It was okay for the Roman centurions to put a Jew in chains and beat him without charging him of any crime, but it was not okay to do the same to a Roman citizen. If a Greek entered the temple, the Jews considered it defiled (ch. 21, v. 28). When Paul wanted the Roman commander to listen, he spoke Greek; when he needed the Jewish mob to listen, he spoke Aramaic. Paul himself, before he met Christ, was able to persecute Christians and have them killed without any legal consequence, but now he could not mingle with the Gentiles and encourage brotherhood between Gentiles and Jews without facing fierce resistance. The people around him--both Jew and Gentile--viewed the world through the lens of ethnic identity. But Paul and his fellow Christians had become citizens of Heaven with a higher allegiance.
Like so many things in our lives, God redeems this innate group-drive. He makes us citizens of Heaven, with an identity that rests securely in Him. In the Christ-group, all the upside is available without the necessity of fighting to maintain the status quo. His group is not closed, and is not threatened by newcomers or outsiders. It does not have to be preserved and does not need its own language or external markers to separate insiders and outsiders (although we've developed them anyway). Jesus made the marks of his citizenship love for Him and for others.
How do we know when our identity has drifted away from the Kingdom of God to some other kingdom? We start to view other people as adversaries. We become preservers of the status quo. We become arrogant. We focus on external markers that identify us and others as "in" or "out." For first-century Jews, they were circumcision, language, temple worship, ceremonial washing, and associating only with other Jews. What are those things for us?
What are those things for us? ... I think you've tried to teach that there are no things; which I don't have alot of problems with regarding "church". Matter of fact, that is what revived church to me is to be free of being surrounded by "stipulations".
ReplyDeleteMy struggle is with those that specifically state Christians as their enemy to be destroyed... man, what a leap to actually love them...? I know, I know: "Love your enemies...", "Forgive as you have been forgiven...", "Love God, love your neighbors.."
Do the t-shirts of Brett and Emily extend from: "Jesus Loves Strippers / Truckers" to:
"Jesus Loved Hitler?", "Jesus Loves Osama Bin Ladin", Jesus Loves... (long pause)... me. Wow!
Stan, I hear you. I'd like to sit down with the parents of someone on death row and hear how they love in spite of hating the actions of their child. I never understood how this could be until I had kids, but I got close. I had a family member hurt someone else, badly. I hated what he had done, but above his actions was this love that I couldn't let go. I think it's sort of that way with God...some of us offend slightly and others offend egregiously, but all of us offend. His love is a love that covers even the most heinous of all offenses. This love has to be in me for me to love beyond like. Now we get to live that out where we are.
ReplyDeleteI think the parent-child comparison is a good one. The judge and the jury are supposed to view a criminal defendant through impartial eyes. But what if the judge was the defendant's parent? That's the case with God and humanity. It doesn't diminish the gravity of the crimes, but it does change the Judge's response.
ReplyDeleteHere's another deal I'm chewing on: Saul/Paul is our case-in-point for the enemy of Jesus who is loved and saved by Jesus. Jesus loved Saul. But when Saul met Jesus, he didn't hear "Saul, I love you so much." He heard, "Saul, why are you persecuting me?" And Saul was struck blind temporarily. Jesus loves, but he's not a doormat. Likewise, we are called to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. I don't think loving people, especially people prone to evil, dictates naivetee on our part, or overlooking the obvious threat that a person might pose. Prison ministries love people in prison and introduce them to Christ, but they don't (usually) lobby for them to be released.