Living in Two Kingdoms - Meg's Homework Ramble

Our Sunday school class just finished a John Piper video series in which Piper explained that Jesus is a lamb-like lion and a lion-like lamb. He expounded on that, of course, but I think the phrase pretty aptly summarizes what he had to say.

We're now beginning a new series entitled "Living in Two Kingdoms." I'm not sure if this is another tape series of someone speaking or if this is something Don has put together himself. But he sent out some homework questions for us to answer before we show up tomorrow. I thought I'd "think out loud" here with my answers.

1. What is the Kingdom of God?
The obvious first part of that answer is that the kingdom is the domain of God. And God wouldn't be god unless everything was in his domain -- from atoms to the universe, if it weren't all God's to rule then he really would be more of a demi-god or a sub-god than an almighty god.

But I think there's more to this answer than just the easy bit. The Kingdom of God encompasses all of this substantial world, but it also refers to a realm that overlaps with ours but that is distinct from the earthly/human world.

The book group that I'm in recently finished a book called The City & The City (by China Miéville) in which two distinct nations overlapped each other geographically, but were entirely distinct otherwise to the point that people in one nation learned to "unsee" people in the other nation. In order to "see" the people in the other nation you actually had to go through customs  to socially and politically enter the other nation, at which point you'd have to "unsee" the people that you had seen all the time back in your old nation. In other words, you could live right next to people in another nation and never interact with them, or even acknowledge them, because they technically lived somewhere different from where you did. It was a trippy book, but an interesting concept.

I think the Kingdom of God is similar to Miéville's story in that we live in an overlapped situation. But it differs in terms of interaction. We daily walk in both nations, as opposed to only in one or the other. But I think many people who call themselves Christians live only in one nation and believe that the other nation, the heavenly nation, is a subset or part of that one nation. They spout "God and country" in a way that clearly subjects God to the designs of the country. I think they miss "the Kingdom of God" in its entirety - or else severely misunderstand it.

I still don't think I've answered the question, though. The Kingdom of God is a political entity that defies all other polities. It is an eternal kingdom ruled by God, with characteristics unlike any other nation, and yeah, I'll cop to it, it's a utopia. It is the glorified, unified,

2. What are the characteristics of God's kingdom?
The Kingdom of God is characterized by love. In fact, love is the characteristic that governs every other characteristic in this kingdom: forgiveness, unity, kindness, faithfulness, caring, gentleness, mutual submission (looking out for each other's best interests), compassion, meekness, humility, self-control, selflessness, trust, patience, contentment, peace, equality of worth, hopefulness, truthfulness, generosity, perseverance, righteousness, readiness, holiness, prayerfulness,....

3. What features of U.S. culture are explicitly biblical-Christian?
I think this is the hardest question of the bunch. Maybe that's because I'm reading into it. I expect this question to be, "What features of U.S. culture are explicitly inline with features of the Kingdom of God. But I suppose that's not necessarily what it's asking.

I suppose the first part of this question is "What are the features of U.S. culture?" Individuality, selfishness, strength, craving entertainment, ingenuity, entrepreneurial spirit, risk-taking, creativity, consumerism, untested trust, arguing, hatred (that Westboro Baptist Church comes to mind), insensitivity, callousness, overload, brilliance, diversity, acceptance, .... This is a really hard list to come up with. There is obviously kindness in America, but is kindness a feature of U.S. culture? It doesn't strike me as being integral to our culture. Then again, if I were looking just at our neighborhood, or more likely, in a rural American neighborhood, then perhaps kindness would strike me more as being a feature of the culture. Maybe the first part of the question isn't "What are the features of U.S. culture?" but "What is the U.S.?"

OK, so to take a stab at answering the original question here, I'd say that diversity and creativity are explicitly biblical-Christian. There's probably other things. But I'm still caught up in "What is the U.S.?" and "What are the features of her culture?" to see them.

I'll be really eager to hear Sonia's thoughts on this question. She probably sees American culture with different eyes than we do.

4. How do we live in God's kingdom and earth's world?
Fully.

What? Is that cheating? I can't just answer with one word? *sigh* I'd say it's very easy to live in the earthly world. And those who like to point out the most loudly that they aren't living according to the culture or values of this world are often the very ones who hold more tightly to nationalism and cultural values of anger, hatred, and individualism more tightly than most. I think it's important that we're aware of how we're embedded in this world. What values have we taken on that are distinctly worldly? (Not just American, since not all Christians are Americans (*gasp* I know. For some I'm speaking heresy here.) but of any human culture.)

We are humans and therefore we cannot not live within human culture. It's impossible. Even when we try to steep ourselves in godly culture, we build within it so much human culture of our own making that we are no longer in godly culture. (The Pharisees and Westboro church are poster children here.) We do best to be aware of that in which we reside, to use well that which is good of our own culture and to disengage from that which is bad.

And we need to steep ourselves in the culture of heaven. Church should be our proving grounds where we test forgiveness and unity and kindness and.... It should be a safe place where we learn to put on heavenly culture and where we can safely mess up and try again. It should be a place where we experience godly culture, where we are helped to grow in it, where we have partners who grow with us. And it should be a launching point for carrying God's culture with us out to the world, loving the world and all her people, enabling those not of God's kingdom to experience the culture of God's kingdom and inviting them to join in it with us.