The Kingdom of God

On Sundays, we have an 8:30 and a 10:30 service here at St. Francis. Sunday school meets between the two services. I have been visiting in the adult classes the last few Sundays and discovered that two of the four classes are using curriculum that is led by the same person, John Ortberg. In addition to his work as a pastor, Ortberg has had success writing and teaching on Christian formation. While the Sunday school studies were different, both dealt with real-world challenges and offered practical suggestions on how we can live more fully and faithful as Christians in the world.

There is a hunger for this kind of teaching in the Church. People sense that we live in a secular age. There are many aspects of our lives that mitigate against spiritual health and, because of this, believers are grateful for any kind of practical advice that will help them navigate the challenging spiritual climate of modern society.

As I watched Ortberg's discussion of pride on the class' DVD, it struck me that what he is doing looks and sounds a lot like modern psychology. In that, what he is offering believers are helpful and practical coping strategies. And in a way this makes a lot of sense. We live in a time that has a corrosive effect on people's lives. The values, practices and patterns of modern secular life are not only antithetical to the Christian life, they are in a lot of ways destructive and inhumane regardless of what people might believe about God. Pointing to Jesus' life and teachings, Ortberg explains central Christian values and practices such as humility and service. Embracing and employing these not only helps believers live more faithfully, it also helps us cope with the inhumanity around us.

For example, Ortberg notes that pride, an age-old sin, often parades as a value in our time, even though it ultimately serves neither our spiritual health nor our happiness in the world. Ortberg suggests that the way that we cope with pride is by becoming a servant. He suggests that nothing overcomes our tendency toward pride more effectively than the practice of service.

In this way, we cope with the challenges of the secular world through the employment of Christian principles. Nothing wrong with this and it is certainly understandable why Ortberg's books and curriculum have sold so well. Modern people like practical answers. We like the idea of coping strategies. And I celebrate what leaders like John Ortberg are doing here. At the same time, I have a slightly different take on all this.

The underlying assumption behind Ortberg's approach, and, indeed, a great deal of strategy or self-help counseling is that it imagines the world as a largely God-less place. That is, the world is a place where God isn't so it is up to us to sort of fight it off through our faith and our coping strategies. The assumption here is that we are largely on our own against the inhumanity or the world.

While there is certainly an inhumanity about the world. Christians also believe that God is working to redeem the world. Indeed, the Church teaches that the Father has sent the Son into the world to save it. Jesus himself proclaims that the Kingdom of God has come near. Other translations read, "The Kingdom of God is at hand." The reference is specifically to Jesus--his coming, his teaching, his authority and leadership.

In this way, perhaps our problem with things like pride and competition and selfishness is less about coping and more about seeing. That is, if the kingdom is indeed near to us, then perhaps we simply need to believe in it, embrace it and, thereby, enter into it. If we can do this, then the world is no longer a place where we have to cope so much as it is a place where we can enjoy our fellowship with God and serve as ambassadors of Christ to those who do not yet see what is in fact very near to them.

The example that I used to explain this to the class was the monastic life. When we think of those who intentionally seek to embrace and live the Christian message full-time, we might think of a monastery or an abbey. We imagine monks or nuns living extraordinarily faithful lives because we assume that it is only in such a protected place that this could even be an option. We believe the world to be simply too compromised, competitive and inhumane for full-time Christianity. We figure that whatever the Kingdom is, it certainly must be very different and very far from the harsh, secular world that most of us know.

But what if Jesus really is correct? What if the Kingdom has come in Jesus and continues in the life of the Church? What if we really can follow Jesus and embrace the ways of the kingdom--not merely to cope but to celebrate God's good work in our midst? In other words, perhaps what we need is not a good set of coping mechanisms but rather a bunch of monks and nuns who have the faith to leave the monasteries and abbeys. Men and women who are willing to make their homes in the world, trusting that the real kingdom is beyond those protective gates and, in fact, among the very people who are suffering the inhumanity of a world that simply does not yet see.