kingdom of god

This week before the U.S. election, I wonder what would happen if every follower of Jesus began praying, “May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Because doesn’t it seem like there’s a kingdom conversation going on? Where as humans, we’re asking, hoping, expecting, and trusting an earthly king (or president) to do what only a heavenly king can do for us?

When the children of God rejected God as their king and instead demanded for a human king, God clearly warned them what would happen. See here in 1 Samuel 8:4-22 CSB,

So all the elders of Israel gathered together and went to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Therefore, appoint a king to judge us the same as all the other nations have.” When they said, “Give us a king to judge us,” Samuel considered their demand wrong, so he prayed to the LORD. But the LORD told him, “Listen to the people and everything they say to you. They have not rejected you; they have rejected me as their king. They are doing the same thing to you that they have done to me, since the day I brought them out of Egypt until this day, abandoning me and worshiping other gods. Listen to them, but solemnly warn them and tell them about the customary rights of the king who will reign over them.” Samuel told all the LORD’s words to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “These are the rights of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and put them to his use in his chariots, on his horses, or running in front of his chariots. He can appoint them for his use as commanders of thousands or commanders of fifties, to plow his ground and reap his harvest, or to make his weapons of war and the equipment for his chariots. He can take your daughters to become perfumers, cooks, and bakers. He can take your best fields, vineyards, and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He can take a tenth of your grain and your vineyards and give them to his officials and servants. He can take your male servants, your female servants, your best cattle, and your donkeys and use them for his work. He can take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves can become his servants. When that day comes, you will cry out because of the king you’ve chosen for yourselves, but the LORD won’t answer you on that day.” The people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We must have a king over us. Then we’ll be like all the other nations: our king will judge us, go out before us, and fight our battles.” Samuel listened to all the people’s words and then repeated them to the LORD. “Listen to them,” the LORD told Samuel. “Appoint a king for them.” Then Samuel told the men of Israel, “Each of you, go back to your city.”

Did you notice the pattern?

God clearly warned the Israelites that human kings will take, take, take, and then take some more.

In asking for a human king, the Israelites were basically saying that they wanted to go back to the kind of life that God rescued them from back in Egypt.

They were rejecting a King who gave them manna to eat in the desert, who gave them water to drink out of rocks, who gave them their daily bread, and who gave them deliverance from a life of slavery under the nations around them. And instead, they wanted to replace that King with another king who would take their food, take their water, take the fruit of their work, and take their sons and daughters for his own use.

What a stark difference.

[Read more…]

This is an analytical book review of Stanley Hauerwas’ A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic.

Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School and he holds a joint appointment with Duke Law School. Hauerwas’ Methodist roots and diverse education and work experience contributes to an ecumenical theological stance that is not liberal (12). In addition to his ecumenicism, he is cross-disciplinary, as “he is in conversation with systematic theology, philosophical theology and ethics, political theory, as well as the philosophy of social science and medical ethics.”

The thesis of this book is that Christian morality and ethics can only make sense and be applied to one’s life when one is living within the continuing narrative of the Christian story. As a result, Hauerwas frames everything he writes about in this book around the concept of narrative because without narratives, there is a loss of community (18).

This book is essentially divided up into three parts. The first part addresses how every community needs to be rooted in a narrative. For Christians, Jesus and the Kingdom of God is the narrative that forms the church (50). Furthermore, it is the Christian’s belief in the authority of Scripture and God that enables the church to be the contrast model/community to a society that does not value authority.
The second part of the book continues to emphasize the importance of narrative in understanding the church since Christians are a “storied people” worshipping a “storied God” (91). Hauerwas claims that Christians need to cultivate hope and patience in their life in order to be a contrast narrative to this world (128). For the Christian to grow in character, it is crucial that he/she learn to participate in the story of the people of God, rather than just hear about it (152).
Consequently, the first two parts set up the theoretical basis for the third part, where he applies the concepts addressed in the first two parts to discuss what kind of ethic the church should have toward the family, sex, and abortion. His discussion is framed around the fact that one cannot separate one’s views on the family, sex, and abortion from the greater narrative of the church.

I love the way Hauerwas decides to address the family, sex, and abortion in the last section, since these are the pressing ethical issues that the church needs to be firm on, in order to be a contrast society.

This week before the U.S. election, I wonder what would happen if every follower of Jesus began praying, “May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Did you notice the pattern?

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