God Beyond Geography
Father Richard challenges the ways we allow personal possessions and national boundaries to define us:
Jesus primarily talked about the kingdom of God as his defining worldview. Yet, the vast majority of Christians in history have identified with their own much smaller kingdoms for which they were willing to fight, kill, surrender, and grant pledges of total allegiance. “Caesar is Lord” has been the rallying cry of most Christians more than the intentionally subversive creed: “Jesus is Lord!” (Romans 10:9; 1 Corinthians 12:3). Christian history up to now has been overwhelmingly and adamantly provincial, ethnic, and cultural, much more than “catholic” or universal. We have defined ourselves largely by exclusion more than inclusion. Ironically, World Wars I and II were fought among various “Christian” peoples of Europe and the United States. Any reluctance to admit our embarrassing Christian history reveals our immense capacity for avoidance and denial of our own shadow.
National boundaries are simply arbitrary lines and mean little in the eyes of God: “The nations of the earth are like a drop on the rim of a pail, they count as a grain of dust on the scales…. All the nations mean nothing in God’s eyes. They count as nothing and emptiness” (Isaiah 40:15, 17). The New Testament puts it in a more positive way, “Our true citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20) and “we are mere pilgrims and nomads on this earth” (Hebrews 11:13). My father Francis of Assisi loved to quote this passage from Hebrews to his friars, and how I wish we could hear it spoken with passion in our time.
We, on the other hand, identify with our land, homes, and possessions as if ownership and real estate are, in fact, real! In time, we will all hear Jesus’ message: “You fool!… This hoard that you have collected, who does it belong to now?” (Luke 12:20). I see little difference in the attitudes of those who consider themselves Christian and those who are secular and agnostic. Most Christian citizenship appears to be clearly right here—on this little bit of very unreal estate. Let’s get real about where our estate is and what is our real estate. Are our security, identity, and treasure in our small kingdoms or in the great kingdom of God? As Jesus said, we cannot finally serve both of these demanding masters (Matthew 6:24). [1]
No institution or nation can encompass the kingdom of God. When people say piously, “Thy kingdom come” out of one side of their mouth, they need also to say, “My kingdom go!” out of the other side. The kingdom of God supersedes and far surpasses all kingdoms of self, personal reward, society, or nation. The big picture of God’s kingdom is apparent when God’s work and will is central, and we are happy to take our place in the corner of the frame. This is “doing the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21) and allows the larger theater of life and love to unfold. [2]
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5 on Friday John Chaffee
1.
“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?“
– Dorothy Day, Founder of The Catholic Worker
“A revolution of the heart.”
Man, that’s good.
It is not a revolution of the institution.
It is not a revolution of society.
It is not a revolution of a small band of people
It is a revolution of individual hearts.
2.
“Dear dust, my soul clings to a lot of idols you construct, and I wish that I could just let my God be God, and his gifts be gifts.”
– College Ruled Lines by Levi the Poet
I’ve loved Levi the Poet’s poetry rants for years now. I’ve probably only seen him live twice, but we can blame that on the COVID years, which knocked out gatherings and touring for a while.
There is something about the spoken word that gets to me. The fact that it is so stripped down, with barely any music (if any), gives even more weight to every individual word.
College Ruled Lines is the first poem that dug deep into me. Something about its passion and its directness resonated within me. I came across this poem at a point in my life when I was working at a church that was imploding. It was beyond clear that the congregation had idolized the senior pastor to the point at which he was eventually ousted for years of inappropriate relationships and abuse of church funds.
That event kickstarted my own Dark Night of the Soul and “deconstruction.” It forced me to reevaluate my understanding of the faith, the church, the institution, and whether or not the Christ needs the institution at all. (Note: In my mind, the institution is not the same thing as the Church.)
Looking back, poetry, music, and very good friends helped me get through those years.
Thank you, Levi, for the part you played during those years.
3.
“If love is not the answer, then we are asking the wrong question.”
– Loose Your Mind by Wookiefoot
When I am riding in my Jeep, I often listen to the same 40 bands, to podcasts, or, every once in a while, random things that Spotify brings up.
Recently, Wookiefoot popped up.
What a fantastic name for a band.
They are folky, reggae, melodic rap… I think?
It is interesting how, as my understanding of the faith has grown, I have become more and more able to notice similarities with other world perspectives. I have long since been threatened by someone outside of my faith saying something similar or even insightful.
Wookiefoot seems to take lyrical inspiration from the hippie movement of the 1970s, but the emphasis on Love sounds very much like the wit and wisdom of the Christian mystics.
4.
“You tell me that it’s a cruel world and we’re all just running around in circles. I know that. I’ve been on this earth just as many days as you. When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It’s how I’ve learned to survive everything. I know you see yourself as a fighter. Well, I see myself as one too. This is how I fight.”
– Everything, Everywhere All at Once
Anger and violence do not help or change the world.
5.
“If empathy is a sin, sin boldly.”
– Unknown
Martin Luther, the Augustinian monk turned Church Reformer, said to “sin boldly.”
Most people misunderstand the context within which he said it and take it as a license to do anything they want with their lives. The reality is that in his lifetime and milieu, Catholic dogma was so shame and guilt-inducing that people were afraid of living.
In response to all this and Luther’s growing conviction about the unconditional nature of Grace, he told his frightened congregation to “sin boldly.”
Luther was always pretty good at stirring the pot.
So let’s stir the pot a little bit right now…
Modernity in the West struggles with what it means to be compassionate, merciful, and empathic. The reason might be that social media and the news have trained our baseline thinking to be threat-casting, fearful, and reactively outraged at all times. Compassion is a relatively high emotional state, and if we are stuck down in the lower brain stem doing fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, then empathy is barely given a second thought.
Some might even demonize empathy.
But I disagree with that.
In fact, my Lutheran upbringing encourages me to say:
“If empathy is a sin, sin boldly.”
