Been thinking about doing a blog series for a while – so with a few days to spare before I get back to Newport and the Lab again for the New Year I thought I’d give it a little try and see what happens. Having said that, bear with me – I discovered our old Super Nintendo again today after about 10 years so I’ve got a bit of a Mario hangover… feeling a little spaced out ;-)
In the A New Kind of Christian series of books, through the character Neo the author, Brian McLaren suggests that perhaps a better expression for today than the "Kingdom of God" which Jesus talked about, would be to use the imagery of a "Revolution of God". A new, revolutionary way of life, a subversion of the destructive systems in society today. A Revolution of followers – disciples – who will give anything and everything to pursue “life in all its fullness”.
Using that revolution imagery, the question I want to set myself for this series is what that revolution would look like – what values would it be characterised by? And what values are there that it’s possible we could miss at a first glance? So this isn’t an attempt to make some kind of exhaustive list, but instead to try and challenge with something a bit different. Having said that, I think that none of the five values I’ve chosen (at least to start with) are new to the church – but perhaps they haven’t quite been put in this context before – I don’t know.
So, first, I thought of brokenness.
It isn’t hard to show that brokenness is a big part of the world. Just look out the window, or take your earphones out next time you’re walking the street – brokenness, broken people – that something wrong, something missing feeling – is everywhere. But how does this imperfectness, this wrong, missing feeling figure in with the perfect Jesus revolution?
Well, I guess, first and foremost, its part of us. Brokenness, sin, whatever you want to call it – that thing that stops us from having full lives – is the overwhelming, uniform, uniting characteristic which the whole of humanity – and the whole church – has in common. The church is a testament to how great our God is purely in that it somehow holds a group of broken, hurting, jealous, vengeful people together. So let’s not ignore it or strive fruitlessly to get rid of it – let’s accept it.
A time will come when the kingdom of God will come in all its fullness – when the revolution will reach its height and cease to be a revolution altogether – it will just be the way we live. But until then, we need to learn to live with our brokenness and allow God to work through it – and also in it.
Once we’ve accepted and learned to live with the broken state we are in – and we need to accept it, both as people, but also as the church we need to accept that whatever our mission was, whatever it is, we’ve already failed at it on our own…. Anyway, once we’ve accepted it we need to be working with it, through it and in it. We need to be actively working to put the pieces back together – to help with God’s work in helping to be the sticky tape which holds people together. And I don’t just mean putting people back together spiritually – both emotionally and, possibly most important, physically – as suggested by psychology. But more on that kind of thing later on I think.
We also need to recognise that the people we are working with – our partners in the revolution – are also broken people. And, most importantly, that we ourselves are and that this affects the way in which the revolution will flow. So let’s not unrealistically expect each other to be perfect and sinless – and let’s not have exaggerated views of ourselves and our own abilities. Instead let’s learn to live with each other – love each other as Christ taught us – in spite of, and including our broken parts. Because this is a true and trustworthy saying – Jesus Christ came to save sinners – broken people of whom I am the worst.
Imagine a group of soldiers, limping, injured, desperate – a platoon who realistically should have already failed, but who, by supporting each other, carrying each other, propping each other up, are somehow still moving – somehow still fighting. That’s what this revolution looks like – an army of walking wounded. And Jesus would have it no other way – this way we know that every small victory we take, every extra distance covered – it’s all down to Him. Thank God.
Okay, I think I’m done for today – thank you so much if you had the patience to read through all that – and as always I’m sure it’s not a perfect argument. Next the other side of the coin: Wholeness.
