals the historic origins to the ways in which we think and view the world today.
Recently, I began one of these genealogical journeys through the historical period known as the Enlightenment. Most scholars agree that the Enlightenment or "Age of Reason" began in the early seventeenth century with the writings and work of Francis Bacon and ended with the publication of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.(1) The great "idea" of the Enlightenment was that human reason, human autonomy, and human progress would lead to ever-expanding knowledge about the created order and ever-expanding ways in which to exercise dominion over creation. Fueled by scientific and philosophical discoveries made by Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, and Rene Descartes, the view of the world as the dominion of God's providence and rule from on high shifted to the god of the mind, where reason could discover all that was necessary to advance humanity toward its highest destiny.
While we can certainly hear echoes of these ideas in our world today, I was particularly interested to see if there were other ways in which we have assumed principles of the Enlightenment religion without batting an eyelash. As a result of the quantification and methodology shifts in the scientific realm of the Enlightenment, theologians came to view religion in the same way: as something that could be quantified, categorized, and proven by the power of reason. As a result, revelation came to be understood as simply the function of human reason. Natural religion, or deism, what came to be the orthodoxy of the day, began to subsume all of the supernatural elements of faith since they were "unprovable" by the Enlightenment methods of inquiry. Theologians wanted to reduce and quantify religion to its most basic elements, which they believed to be universal and therefore reasonable.(2) The Christian faith became reduced to a bare minimum of dogma: the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and postmortem retribution for sin and blessing for virtue. These were all that were left of pre-Enlightenment faith. All claims to the supernatural or to revelation were seen as unnecessary in a world where the Creator had endowed human beings with enough reason to discern what was important simply by looking at the great book of nature. The autonomous, rational human became the arbiter of truth and knowledge, and that was enough.
Inherent in this Enlightenment mindset, and common in our day as well, is the assumption that knowledge is good, certain, and objective. We often uncritically accept this Enlightenment idea as we look at Christian faith today, and we leave little room for ways of knowing that go beyond the rational or the scientific. As Blaise Pascal once said, "The heart has its reasons which reason cannot know."(3) For the Christian, such Enlightenment assumption are problematic, for we acknowledge that the fall of humanity impacted the whole self—including the mind.
Without jettisoning intellectual rigor and study, or succumbing to a faith without content, the Christian must make room for the concept of "mystery" and be cautious about assuming an Enlightenment way of viewing knowledge and truth. Sometimes we simply do not know. Our minds are limited and God is infinite. We must reject the hubris of Enlightenment optimism and its positing the endless, upward progress of human rationality to attain to omniscience. Moreover, no faith can be reduced to a set of fixed doctrines, even while it surely contains them. And for the Christian, rather, we must acknowledge "that the fundamental reality of God transcends human rationality" and "the heart of being a Christian is a personal encounter with God in Christ, who shapes us and molds us."(3) We come to know in and through personal encounter—both with God and with God's people in community—and we must reject the notion that we are ultimately and only autonomous, thinking selves. We are reminded by the apostle John that Truth is ultimately and completely revealed in a person—"The Word (logos) became flesh and dwelt among us"—and it is as a result of this person that we come to know anything that is worth knowing at all."
Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.
(1) Stanley Grenz and Roger Olsen, 20th Century Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 16.
(2) Grenz and Olsen, 23.
(3) Cited in Stanley Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 166.
Recently, I began one of these genealogical journeys through the historical period known as the Enlightenment. Most scholars agree that the Enlightenment or "Age of Reason" began in the early seventeenth century with the writings and work of Francis Bacon and ended with the publication of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.(1) The great "idea" of the Enlightenment was that human reason, human autonomy, and human progress would lead to ever-expanding knowledge about the created order and ever-expanding ways in which to exercise dominion over creation. Fueled by scientific and philosophical discoveries made by Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, and Rene Descartes, the view of the world as the dominion of God's providence and rule from on high shifted to the god of the mind, where reason could discover all that was necessary to advance humanity toward its highest destiny.
While we can certainly hear echoes of these ideas in our world today, I was particularly interested to see if there were other ways in which we have assumed principles of the Enlightenment religion without batting an eyelash. As a result of the quantification and methodology shifts in the scientific realm of the Enlightenment, theologians came to view religion in the same way: as something that could be quantified, categorized, and proven by the power of reason. As a result, revelation came to be understood as simply the function of human reason. Natural religion, or deism, what came to be the orthodoxy of the day, began to subsume all of the supernatural elements of faith since they were "unprovable" by the Enlightenment methods of inquiry. Theologians wanted to reduce and quantify religion to its most basic elements, which they believed to be universal and therefore reasonable.(2) The Christian faith became reduced to a bare minimum of dogma: the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and postmortem retribution for sin and blessing for virtue. These were all that were left of pre-Enlightenment faith. All claims to the supernatural or to revelation were seen as unnecessary in a world where the Creator had endowed human beings with enough reason to discern what was important simply by looking at the great book of nature. The autonomous, rational human became the arbiter of truth and knowledge, and that was enough.
Inherent in this Enlightenment mindset, and common in our day as well, is the assumption that knowledge is good, certain, and objective. We often uncritically accept this Enlightenment idea as we look at Christian faith today, and we leave little room for ways of knowing that go beyond the rational or the scientific. As Blaise Pascal once said, "The heart has its reasons which reason cannot know."(3) For the Christian, such Enlightenment assumption are problematic, for we acknowledge that the fall of humanity impacted the whole self—including the mind.
Without jettisoning intellectual rigor and study, or succumbing to a faith without content, the Christian must make room for the concept of "mystery" and be cautious about assuming an Enlightenment way of viewing knowledge and truth. Sometimes we simply do not know. Our minds are limited and God is infinite. We must reject the hubris of Enlightenment optimism and its positing the endless, upward progress of human rationality to attain to omniscience. Moreover, no faith can be reduced to a set of fixed doctrines, even while it surely contains them. And for the Christian, rather, we must acknowledge "that the fundamental reality of God transcends human rationality" and "the heart of being a Christian is a personal encounter with God in Christ, who shapes us and molds us."(3) We come to know in and through personal encounter—both with God and with God's people in community—and we must reject the notion that we are ultimately and only autonomous, thinking selves. We are reminded by the apostle John that Truth is ultimately and completely revealed in a person—"The Word (logos) became flesh and dwelt among us"—and it is as a result of this person that we come to know anything that is worth knowing at all."
Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.
(1) Stanley Grenz and Roger Olsen, 20th Century Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 16.
(2) Grenz and Olsen, 23.
(3) Cited in Stanley Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 166.
Friday, July 09, 2010
in Today's Slice (rzim)
"Where the Flying Spaghetti Monster attempts to shake belief and dissuade certainty, it holds no power as an analogy for belief in God because it misses the very heart of why so many people intuitively believe. This was illustrated recently in a debate between Richard Dawkins and Christian mathematician John Lennox. Dawkins referenced the illustration of a person walking through a forest and finding a beautiful garden. He asked, "Isn't it enough to appreciate the beauty of the garden without having to believe in invisible fairies hiding behind the flowers?" Lennox's reply demonstrated the fallacy in this analogy. He said, "Of course you wouldn't have to believe in fairies in the garden, but you would assume there was a gardener, wouldn't you?" You would believe in a gardener even without seeing him or her because it is the only way to make sense of a garden. Otherwise, how would you distinguish between the garden and the rest of the forest you were walking through? A garden is only a garden if it was planted and cared for on purpose. The God of the Bible is not comparable to any of the funny invisible internet deities, but He is quite like the gardener. He makes sense of the world and He assures us that we are not here by accident, but that we were created on purpose and for a purpose."
Monday, July 05, 2010
i want to tell the unstoppable story
"You can't stop stories being told," Dr. Parnassus tells his relentless foe with religious assurance in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The world of belief-systems and worldviews is indeed a complicated playground of stories, storytellers, and allegiances—and this is one film which certainly attests to that complicated dance. What makes the interplay of story most complicated is perhaps what is often our inability to perceive these interacting powers in the first place. That which permeates our surroundings, subconsciously molds our understanding, and continuously informs our vision of reality, is not always easy to articulate. The dominate culture shapes our world in ways we seldom even realize, and often cannot realize, until something outside of our culture comes along and introduces us, and the scales fall from our eyes.
Further complicating the great arena of narratives is the fact that we often do not even recognize certain systems for the metanarratives that they are, or else we grossly underestimate the story's power. Whatever versions of the story we utilize to understand human history—atheism, capitalism, pluralism, consumerism—their roots run very deep in the human soul. This is why Bishop Kenneth Carder can refer to the global market economy as a "dominant god," or consumerism, economism, and nationalism as religions.(1) These deeply rooted ideologies are challenged only when a different ideology comes knocking, when a different faith-system comes along and upsets the system that powerfully orders our worlds.
This is perhaps one reason that Christian scripture calls again and again to remember the story, to tell of the acts of God in history, and to bear in mind the one who is near. For into this world of belief-systems and worldviews, God tells the story of creation and the pursuit of its redemption, and then Christ comes and proclaims a kingdom entirely other. The narrative we discover introduces us not only to a new world but a world that jarringly shows us our own.
The signs and scenes of leading to the crucifixion alone challenge many of our cultural norms, turning upside down ideas of authority, power, and glory, presenting us a kingdom that reverses everything we know. What kind of a king crouches down to his subjects to wash their feet? What kind of a leader tells those under him that the way to the top requires a dedication to the bottom? What kind of meal promises to lift us to another kingdom where we are ushered into the presence of the host and then asked to taste him? Yet this is the story he told and Christians tell. "And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me'" (Luke 22:19). Not long after their meal, his physical body was broken, too.
The story of the Christian is one that remembers the last moments of a rabbi and his disciples—a meal shared, a lamb revealed, feet washed by one who claimed to be both king and servant. It is a story that invites its hearers into a kingdom entirely different than the many stories before them, connecting them with a God who somehow reigns within a realm that is both here and now, and also approaching. In the Lord's Supper, Christians are literally "taking in" this kingdom, which unites followers with Christ in such a way that helps us to live as he lived: "in" but not "of" the world of stories.
When the apostle Paul called early followers of Christ not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of their minds so that they might discern what is the will of God—"what is good and acceptable and perfect," he was reminding them that there are overlapping and contradicting stories all around them, but that it is the story of God that must be their orienting narrative (Romans 12:2). In other words, Christians are not left the option of living unaware of all the subconscious ways in which we are formed by the world of stories. Living into the kingdom of God means recognizing the power of God's story beside every competing narrative—not necessarily shutting each one out, but interpreting every other story through the Story. Living further into the story of God’s reign, the Christian's very life, like that of Christ's, shows the world the subversive power of a narrative that moves far beyond the systems of "postmodernism," "consumerism," and "nationalism."
Whether Christian, atheist, or Hindu, no one can avoid being in the world. We cannot escape the world's formative stories, nor should we want to escape the particular place where we have been planted.(3) Yet, nor do we want it to become so much our home that we cannot see all the dust on the windows or feel the draft of a roofless shelter. For the Christian, the more we find ourselves living into a different kingdom, a world breathed by the Father, proclaimed by Christ, and revealed by the Spirit, the unchallenged, unseen storylines of the world come sharply into focus. And the more we taste and see of the kingdom of God, the more we taste and see of the kingdom of earth as well. Like Paul, at times something like scales fall from our eyes and the Spirit compels us to get up and re-experience our baptisms, going further into the kingdom, where our voices regain strength in telling the unstoppable story.(4)
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Kenneth Carder, "Market and Mission: Competing Visions for Transforming Ministry," Lecture, Duke Divinity School, Oct. 16, 2001, 1.
(2) Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1995), 95.
(3) Jesus himself prayed, "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but I ask that you protect them from the evil one" (John 17:15).
(4) "And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength" (Acts 9:18-19).
Further complicating the great arena of narratives is the fact that we often do not even recognize certain systems for the metanarratives that they are, or else we grossly underestimate the story's power. Whatever versions of the story we utilize to understand human history—atheism, capitalism, pluralism, consumerism—their roots run very deep in the human soul. This is why Bishop Kenneth Carder can refer to the global market economy as a "dominant god," or consumerism, economism, and nationalism as religions.(1) These deeply rooted ideologies are challenged only when a different ideology comes knocking, when a different faith-system comes along and upsets the system that powerfully orders our worlds.
This is perhaps one reason that Christian scripture calls again and again to remember the story, to tell of the acts of God in history, and to bear in mind the one who is near. For into this world of belief-systems and worldviews, God tells the story of creation and the pursuit of its redemption, and then Christ comes and proclaims a kingdom entirely other. The narrative we discover introduces us not only to a new world but a world that jarringly shows us our own.
The signs and scenes of leading to the crucifixion alone challenge many of our cultural norms, turning upside down ideas of authority, power, and glory, presenting us a kingdom that reverses everything we know. What kind of a king crouches down to his subjects to wash their feet? What kind of a leader tells those under him that the way to the top requires a dedication to the bottom? What kind of meal promises to lift us to another kingdom where we are ushered into the presence of the host and then asked to taste him? Yet this is the story he told and Christians tell. "And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me'" (Luke 22:19). Not long after their meal, his physical body was broken, too.
The story of the Christian is one that remembers the last moments of a rabbi and his disciples—a meal shared, a lamb revealed, feet washed by one who claimed to be both king and servant. It is a story that invites its hearers into a kingdom entirely different than the many stories before them, connecting them with a God who somehow reigns within a realm that is both here and now, and also approaching. In the Lord's Supper, Christians are literally "taking in" this kingdom, which unites followers with Christ in such a way that helps us to live as he lived: "in" but not "of" the world of stories.
When the apostle Paul called early followers of Christ not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of their minds so that they might discern what is the will of God—"what is good and acceptable and perfect," he was reminding them that there are overlapping and contradicting stories all around them, but that it is the story of God that must be their orienting narrative (Romans 12:2). In other words, Christians are not left the option of living unaware of all the subconscious ways in which we are formed by the world of stories. Living into the kingdom of God means recognizing the power of God's story beside every competing narrative—not necessarily shutting each one out, but interpreting every other story through the Story. Living further into the story of God’s reign, the Christian's very life, like that of Christ's, shows the world the subversive power of a narrative that moves far beyond the systems of "postmodernism," "consumerism," and "nationalism."
Whether Christian, atheist, or Hindu, no one can avoid being in the world. We cannot escape the world's formative stories, nor should we want to escape the particular place where we have been planted.(3) Yet, nor do we want it to become so much our home that we cannot see all the dust on the windows or feel the draft of a roofless shelter. For the Christian, the more we find ourselves living into a different kingdom, a world breathed by the Father, proclaimed by Christ, and revealed by the Spirit, the unchallenged, unseen storylines of the world come sharply into focus. And the more we taste and see of the kingdom of God, the more we taste and see of the kingdom of earth as well. Like Paul, at times something like scales fall from our eyes and the Spirit compels us to get up and re-experience our baptisms, going further into the kingdom, where our voices regain strength in telling the unstoppable story.(4)
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Kenneth Carder, "Market and Mission: Competing Visions for Transforming Ministry," Lecture, Duke Divinity School, Oct. 16, 2001, 1.
(2) Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1995), 95.
(3) Jesus himself prayed, "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but I ask that you protect them from the evil one" (John 17:15).
(4) "And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength" (Acts 9:18-19).
Saturday, July 03, 2010
just because all this kingdom talk reminds me of MEET/g-cube
"The kingdom of God is for the gullible," I read recently. "You enter by putting an end to all your questions."
It's true that Jesus moved all over Judea pronouncing the reign of God and the kingdom of heaven as if it were a notion he wanted the simplest soul to get his mind around. But simplicity was not what hearers walked away with. With great disparity, he made it clear that this kingdom was approaching, that it was here, that it was among us, that we needed to enter it, that we need to wait for it, that we desperately need the one who reigns within it. The tension within so many different and dynamic realities turned the clarity of each individual picture into a great and ambiguous portrait. He insisted, the kingdom "has come near you" (Luke 10:9). Yet he prayed, "Thy kingdom come" (Matthew 6:10). Paul, too, described the placement of believers in the kingdom as something established: "God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son" (Colossians 1:13). While the writer of Hebrews described the kingdom as an ongoing gift we must accept: "Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us therefore give thanks" (Hebrew 14:28). To make matters all the more complex, Jesus also assigned the kingdom imagery such as a mustard seed, a treasure in a field, and a great banquet, among others.
Contrary to putting an end to one's questions, the kingdom of God incites inquiry all the more. What is the nature of this kingdom? Can it be all of these things? Who is this messenger? And what kind of proclamation requires the herald to pour out his very life to tell it? Whatever this kingdom is, it unmistakably introduces to a world far different from the one around us, one we cannot quite get our minds around, with tensions and dynamisms reminiscent of the promise of God to answer our cries "with great and unsearchable things you do not know" (Jeremiah 33:3). It is a kingdom that tells a story grand enough to master the metanarratives which otherwise compel us into thoughtless, gullible obedience. It is a kingdom with a king whose very authority exposes our idols as wood and reforms our numbed minds with great and surprising reversals of reality.
In this kingdom Jesus proclaims we are shown a God who opens the eyes of the blind and raises the dead, who claims the last will be the first, and the servant is the greatest. But his proclamations did not cease with mere easy words. Jesus put these claims into action, placing this kingdom before us in such a way that forbids us to see any of it as mere religion, abstraction, gullibility, or sentimentality:
"Then the whole assembly rose and led Jesus off to Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, 'We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king.'
So Pilate asked Jesus, 'Are you the king of the Jews?'
'Yes, it is as you say,' Jesus replied.
Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, 'I find no basis for a charge against this man.'
But they insisted, 'He stirs up the people all over Judeaby his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here...' So with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed" (Luke 23:1-23, emphasis the writer's).
The way of proclamation led to the way of the passion, the path of commotion to the path of accusation, a road strewn with signs of the authority of another kingdom to a road that demanded death and mocked a king. And yet this man is still subverting nations. The kingdom he proclaimed in life and in death continues to unravel our own.
In this world of gullibility, crafted ignorance, and much distraction, there sounds a clarion call for a new means of perception. Living somewhere between this foreign kingdom of God's reign and the familiar kingdom of earth, some of us never fully see or live in either. Still others somehow find themselves moved beyond the familiar borders of the world they know, to the very threshold of the kingdom of God where, longing to see in fullness and relishing here and now, they discover the one who reigns.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
It's true that Jesus moved all over Judea pronouncing the reign of God and the kingdom of heaven as if it were a notion he wanted the simplest soul to get his mind around. But simplicity was not what hearers walked away with. With great disparity, he made it clear that this kingdom was approaching, that it was here, that it was among us, that we needed to enter it, that we need to wait for it, that we desperately need the one who reigns within it. The tension within so many different and dynamic realities turned the clarity of each individual picture into a great and ambiguous portrait. He insisted, the kingdom "has come near you" (Luke 10:9). Yet he prayed, "Thy kingdom come" (Matthew 6:10). Paul, too, described the placement of believers in the kingdom as something established: "God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son" (Colossians 1:13). While the writer of Hebrews described the kingdom as an ongoing gift we must accept: "Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us therefore give thanks" (Hebrew 14:28). To make matters all the more complex, Jesus also assigned the kingdom imagery such as a mustard seed, a treasure in a field, and a great banquet, among others.
Contrary to putting an end to one's questions, the kingdom of God incites inquiry all the more. What is the nature of this kingdom? Can it be all of these things? Who is this messenger? And what kind of proclamation requires the herald to pour out his very life to tell it? Whatever this kingdom is, it unmistakably introduces to a world far different from the one around us, one we cannot quite get our minds around, with tensions and dynamisms reminiscent of the promise of God to answer our cries "with great and unsearchable things you do not know" (Jeremiah 33:3). It is a kingdom that tells a story grand enough to master the metanarratives which otherwise compel us into thoughtless, gullible obedience. It is a kingdom with a king whose very authority exposes our idols as wood and reforms our numbed minds with great and surprising reversals of reality.
In this kingdom Jesus proclaims we are shown a God who opens the eyes of the blind and raises the dead, who claims the last will be the first, and the servant is the greatest. But his proclamations did not cease with mere easy words. Jesus put these claims into action, placing this kingdom before us in such a way that forbids us to see any of it as mere religion, abstraction, gullibility, or sentimentality:
"Then the whole assembly rose and led Jesus off to Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, 'We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king.'
So Pilate asked Jesus, 'Are you the king of the Jews?'
'Yes, it is as you say,' Jesus replied.
Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, 'I find no basis for a charge against this man.'
But they insisted, 'He stirs up the people all over Judeaby his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here...' So with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed" (Luke 23:1-23, emphasis the writer's).
The way of proclamation led to the way of the passion, the path of commotion to the path of accusation, a road strewn with signs of the authority of another kingdom to a road that demanded death and mocked a king. And yet this man is still subverting nations. The kingdom he proclaimed in life and in death continues to unravel our own.
In this world of gullibility, crafted ignorance, and much distraction, there sounds a clarion call for a new means of perception. Living somewhere between this foreign kingdom of God's reign and the familiar kingdom of earth, some of us never fully see or live in either. Still others somehow find themselves moved beyond the familiar borders of the world they know, to the very threshold of the kingdom of God where, longing to see in fullness and relishing here and now, they discover the one who reigns.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)