sacrificial – Dancing In The Kingdom

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 18 – Entering the Dance

Occupy Till I Come

[Bible references: Jeremiah 29; Luke 19:11-27]

On His way to Jerusalem the last time before His triumphal entry, Jesus knew the kind of expectations the people had about how the Kingdom of God would appear. To prepare them for the long wait between His resurrection and His return to fully restore the Kingdom of God, He told them a parable about a nobleman who would, before going into a far country, give his servants some money with instructions to engage in business while he was gone. The parable ended with rewards given to those who made profits and penalties for those who did not.

This then is our instruction, to make use of what God has given each of us to ‘engage in business,’ (KJV “Occupy Till I Come”) that is, we are called to help advance the kingdom until He returns.

When Jesus came two thousand years ago, he announced the beginning of a new age, “The Kingdom is here … The Kingdom of heaven is near … The Kingdom of God has come.” As disciples of Jesus we can say, “The Kingdom of God is within us.” Then, with our hearts changed by Jesus, we are charged to go and make disciples, to do justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.

As we then join Jesus in bringing His kingdom into the world, we need to remember our humble estate …We cannot even change our own hearts, never mind the hearts of others. Certainly, we cannot change our culture. It is up to our Savior to change our hearts, and even more so to change the culture around us.

Jesus and his disciples lived more as servants or slaves within the Roman Empire. They had no political influence. But as the disciples lived transformed lives, living as well as preaching the Gospel, and showed the power of sacrificial love, their Spirit empowered lives opened the way for the Spirit of God to change the hearts of many throughout the Roman Empire, eventually moving the heart of a Roman Emperor, Constantine.

History has shown the mixed results of combining the power of state and church, but the teachings of Jesus have penetrated even our secular postmodern culture in ways that are not widely recognized as such. Despite the church’s own history of abusing and misusing power, Jesus’ concepts of using power to serve others, even one’s enemies still managed to occasionally penetrate the halls of power – in imperfect form to be sure, just as the ideas expressed in the Enlightenment imperfectly expressed ideas from Christianity.

“Reparations let’s say for slavery or in New Zealand reparations to the Māori or in Australia reparations to the Aboriginal even for native indigenous American Indians. And this language is actually not a historic language. This is a language since Jesus. See, because Genghis Khan never worried about reparations. He never felt he had any moral responsibility to somehow make it right for all the women he raped and all the men he killed and all the families destroyed and all the villages he burned down. We have Caesar or Alexander, they never really had remorse for anything they conquered or anything they destroyed or any people whose lives they overthrew. This concept of justice of using power well is a concept that only emerges because Jesus lived 2,000 years ago. He revolutionized the entire understanding of power. The idea that a government should actually care about its citizens is really, it’s not a historic human concept. This concept is infused by the ethics that Jesus brought to the understanding of power that it says when Jesus had all power and all authority, he ties a towel around his waist and he washes his disciples’ feet. This is a reinvention of power. … if you go back to World War II … when you look at the American response to conquering Germany and conquering Japan, and how within a decade or two, both of them became two of the greatest economies in the world … You get to see what happens when you’re conquered from a Christian mindset world with West Germany. You realize that Japan becomes one of our greatest allies. That doesn’t happen historically. You do not conquer a nation and then rebuild it to feel a moral obligation to re-establish that country better than it was before. Even what we’ve done historically has been informed by a Christian worldview. I’m not saying that England or United States or any Western nation is a Christian nation. What I’m saying is the conversations we’re having are informed by Jesus’s revolutionary, brilliant genius thoughts about power.” ^{^[1]}

There are debates on the ideas expressed above, often fraught with ideas of self-interest[2] and ideology, about how to provide for populations that have experienced oppression or how to manage the after-effects of war. But these ideas and other expressions of compassion and justice – like hospitals, orphanages, the concept of “war crimes,” or the many ways to carry out “social justice” (that is, God’s expression of compassion and justice) – are ideas not found in history until God introduced them first to his chosen people, Israel, and then through the person of Jesus to His Body. As God’s image-bearers

Unfortunately. the church often abused its privilege, often succumbing to the worldly temptations of power and ignoring its mandate to steward God’s world with compassion and justice. But even though the church has stumbled, it has still managed to live out, admittedly imperfectly, its mandate of compassion and justice. And the world has noticed. Bu interestingly, many have adopted those same values even though they choose to ignore the source of our mandate.

^[1] Mcmanus, Erwin. Interview with Carey Nieuwhof, CNLP 452: Erwin McManus on the Future of the Church, How to do Evangelism More Effectively, Authenticity and Reflections on Being Labeled a Heretic Carey Nieuwhof careynieuwhof.com/episode452

[2] Niebuhr, Reinhold. “Editorial Notes” republished as Christianity and Crisis Magazine providencemag.com/2022/06/christian-realism-enlightened-self-interest-marshall-plan-emerges-reinhold-niebuhr/ 17 Jun 2022

Reflect

In what ways have you lived out a sacrificial love?

Observe

Read Jeremiah 29; Luke 19:11-27. What do we need to do to live transformed lives, living and preaching the Gospel, and show the power of sacrificial love with Spirit empowered lives?

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 13 – Distinctives within the body of Christ

Mystery of our role in the world

[Bible references: Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15; Deuteronomy 18:14-22; Proverbs 31:4-9; Isaiah 1:17-20; Jeremiah 7:16-17; 21:11-14; 22:1-5; Amos 7; Micah 6:8; 1 Corinthians 14; 2 Corinthians 6:14-17; 2 Peter 3:10-12]

What is the prophetic role of the church?

In the Old Testament, two words are used to describe the prophet. The earlier of the two is the word ro’eh, which roughly means ‘the one who sees.’ Later, the more common word used for a prophet is nabi, which can be loosely translated as ‘the one who speaks,’ particularly on behalf of another… a prophet is one who sees a different world, and says a different word … A Prophetic church … sees Jesus as King and His Kingdom arriving here and now … Speaks the truth to power …points towards the day when the Kingdom comes in fulness … [1]

As the Body of Christ, the church serves to encourage the weak, bring hope to those without hope, to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted”[2], to warn the powerful, and to call all to repentance, justice, mercy, and humility.

The actual practice of the church through the years has been inconsistent. There have been times where believers were willing to speak for Christ despite the threat of death, were willing to sacrifice time and resources to provide for the poor, were willing to speak out and take action to defend the helpless. But there also have been times when believers closed their community off from outsiders, defended and encouraged the oppressors, showed hatred towards, and persecuted those who were different.

In what ways should Christians be involved in “guarding the sacred
space” ^[3] entrusted to us?

“Culture care is to provide for our culture’s “soul,” … a well-nurtured culture becomes an environment in which people and creativity thrive.” ^{^[4]}

Our sacred space includes the “natural world” of God’s direct creation and the cultural world of the society we have created. However, those Christians who either have a Gnostic^[5] of the world or who focus on the apparent destruction of the world in 2 Peter 3:10-12, there is no value in trying to redeem either the physical realm around us, or the culture around us.^[6]

How should Christians respond to the community around them, particularly the unbelievers?

The caution in 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 cautioning Christians against yoking with unbelievers has led to a variety of responses. One set of responses leads to some form of separation of the church community from the surrounding culture.

Creating communities that are isolated in whole or part from the culture around them, such as with the Amish and Mennonites.
Other variants of this are the creation of monasteries or convents, where the “spiritual community” where the participants can focus on “spiritual” activities.^[7]

Monastic communities were developed as a criticism of the church’s decision to become a large scale, inclusive organization.

Some congregations have even separated themselves from other believers whom they consider heretical, or even from other believers whom associate with any heretical congregations,^[8] although some congregations desire to be cooperative in some extent with other congregations they are not in total agreement with.^[9]
Some Christian communities are in outright opposition to the culture around them, creating a “culture war” or “Christ against culture” mentality.^[10] Some Christian communities such as the Brethren, Quakers, Mennonites, Amish, Wesleyan Methodists, and Seventh Day Adventists are opposed to particular issues such as the appropriateness of Christians to be involved in the military or with violence in general^[11] with others think war, or violence, is justified in certain circumstances.^[12]

Moving in the other direction, congregations find themselves adopting the values of the surrounding culture,^[13] sometimes to the point of adopting the power narratives of the government.

The intertwining of church and state began with Emperor Constantine, who not only allowed Christianity to be tolerated, but inserted his secular power into the church[14]. There are those who insist that secular law should conform to biblical values,^[15] which can result in the conflation of nationalism with patriotism to the point of imposing some variation of Christian values on a pluralistic society.^[16] This conflation happened regularly throughout history, particularly in the first millennium of the church because the religion of a nation was seen as a community value (i.e. no one had their own individual religion, the individual simply assumed the religion of the entire community). In practice, it was the local king who determined the religion of his kingdom. The linkage of nation and religion was prevalent until the end of the Holy Roman Empire and continued beyond. One variant of this viewpoint interprets the phrase, “compel them to come in,” (Luke 14:23) to authorize the use of physical force to “compel” people to become Christians.

In between those views of the separation from the state and intertwining with the state is the view that since all humans are image bearers tasked with stewardship of the world, and that we can work co-operatively with non-believers in those tasks in which we have a common interest.

[1] Packiam, Gary. “What does it mean to be a prophetic church?” ChurchLeaders churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/339974-what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-prophetic-church.html

[2] Deis, Robert. Thisdayinquotes July 30, 2020 www.thisdayinquotes.com/2020/07/comfort-afflicted-and-afflict.html This often used phrase was originally penned by Finley Peter Dunne on Oct 5, 1902. The full quote as Dunne wrote it is: “Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, conthrols th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.” Originally published in the column, “Mr. Dooley on Newspaper publicity”

^[3] Walton, John H. “The Lost Word of Adam and Eve” InterVarsity Press. 2015 Kindle Edition (pp.104-105)

^[4] Fujimura, Makoto. Culture Care, “Chapter 2 Culture Care Defined” Intervarsity Press 2014

^[5] Theopedia “Gnosticism” Theopedia www.theopedia.com/gnosticism

^[6] The overall concept of being stewards of what God has provided for us is sometimes called “Creation Care.”

^[7] McCulloch, Diarmaid. Christianity The First Three Thousand Years. Viking Press. 2009 (p. 200)

^[8] Van Gelderen, John. “Separation: Primary Vs. Secondary” Revival Focus 30 May 2018 Revival Focus www.revivalfocus.org/separation-primary-vs-secondary

^[9] Theopedia “Ecumenism” Theopedia theopedia.com/ecumenism

^[10] Stanley, Chris. “The 5 views of Christ and Culture” Culture Redeemed cultureredeemed.com/the-5-views-of-christ-and-culture

^[11] This viewpoint is known as pacifism.

^[12] Mosley, Alexander. “Just War Theory” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu/justwar/

^[13] Theopedia “Syncretism” Theopedia theopedia.com/syncretism

[14] : McCulloch, Diarmaid. Christianity the First Three Thousand Year “Chapter 6. The Imperial Church” Viking Press. 2009 Shortly after Constantine issued the Edict of Toleration, the Church found itself embroiled in an internal dispute which caused Constantine to call a council of bishops to resolve the issue. This precedent combined with those in the Church who sought the favor of the emperor began an intertwining of church and state.

^[15] Theopedia “Theonomy” Theopedia theopedia.com/theonomy

^[16] Encyclopedia Britannica “Christendom” Encyclopedia Britannia Britannica.com/place/Christendom

Reflect

How should the church be involved in taking care of our “sacred space?” Should congregations join with non-Christians in that effort?