Citizens of Another Kingdom...Continued from page 1

Wayne Brouwer

Certainly, of course, we have to be careful with battlefield images as we communicate Christianity. Too often our world has experienced bellicose religion in forms that have destroyed civilizations, dehumanized societies, degraded value systems and diminished piety. We have had enough of religious groups battling for domination at the expense of God’s honor and human dignity.

Yet one cannot read both Old and New Testaments without appreciating the challenge of transformation that places citizens of the kingdom of God under orders. Jesus speaks to that in his Parable of the Net (vv. 47-52). The kingdom of heaven is like a net that catches fish. It is not like a hook thrown carelessly into the water in case a silly fish might be stupid enough to nip at it. No, the kingdom of heaven, says Jesus, is a network of citizens who together are constantly under orders to bring in others.

Some time ago I talked with a pastor of a large congregation in a major city. He was pleased with the worship and the ministries of his church. Everything seemed to operate with care and good taste and competence. He had the right staff in place, and they all were able to find dedicated, trained volunteers to shape a marvelous network of programs.

Yet something didn’t sit right with him. In his words, it was a very, very nice church. And therein was the problem. It was a church that looked after itself so well that it had forgotten that it was under orders to be about the missionary business of the kingdom of heaven.

If people wanted wonderful worship, all they had to do was join the congregation on Sundays. If they wanted terrific children’s ministries and youth programs, all they had to do was drop their sons and daughters off at the right times. If anyone wanted a little diaconal assistance, just stop by the office and a secretary would arrange for a modest handout.

But the onus was on others to come and find the church. The congregation itself had little use for going out to search for the lost and the last and the least. It had given up being a net. It had lost its marching orders. It had gained the corner on “nice” but was losing the ability to call itself church.

C.S. Lewis knew the battlefield connection underlying Christianity. He came about that insight in a very personal way. When he wa

s nine years old, his warm and loving mother contracted cancer. Within a very short time she was confined to bed, enduring harsh treatments, in terrible pain and stinking because of the sores and horrible wasting of her body. At night she would cry out in anguish, and young Jack (as he was known) hid in terror under his covers. He had heard the minister say that God answers prayer, so he begged God for his mother’s deliverance, but to no avail. She died gasping and screaming, and his belief in God went with her.

Years later, when as an Oxford professor he began to rationally think through the possibility of Christian belief, Lewis finally understood what was going on in his mother’s painful illness. He came to see that this world is a battlefield between the kingdom of God and the powers of evil, and that Christianity was true precisely because it took this conflict seriously.

The religion of the Bible was not a streamlined Santa Claus story of a jolly old grandfather figure who always brings gifts, whether you are naughty or nice. Rather, it is an acknowledgement of the struggles present in this world and the necessary reality of God’s intervention. Lewis’ mother died not because God didn’t grant a child’s wish, but because the evil one had twisted God’s good world in such a way that even the very cells of her body no longer worked as they should. But though healing did not come in that instant of boyish spiritual lisping, the prayers did not go unheard, and his mother was not lost forever or forgotten.

So the Parable of the Net reminds us of our marching orders in the kingdom of heaven. We are not saved so that we may politely pat ourselves on the back and smile at one another in the tiny corners we occupy. No, we are part of a net that seeks and engages the fish of this world who might be swimming to their own destruction.

We Live in Confidence

Finally, Jesus’ stories in this chapter remind us that we are on the winning side in the battles of life. When Jesus tells the Parables of the Seed and the Yeast (vv. 31-35), He presents a picture of the kingdom of heaven that grows and dominates until it is the primary factor shaping the world. The tiny mustard seed morphs into a tree that provides a home for the birds, and the bit of yeast transforms the entire loaf until it is utterly and completely changed. And, it is important to note, these things happen rather automatically. The change takes place from within the seed, and from within the grain of yeast.

In other words, the kingdom of heaven has the winning power within itself, and invites us along on the journey. We do not create the kingdom, but the kingdom creates us. Even though it appears to be insignificant at the start, the essence of greatness and the confidence of success lies within.

Scripture is filled with testimonies to this. One in particular from the Old Testament is the scene in Jeremiah 32 where the prophet buys a field. Normally this would seem like an ordinary transaction, just another day at the real estate office. But Jeremiah and the salesperson are both holed up inside the walls of Jerusalem, and the battering rams of Babylon’s armies are pounding the gates and walls to rubble.

What is more, in the prolonged siege of Jerusalem, the invading armies have killed and burned every living thing for miles, and made waste of whatever farmland there might have been in the region. Added to that is the sure promise of God, spoke through Jeremiah himself, that this time Babylon would be successful and the city, along with the Temple, would be destroyed.

If there was ever a bad time to invest in real estate, this was it. The land itself was worthless, the currency inflated, the threat of destruction obvious and the future about as grim as any could be. Yet Jeremiah buys the field. Why? Because he knew the power of the seed of the kingdom of God. He knew that God would have his way, even beyond the threat of Babylon. He knew that in spite of the waywardness of the people, God’s kingdom would rise again and thrust itself to the heavens until even the Babylonian vulture would nest in its branches.

When we hear Jesus tell us about the kingdom of heaven, we recover our sense of values and outcomes in the quagmire of daily events. We carry the passport of heaven. We live as those who are under orders to be and do and make a difference. And we know Who writes the last chapter.