{"id":19514,"date":"2020-11-20T09:38:55","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T14:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19514"},"modified":"2020-11-20T09:38:55","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T14:38:55","slug":"the-kingdoms-common-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19514","title":{"rendered":"The Kingdom&#8217;s Common Sense"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Jesus and the Reign of God<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The\nKingdom&#8217;s&nbsp;\u201cCommon Sense\u201d<\/strong><br>\nFriday, \u202fNovember 20,\n2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LZKbPZicRpM\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>My\nfriend and colleague Brian McLaren has thought deeply and practically about\nwhat Jesus means when he speaks of the \u201cKingdom of God.\u201d He views it as\nsynonymous with the Gospel itself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus\nproposed a radical alternative\u2014a profoundly new framing story that he called <em>good news<\/em>. <em>News<\/em>, of course, means a <em>story<\/em>\u2014a story of something that has happened or is happening\nthat you should know about. <em>Good<\/em>&nbsp;news, then would mean a story that you should\nknow about because it brings hope, healing, joy, and opportunity. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nterm <em>kingdom of<\/em>&nbsp;<em>God<\/em>, which is at the heart and\ncenter of Jesus\u2019 message in word and deed, becomes positively incandescent in\nthis kind of framing. As a member of a little colonized nation with a framing\nstory that refuses to be tamed by the Roman imperial narrative, Jesus bursts on\nthe scene with this scandalous message: <em>The time has come! Rethink everything! A radically new\nkind of empire is available\u2014the empire of God has arrived! . . . Open your\nminds and hearts like children to see things freshly in this new way, follow me\nand my words, and enter this new way of living.<\/em>&nbsp;At every point, the essence of his kingdom\nteaching subverts the \u201ccommon sense\u201d of the Roman Empire and all its\npredecessors and successors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t get\nrevenge when wronged, but seek reconciliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t repay\nviolence with violence, but seek creative and transforming nonviolent\nalternatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t focus on\nexternal conformity to moral codes, but on internal transformation in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t love\ninsiders and hate or fear outsiders, but welcome outsiders into a new \u201cus,\u201d a\nnew \u201cwe,\u201d a new humanity that celebrates diversity in the context of love for\nall, justice for all, and mutual respect for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t have\nanxiety about money or security or pleasure at the center of your life, but\ntrust yourself to the care of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t live for\nwealth, but for the living God who loves all people, including your enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t hate your\nenemies or competitors, but love them and do to them not <em>as they have done to you<\/em>\u2014and not <em>before they do<\/em>&nbsp;to you\u2014but <em>as you wish they would do<\/em>&nbsp;for you. . . .\n\nThe\nphrase \u201ckingdom of God\u201d on Jesus\u2019 lips, then, means almost the opposite of what\nan American like me might assume, living in the richest, most powerful nation\non earth. To a citizen of Western civilization like me, kingdom language\nsuggests order, stability, government, policy, domination, control, maybe even\nvengeance on rebels and threats of banishment for the uncooperative. But on\nJesus\u2019 lips, those words describe Caesar\u2019s kingdom: God\u2019s kingdom turns all of\nthose associations upside down. Order becomes opportunity, stability melts into\nmovement and change, status-quo government gives way to a revolution of\ncommunity and neighborliness, policy bows to love, domination descends to service\nand sacrifice, control morphs into influence and inspiration, and vengeance and\nthreats are transformed into forgiveness and blessing.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jesus and the Reign of God The Kingdom&#8217;s&nbsp;\u201cCommon Sense\u201d Friday, \u202fNovember 20, 2020 My friend and colleague Brian McLaren has thought deeply and practically about what Jesus means when he speaks of the \u201cKingdom of God.\u201d He views it as synonymous with the Gospel itself. Jesus proposed a radical alternative\u2014a profoundly new framing story that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19514"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19515,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19514\/revisions\/19515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}