A Gracious Weed
Richard Rohr describes the reign of God as an alternative way of relating:
When Jesus talked about the reign of God, he was talking about an utterly different way of relating with one another than human society as we know it. The new world order—the reign of God—is the heart of the Christian Scriptures.
The kingdom is Jesus’ message. He never describes it conceptually; he walks around it and keeps giving images of the Real. This is the classic pattern of the spiritual teacher. Only those ready and seeking will normally understand.
For example, “The reign of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches” (Matthew 13:31–32). The mustard seed is very small and insignificant. Pliny the Elder, a contemporary of Jesus, writes only two things about the mustard plant: It’s medicinal, so it did have some value. But he said not to plant it because it tends to take over the entire garden. It is a weed that cannot be stopped.
Those would have been the two images on which Jesus was clearly building. He teaches: What I’m describing for you is therapeutic—it’s life, it’s healing, it’s medicinal—but it’s like a weed. I’m planting a weed in the world. What a shocking image! Jesus talks about strange things like nonviolence and living a simple life by saying they’re planted and they’re going to take over the whole garden; the old world is over.
That’s Jesus’ hope, but we have to witness what patient hope that is. He didn’t see it happen in his lifetime, when religion was highly corrupt and most people were poor, oppressed, or enslaved. Yet still, in the midst of that, he dared to announce the present reign of God! He dared to promise, “You can live the new reality right now.”
The word for that way of living in the in-between times is faith. Let’s get rid of every thought of faith as belief, as prosperity, or as a set of rules or moral guidelines. Those are fine, but they’re not what Jesus is talking about. He’s talking about the grace and the freedom to live God’s dream for the world now—while not rejecting the world as it is. That’s a mighty tension, one that is not easily resolved.
Remember this: There are always two worlds. The world as it operates is power; the world as it should be is love. The secret of kingdom life is how we can live in both—simultaneously. The world as it is will always be built on power, ego, and success. Yet we also must keep our eyes intently on the world as it should be—what Jesus calls the reign of God.
| A Symbol is Never Just a Symbol |
 Click Here for AudioI do not understand Christians who dismiss the Lord’s table as “just a symbol.” A symbol by definition points to or represents something more than what it is. For example, if an American flag were not a symbol it would merely be a red, white, and blue cloth, but because it is a symbol it carries powerful and emotional meaning for millions of people. Being a symbol makes something more important not less. The same is true for Christ’s table.During the Passover meal with his disciples, Jesus said the cup of wine represented “the new covenant in my blood.” He was elevating the meal as a new covenant symbol—a concept that would have been familiar to his Jewish followers. Throughout the Old Testament, God’s relationship with his people developed through a series of covenants—agreements and promises—and each one was marked with a symbol related to the nature of the covenant itself. After the flood, for example, the Lord promised never to destroy the world again with water, and he used a rainbow as a sign of this covenant. Later, he promised Abraham, who was old and had no children, that he would have descendants beyond count. This covenant was symbolized by circumcision—a mark on the part of the body necessary for reproduction. And when God rescued his people from slavery and gave them his law, he instructed them to rest one day every week. The Sabbath, according to Deuteronomy 5:15, was a symbol so the people would remember how the Lord rescued them from the brutality of slavery. Egyptian slaves, after all, never got a day off from work.In each case, the covenant symbol was directly related to the nature of the covenant itself, and each symbol pointed to something powerful about God’s relationship with his people. Rainbows/flood, circumcision/children, rest/slavery. Therefore, the fact that Jesus identified a communal meal as the sign of God’s new covenant with his people shouldn’t be ignored or dismissed as “just a symbol.” A shared meal is a powerful reminder that what Jesus accomplished on the cross wasn’t a sacrifice merely to redeem me, but the way God has reconciled a people to himself. As we look at our sisters and brothers around the Lord’s Table, we are reminded that the new covenant is how Christ has brought reconciliation between hostile people, not just between individuals and God. In fact, a case could be made that a table, rather than a cross, should be the universal symbol of our faith. DAILY SCRIPTURE GENESIS 17:1-11 DEUTERONOMY 5:12-15 EPHESIANS 2:11-16 WEEKLY PRAYER From Ambrose (c.339 – 397) Praise to you, saving sacrifice, offered on the wood of the cross for me and for all people. Praise to the noble and precious blood, flowing from the wounds of my crucified Lord Jesus Christ and washing away the sins of the whole world. Remember, Lord, your creature, whom you have redeemed with your blood. I repent of my sins, and I long to put right what I have done. Merciful Father, take away all my offenses and sins; purify me in body and soul, and make me worthy to taste the holy of holies. Amen. |
