8/14/11 An Incarnational Kingdom Theology (Sider-series, wk 1)
Lk 4.14-21 (16); Isaiah 9.1-7
9/21/97 while off coast of VA, USS Yorktown, state-of-the-art advanced missile cruiser, shuddered to a halt. Yorktown had gotten new software but an engineer left out an instruction. At that instant, 80000 horsepower became worthless. Had to be towed to port. Missing something. Without that part, that billion dollar boat was dead in the water.[1]
I fear that our churches are missing something, and that they too have ceased moving. Jim Wallis: Churches today are tragically split between those who stress conversion but have forgotten its goal and those who emphasize Christian social action but have forgotten the necessity for conversion.[2] It’s true. We-- 21st century American Christianity—we have divided the Gospel of Jesus into either/or parts. In varying degrees, churches either hold a theology and practice that focuses on the individual relationship between God and the sinner, emphasizing a personal salvation experience, while neglecting issues of social justice and physical need OR churches hold a theology and practice the views sin as injury (injury to self and neighbor and community) and not as offense to God, a theology and practice set upon earthly matters to the neglect of transcendent redemption. For the most part, churches are either concerned with the vertical relationship (me and Jesus) or the horizontal relationship (me and my neighbors and my community and my world); rarely is it both.
FBC-Columbia, TN; evangelism without any social mission. Missing something. BSU-Wake Forest; social mission without any evangelism. Missing something.
Baptists did this during the convention wars of the ‘80s. The fundamentalists and conservatives decided to save souls and get their baptism numbers up. The progressives or liberals decided to focus on reforming social structures and serve those with physical needs. The bible thumpers scoffed at the do-gooders as the do-gooders mocked the bible thumpers. This sad tendency continues today. Some months ago I was in conversation with another local pastor; this pastor openly ridiculed some children’s curriculum that sought to teach children the necessity of following Christ. I know of another church that serves the poor a meal each week, but only after listening to their sales-pitch for Jesus. We followers are missing something.
I can’t find Jesus in my reading of the gospels keeping track of how many people he led to Himself. Nor can I find in my bible offering physical comfort without also providing spiritual recovery. Jesus never talked of saving souls. Jesus never used the words community development. But, my bible is full of Jesus proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
What are the characteristics of the Kingdom of God? Is it physical healing? Is it spiritual transformation? Is it a personal relationship with Jesus? Is it community, including family, friends, neighbors, strangers? Is it reforming the ways of this world? Is it confession of sins and offences against the Creator? Is it loving? Is it being loved? In the name of Jesus, it is all these things and more.
Luke 4. Jesus reads from Isaiah to his home church—preaching Good News to the poor, proclaiming freedom to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, release to the oppressed and proclaiming the year of God’s favor. This is the beginning of J’s ministry and for Luke here’s the theme of J’s message. We have images that will be used over and over again—poverty/need, captivity/imprisonment, blindness/ignorance, the love of the Father. Can we say with a straight face that Jesus only cared for souls? He fed and healed and comforted. Can we say with any integrity that Jesus only cared for social needs? He is the Bread of Life and the Living Water. Jesus raised up the poor and the spiritually broke. He freed those in the bonds of sin as well as infirmity. Our Savior gave sight to the visually impaired and light to those spiritually blind. Christ announced and made manifest God’s love to the rich and the poor, the well-to-do and those on the margins. This is the Kingdom and Jesus has brought it forth. Today the scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing. Today.
Today’s title is: Incarnational Kingdom Theology. Term coined by Ron Sider, professor at Palmer Theological in Philadelphia. Luke 4 describes the Kingdom—it describes Jesus and His work. It is a description of the follower of Jesus too, followers who not only live out Luke 4 but who embody it. The Kingdom takes on flesh. Not either/or. It is both/and. It is proclaiming Jesus as Savior of the world while working to redeem creation: its structures and ways and even the dirt. It is announcing Jesus to the lost as we serve the least and the last. It is living out our adoration for Christ so that we love wastefully and speak of our Redeemer without hesitation. It is caring for physical and spiritual needs. It is being in relationship with the Son of God to give ourselves up to Him. It is being in relationship with others to expand and enlarge the borders of the Kingdom. Karl Barth said of our Luke 4 passage—J is the one who comes and by His coming everything that will come has come. It is done. The Kingdom is here…now…today. [3]
The following three Sundays: whole salvation—redemption is not limited to my soul but all the earth screams for it; whole conversion—the powers and principalities of this world remain unless Jesus transforms them; finally whole Gospel—there are not parts or pieces—it’s just Jesus making the Kingdom of God here and now.
On that spectrum of evangelism and social action, where is Calvary? Can we honestly claim to embody the Kingdom of God? Do we live out the words of Jesus in Luke 4? Is the Kingdom that cares for the person and society, the soul and the body, individual relationships and community, is the Kingdom here?
Kingdom as a plant. Children’s message. Pots and soil up here. The Worship Folder image at masthead. What if you left out an ingredient? Good soil? Seed? Nutrients? We don’t have to look around very far to see what happens when water is left out. What is growing either withers and dies or it just doesn’t grow at all. For the plant to thrive, to grow, it needs all those things. You can’t leave one or another out. What about the Kingdom? What happens to the Kingdom when we leave something out? When it’s either/or, when it’s part of the message or half of the mission then we cease to be about the whole Kingdom. I want to be about the whole Kingdom. I thirst for that, I crave it. I want that for Calvary.
May the scripture be fulfilled in our hearing…today and everyday.
[1] Zero: the Biography of a Dangerous Idea; Charles Seife; 2000.
[2] Good News and Good Works; Ron Sider; 1993.
[3] Church Dogmatics, Vol. 5, Index with Aids to the Preacher; Karl Barth; 1976.
No comments:
Post a Comment