...continuing with Stanley Hauerwas on "Jesus and the Kingdom of God.
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.
This "how God rules" is the part of the vision that reminds me that no political party will and can take on this responsibility. We all fall short and no matter how we wish and pray that some good "religious" person will be put in power (and for so many in the U.S. this means a Christian) God's rule will always point to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Politicians won't go there because of the central action in this last sentence - death. The need to be in control and be called the saving power and defeat whatever it is that we would define as evil (out there) will never let us accept death in any form because we are afraid of it. Within the Reign of God, death has no power and therefore, we can face it, enter the grip it attempts to have on us, and we can - as necessary - die in order to be lifted up to new life. That kind of dynamic is a regular movement in God's Reign. It is the dialogical pattern that opens up our lives to the future already in place - then end that is already secured for eternity.
Connection: So when we "lose" what we long for, we are invited to look again at how God will work among us in ways we did not anticipate.
Come, Lord of the Future, lead us and guide us along your way - again and again. Amen.
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