As we approach Easter we were looking at how the conflict between Jesus and the authorities developed. Whatever spiritual metaphors or allegories we may draw from the cross, the factuality of it lies in the conflict between Jesus’ version of God’s Kingdom and the version held by the religious establishment centred around the Temple.
Whereas Jesus is teaching and demonstrating a message about living experience and understanding of God, power to bless, sharing of possessions: grass-roots God-among-us stuff; Caiaphas’ and the Temple power is about ritual and symbolism, restricted access to God, hierarchical power – and national identity and security. Faced with the threat of the heavy hand of Rome against any perceived unrest in the provinces, Caiaphas sees it as necessary and expedient to put down Jesus’ movement – to save the nation.
John (our writer) picks up Caiaphas’ cynical words and sees them as prophetic: this man will die “on behalf of the nation” (that is, in him the nation and nationalism will die) and the future will be about “bringing together into one body all the scattered people of God”. (11.52) Jesus alone is to be the centre of worship and honour. Nations and traditions bow to him.
Does this conflict of kingdoms have relevance today? Can’t we see it in the conflict between on the one hand core values like love, discipleship, missionality, real fellowship, prayer and worship; and on the other hand the relentless demands of church program, largely manifested in various forms of meetings that have to be serviced and led and which drain all our energy and time? When the crunch (usually of time) comes, we keep the program running because in it lies our identity. The core values are desirable, but the program is necessary. How can we make sure the “program” serves the needs of the core values rather than eclipsing them?
And what about God’s inclusivism? Might we end up saying to people outside our walls, “sorry, but if you don’t fit our program we’ve not got much for you: we’re a church, you know!” ?
We watched a video clip from Brian McLaren about how the Kingdom of God is not primarily about an after-life but about the difference following Jesus makes in this present life: “May your Kingdom come on earth as in heaven”. How does this change our outlook on life and people? We also looked at how our own ancestors – both in the early church and in the Anabaptist movement of the 16th Century – lived on the margins of society and church and suffered for their emphasis on faith and communality.
And what about our personal lives? What dreams and visions and senses of calling lie unfulfilled because of the demands of everyday life and social order? What did Jesus mean when he said – “if you want to follow me, take up your cross”? Or – even more outrageously, (Matt 10) “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword…. your worst enemies will be the members of your own family…. those who love their father or mother son or daughter more than me are not fit to be my disciples.”
Is God’s Kingdom (a la Jesus) really impossible? Or is it that it demands a focus and commitment which “ordinary life” and “necessity” are not prepared to yield to? So they crucify it as the expedient solution.
My short answer is that God’s Kingdom (a la Jesus) as you put it only exists within an established religious system. Similarly the old testament kingdom conflict analogy is only relevant today to church people, there is a very limited audience.
You could say that much of Jesus preching focused on the relevance of the “ordinary life” and the embracing of it. Perhaps you could say that the Jewish way was one of denial, pushing “sin” aside as if it didn’t exist, wheres Jesus method was to face it head on, spending time with “sinners”.
My opinion is that the church programme and “religious activity” isn’t the enemy. Yes a lot of time is spent doing these things, but is that really at the expense of more “core” activities? I see these things as a platform of activity upon which these “core” things can be placed. It’s people being together, the first instinct of community and fellowship.
It’s this natural communal activity that makes me think that it’s as much “core” as the other things mentioned, if not more so. Just being normal together and not engaging in any specific spiritual or upbuilding activity is as vital as eating and sleeping in my mind.
For me it doesn’t have to be about conflict, and the analogy doesn’t really stand. Would our Sunday Service really have caused Jesus to have the same reaction as the hypocrisy of the Jews? Yes there needs to be more prayer, more open worship, and better understanding between Christians, but are these other activities really an obstacle?
If “Kingdom of God” means “how it is when God is in charge” then I think without a doubt Jesus was trying to show that God wants to work at ordinary grass-roots level and not in religious structures and hierarchy. I think Jesus used the word “sinner” only as a jibe against the self-righteous who classed themselves as superior to others. I think he did value community, though I don’t know if he would have stressed the word “natural” – which seems to imply that there’s nothing greater. I think he came to call ordinary people to find greater things together as they get a new view of God as a friend and an enabler and a devolver of his own power to them. But where and how do you do that? If you were hearing Jesus for the first time and trying to “do the kingdom” what on earth would lead you to set up the sort of programmed structure that we now call “church”? You would surely be working at the “ordinary” level of small-community (or groups) purposefully trying to help each other and help others to find Jesus. You might well develop little (or even large) projects as you went along, but the danger is when the demands of the project take up all the available time and energy and it becomes either the thing that must be serviced come what may, or a substitute for true spirituality. Then it will lose its spiritual meaning and the workers will spiritually die of exhaustion. Their only consolation will be that they were “faithful to the project” – and that’s a deadly deception. But in my opinion it’s an often-found reality in “church” life. The knowledge of God is scanty, devotion to God is superficial, and all our identity rests in the organisation and the program: that’s what we “are”. We are satisfied with exhausting ourselves instead of finding refreshing and life in Jesus.