Poetry says more...

‘… the Kingdom of God, which is not solely of this world, is slowly coming closer to being more clearly figured in this world … we who are not saints are caught up, not by God but by the logic of our choosing to delay sainthood, in a combat we keep thinking is new (or even Modern) because of the novel shapes and pressures it keeps presenting, a physiognomic struggle between those who somehow accept grace and those who bear the distorting strain of trying to block it off, to act without it or against it. This, I think, rather than the usual superficial divisions between Right and Left, Black and White, religious and irreligious etc, is where the real lines are drawn … But when I come to meditate on topics such as grace, I don’t finally trust myself to talk about them in prose. For the important stuff, I need the help of my own medium of poetry, which can say more things’. 

Les A. Murray in A Working Forest: Selected Prose
(Sydney: Duffy & Snellgrove, 1997), 146–7.

Finding shalom

What dimensions of our lives are presently oppressed by the captivity of powerful and destructive principalities and powers? I suspect that the answer to that question is literally, every dimension suffers under such oppression. Consequently, it is in every dimension of life that we need to engage in radical, and sometimes symbolic acts of a hope for life beyond captivity, beyond the present crisis. We need to find ways to experience God's shalom, God's redemptive presence, in all the dimensions of our lives, from the marketplace to the bedroom, from the board room to the classroom, from the theatre to the dining room. In fact, there are many rooms to our lives, and it is in all of these rooms that we need to struggle together, in community, and with the healing presence of the Holy Spirit, to have a foretaste of a creationally restoring kingdom that is yet to come in all of its fullness.

Brian Walsh in Subversive Christianity

Petition

...there is really no limitation in the New Testament on the contents of petition. Any regulation is as to the spirit of the prayer, the faith it springs from. In all distress which mars your peace, petition must be the form your faith takes - petition for rescue. Keep close to the New Testament Christ, and then ask for anything you desire in that contact. Ask for everything you can ask in Christ’s name, i.e. everything desirable by a man who is in Christ’s kingdom of God, by a man who lives for it at heart, everything in tune with the purpose and work of the kingdom in Christ . If you are in that kingdom, then pray freely for whatever you need or wish to keep you active and effective for it, from daily bread upwards and outwards. In all things make your requests known. At least you have laid them on God’s heart; and faith means confidences between you and not only favours. And there is not confidence if you keep back what is hot or heavy on your heart. If prayer is not a play of the religious fantasy, or a routine task, it must be the application of faith to a concrete actual and urgent situation. Only remember that prayer does not work by magic, and that stormy desire is not fervent, effectual prayer. You may be but exploiting a mighty power; whereas you must be in real contact with the real God. It is the man that most really has God that most really seeks God.

From The Soul of Prayer, by P T Forsyth, chapter 5. 

The common good

Our life together can be better. Ours is a shallow and selfish age, and we are in need of conversion -- from looking out just for ourselves to also looking out for one another. It's time to hear and heed a call to a different way of life, to reclaim a very old idea called the common good. Jesus issued that call and announced the kingdom of God -- a new order of living in sharp contrast to all the political and religious kingdoms of the world. That better way of life was meant to benefit not only his followers buy everybody else too. And that is the point of it.

Jim Wallis

The (Un)Common Good

The kingdom

Our business, as Christians, is the establishment of the kingdom. It is a kingdom that takes its beginnings here in this real world, and aims at the fulfilling of this world, of bringing this world to its destiny. But it is not a kingdom that can be identified with the Roman Empire any more than it can be identified with a capitalist paradise or a Marxist utopia. The dimensions of this kingdom reach to domains that politics can never reach, to the realms of the "kingdom that is not of this world." It is that extra dimension that Christians are called on to participate in making a reality. Politics, as well as everything else that is human and earthy, has its place in the establishment of the kingdom. But the political reality is not the ultimate value, nor is it the sole instrument for the bringing of the kingdom.

To accept any system as gospel is to accept the limits of that system, to refuse to see further than that system or to see more clearly or to see sooner or to render judgement on it or to prophesy against it. It is merely to ratify the limits such a system places on the kingdom. It is to turn our faith into a religion. And it makes little difference whether it is a religion of the right or of the left. Every time we have taken the gospel in to the political game in this way, we have ended up betraying the gospel.

Vincent Donovan, in Rediscovering Christianity, pages 165/6

The end of the world

A lengthy extract from P T Forsyth's The Justification of God, pages 75-7. 

 

This great, and righteous, and blessed goal then—what is it? We speak of the end of the world. But (it has been said) in any great sense of the word world, it can have no end. Our deeper views of creation, and of the relation of the creature to the Creator, do not allow us to think of the universe as an external and mechanical product of His, which He could destroy and make another. The existence of the universe is too closely bound up with the being of God for that its life is the immanence of the Transcendent. It does not emerge into Eternity, which is not simply a beyond. The infinite is the content of a finite which holds of the Eternal. The world belongs to God in a deeper sense than being His property. The body is not but the property of the soul. The world holds of God. It cannot therefore have an end, as it had no beginning, in the popular sense of the words; it has a consummation. The universe is not a mere phase of the Infinite which passes like a vapour. It is not a mere parenthesis otiose to an eternal context. It is not a mere scaffolding, not a mere collapsible tent. We cannot strictly speak of the end of the world; we can only speak of the end of certain worlds within the world. Stardust is still a constituent of the world. Extinct suns still have a place in systems. And extinct systems may mean a re-adjustment of the balance of power in space, but they need not mean the winding-up oft he universe.

When we do speak of the end of the world, we really mean the end of man. And, if there be a redemption at all, that end is neither in dust nor fire. The end of Humanity can but mean the return of man to God, in free worship, humble service, and intelligent communion. It means the consummation of the souls that began as His natural creatures and end as redeemed sons. For spiritual personality is a growth through the creative discipline of life, and especially through its tragedies. The supreme tragedy becomes, in the Cross of Christ, the vehicle of the eternal Redemption, and the Source of the New Creation. Man’s end is not dissolution but Eternity, an active communion in the Life divine. A communion it is, and no mere immersion. It is ‘not mere fusion in the Divine, which, for a being like man, would be  extinction. And no mere endless existence could be a true end for man. It could be no consummation. Immortality is much more than just going on. Were it not more it would be the burden of Tithonus.  Eternity is not duration. The true end is the completion of that schooling of soul, will, and person which earthly life divinely means, and which for God’s side is constant new creation and its joy. It is perfect and active union with God’s active Will, the barter of its love, and its secure intercommunion. It is the surrender to God, not of our personality,not of our existence as persons, but of our person, of our egoism as persons; for the living God is God of the living not of the dead. It is a kingdom of souls as ends that realise themselves, though only in the gift of the Spirit, which descends upon us rather than mounts through us. We face here a great paradox. By grace it is given souls to have life in themselves. The great end, therefore, is not even an immortality sentimentalised—a metaphysical, rational, and credible immortality sentimentalised; but it is a moral realm of persons made perfect on a universal and eternal scale by the gift of a holy God. It is the self-realisation of the Holy. It is the Divine Commedia on the scale of all existence. To the whole of Humanity, with faith and hope eclipsed by world catastrophe, the infinite and most merciful Majesty yet says, ‘Fear not, little flock, it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.’ And, ‘Si quis amavit novit quid haec vox clamat.’ *

The chief cause of our being unhinged by catastrophe is twofold. First, that we have drawn our faith from the order of the world instead of its crisis, from the integrity of the moral order rather than from the tragedy of its recovery in the Cross. And, even if we start there, the second error is that we have been more engrossed with the ill we are saved from than with Him who saves us, and the Kingdom for which we are saved. We are more taken up with the wrongs so many men have to bear than with the wrong God has to bear from us all—God who yet atones and redeems in giving us a Kingdom which is always His in reality and ours in reversion. It is not as if God first redeemed, and, having thus prepared the ground, brought in the Kingdom; but He redeemed us by bringing in the Kingdom, and setting it up in eternal righteousness and Eternal Life. The Cross of Christ is not the preliminary of the Kingdom; it is the Kingdom breaking in. It is not the clearing of the site for the heavenly city; it is the city itself

descending out of heaven from God. 

 

*The Latin phrase Forsyth quotes seems a little obscure. According to the rough online translation it means; If anyone knows the sound of this voice and he loved. Presumably that needs to be translated into actual English as something along the lines of: If anyone knows the sound of this voice, he loves it. I'm open to a better interpretation. Forsyth, as usual, gives no indication where the line comes from, and Google seems to indicate that he's the only person quoting it. Again, it would be interesting to know its origin.

The value of small

Don't despise the small but significant symbolic act. We live still in this modernist dream which says, "Unless you can change the whole thing, it's not even worth trying." That's not what Jesus did. Jesus did small but significant symbolic acts, each one of which was freighted with kingdom meaning. God probably doesn't want you to reorganize everything overnight -- learn to be symbol-makers and storytellers for the kingdom. Learn to model genuine humanness in your worship and your stewardship and your relationships -- the Church's task vis-a-vis the world is to model true humanness as a sign, as an invitation.
N.T. WrightThe Challenge of Jesus

Liturgy as Life

We worship God as the ekklēsia; the body of Christ literally comes together on Sunday morning. It is in these moments that we are released from “clock time” and enter into “festival time.” That release is perhaps the most countercultural thing we as a body can do. For it is in this moment that we are affirming not the kingdoms of the world but Jesus’s kingdom. We recognize that Jesus is truly Lord of lords and King of kings. We also recognize that the entire “ordering” of the world that we experience outside of the ekklēsia is a counter-ordering. Yet then we go out into the world to live out the liturgy. We work to become the liturgy in all we do. Like Jesus, we become ministers to all those around us. We represent Christ to the world in the sense that we take the values of the ekklēsia and try to live them out in the world. Our goal is to become a living liturgy each day.

Bruce Ellis Benson
Liturgy as a Way of Life

Humility and loving one's enemies

The only sign of humility is the love of one’s enemies. When one loves his enemies, he says in effect that they are as worthy of life as he is, that the Kingdom of God does not depend upon the vindication of one’s own cause. When one loves his enemies, he has accepted the fact that he is not the center of the universe. He is willing to admit that the grace of God may be at work, even in his own behalf, in the resistance and rejection he encounters from others. By love of enemies and by this standard alone can the humility of Jesus be measured. The ‘humble of heart’ whom Jesus admires are those whose hearts have no hatred for their opponents.

Anthony PadovanoFree to Be Faithful

On a personal note, I'm note sure that the only sign of humility is to love one's enemies. Still I can concede the statement given the point Padovano's making. 

The Kingdom

The kingdom is not simply some cipher that we can fill in with our ideas about what a good society ought to look like. Nor is it merely a way of reemphasizing the eternal sovereignty of God, though this is certainly part of what the proclamation of the kingdom entails. Rather the proclamation of the coming kingdom of God, its presence, and its future coming is a claim about how God rules and the establishment of that rule through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Thus the Gospels portray Jesus not only offering the possibility of achieving what were heretofore thought to be impossible ethical ideals. He actually proclaims and embodies a way of life that God has made possible here and now.
Stanley HauerwasThe Peaceable Kingdom

The Kingdom

Jesus was not just a moralist whose teachings had some political implication; he was not primarily a teacher of spirituality whose public ministry unfortunately was seen in a political light; he was not just a sacrificial lamb preparing for his immolation, or a God-Man whose divine status calls us to disregard his humanity. Jesus was, in his divinely mandated prophethood, priesthood, and kingship, the bearer of a new possibility of human, social, and therefore political relationships. His baptism is the inauguration and his cross is the culmination of that new regime in which his disciples are called to share. Hearers or readers may choose to consider that kingdom as not real, or not relevant, or not possible, or not inviting; but ... no such slicing can avoid his call to an ethic marked by the cross, a cross identified as the punishment of a man who threatens society by creating a new kind of community leading a radically new kind of life.

John Howard YoderThe Politics of Jesus

Redemption

Redemption shows that God's power to redeem and restore is stronger than our ability to alienate and break down. But redemption is not always the strategy that we would choose if it were up to us. Often what we seek is a return to innocence. We want to forget about the past and start over. Psychologically, we repress painful memories. Relationally, we cut ourselves off from people who remind us of our past. And culturally, we ignore our history in favour of what is new and current.

Eric JacobsenSidewalks in the Kingdom

The prayer of the destitute

Extracts from the additional notes by other writers - in this case, Stephen Marshall - accompanying Psalm 102 in The Treasury of David, by Charles Spurgeon

Verse 17. He will regard the prayer of the destitute, etc. The persons are here called "the destitute." The Hebrew word which is here translated "destitute" doth properly signify myrica, a low shrub, humiles myrica, low shrubs that grow in wildernesses, some think they were juniper shrubs, some a kind of wild tamaris, but a base wild shrub that grew nowhere but in a desolate forlorn place; and sometimes the word in the text is used to signify the deserts of Arabia, the sandy desert place of Arabia, which was a miserable wilderness. Now when this word is applied to men, it always means such as were forsaken men, despised men; such men as are stripped of all that is comfortable to them: either they never had children, or else their children are taken away from them, and all comforts banished, and themselves left utterly forlorn, like the barren heath in a desolate howling wilderness. These are the people of whom my text speaks, that the Lord will regard the prayer of "the destitute;" and this was now the state of the Church of God when they offered up this prayer, and yet by faith did foretell that God would grant such a glorious answer. . . . This is also a lesson of singular comfort to every afflicted soul, to assure them their prayers and supplications are tenderly regarded before God. I have often observed such poor forsaken ones, who in their own eyes are brought very low, that of all other people they are most desirous to beg and obtain the prayers of their friends, when they see any that hath gifts, and peace, and cheerfulness of spirit, and liberty, and abilities to perform duties, O how glad they are to get such a man's prayers: "I beseech you, will you pray for me, will you please to remember me at the throne of grace," whereas, in truth, if we could give a right judgment, all such would rather desire the poor, and the desolate, to be mediators for them; for, certainly, whomsoever God neglects, he will listen to the cry of those that are forsaken and destitute. And therefore, O thou afflicted and tossed with tempests, who thinkest thou art wholly rejected by the Lord, continue to pour out thy soul to him; thou hast a faithful promise from him to be rewarded: he will regard the prayer of the destitute. 
Stephen Marshall, in a Sermon entitled "The Strong Helper," 1645.

Verse 17. Not despise their prayer. How many in every place (who have served the Lord in this great work) hath prayer helped at a dead lift? Prayer hath hitherto saved the kingdom. I remember a proud boast of our enemies, when we had lost Bristol and the Vies, they then sent abroad even into other kingdoms a triumphant paper, wherein they concluded all was now subdued to them, and among many other confident expressions, there was one to this purpose, Nil restat superare Regem, etc., which might be construed two ways; either thus,—There remains nothing for the King to conquer, but only the prayers of a few fanatic people; or thus,—There is nothing left to conquer the King, but the prayers of a few fanatic people: everything else was lost, all was now their own. And indeed we were then in a very low condition. Our strongholds taken, our armies melted away, our hearts generally failing us for fear, multitudes flying out of the kingdom, and many deserting the cause as desperate, making their peace at Oxford; nothing almost left us but preces et lachrymae; but blessed be God, prayer was not conquered; they have found it the hardest wall to climb, the strongest brigade to overthrow; it hath hitherto preserved us, it hath raised up unexpected helps, and brought many unhoped for successes and deliverances. Let us therefore, under God, set the crown upon the head of prayer. Ye nobles and worthies, be ye all content to have it so; it will wrong none of you in your deserved praise; God and man will give you your due. Many of you have done worthily, but prayer surpasses you all: and this is no new thing, prayer hath always had the pre-eminence in the building of Zion. God hath reserved several works for several men and several ages; but in all ages and among all men, prayer hath been the chiefest instrument, especially in the building up of Zion. Stephen Marshall.

The painfulness of Grace

...what you seem actually to demand is that the Church put the kingdom of heaven on earth right here now, that the Holy Ghost be translated at once into all flesh.  The Holy Spirit rarely shows Himself on the surface of anything.  You are asking that man return at once to the state God created him in, you are leaving out the terrible radical human pride that causes death. Christ was crucified on earth and the Church is crucified in time...The Church is founded on Peter who denied Christ three times and who couldn't walk on the water by himself. You are expecting his successors to walk on the water.  All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful. Priests resist it as well as others.  To have the Church be what you want it to be would require the continuous miraculous meddling of God in human affairs...

Flannery O'Connor

quoted by Philip Yancey in The Jesus I Never Knew, pg 236.   Originally published in O'Connor's The Habit of Being, pg 307

Idolatry

The redistribution of the world’s wealth cannot be central, the concern for ecology cannot be central, the desire to get out of the rat race cannot be central, the desire for simplicity itself cannot be central.  The moment any of these become the focus of our concern, it has become idolatry.  Only one thing is to be central: the Kingdom of God.  And, in fact, when the Kingdom of God is genuinely placed first, the equitable distribution of wealth, ecological concerns, the poor, simplicity, and all things necessary will be given their proper attention.

Richard J. FosterFreedom of Simplicity

Stripping to the Core

I urge you to still every motion that is not rooted in the kingdom. Become quiet, hushed, motionless until you are finally centered. Strip away all excess baggage and nonessential trappings until you have come into the stark reality of the kingdom of God. Let go of all distractions until you are driven into the Core.


Richard Foster, from his book Freedom of Simplicity

Justice. Peace.

Justice is not a goal to be acquired, but it is the gift of God, free and inexplicable, which exists in our life so that our means are not intended to "bring in" justice, but to "manifest" it. Likewise, we have not to force ourselves, with great effort and intelligence, to bring peace upon the earth--we have ourselves to be peaceful, for where there are peacemakers, peace reigns.

Jacques Ellul
The Presence of the Kingdom

Jesus: King of the World

If Jesus is the true King of all the world, whose kingdom redefines power and glory so that they are now seen in the manger, on the cross, and in the garden, then to pray "Thy kingdom come" from the Lord's Prayer is to ask that this kingdom, this power, and this glory may be seen in all the world. It is not enough, though it is the essential starting point, that we submit in our own lives to God's alternative kingdom-vision; we must pray and work for the vision to come in reality, with the rulers of this world being confronted with the claims of their rightful King.

N. T. Wright
"The Most Dangerous Baby" from Christianity Today

Desiring the Kingdom

... liturgies make us certain kinds of people, and what defines us is what we love.  They do this because we are the sorts of animals whose orientation to the world is shaped from the body up more than from the head down.  Liturgies aim our love to different ends precisely by training our hearts through our bodies.  They prime us to approach the world in a certain way, to value certain things, to aim for certain goals, to pursue certain dreams, to work together on certain projects.

James K.A. Smith
Desiring the Kingdom