BLOG 8/7/18. “CHRISTIANS … ALIENS IN THEIR OWN NATIVE LANDS”

Don’t we live in confusing times politically? what with so much deception, the dodging of responsibility, the ever-present power of wealth and greed, a seeming absence of any strong sense of justice and humanitarian concern by so many in places of power, and the heart-breaking accounts of the victims of all of this? But then, we are not the first to live in such times. It has been that way since the beginning of the church. Consider these words from a second century official to his superior: “These Christians … live in their own native lands, but as aliens; as citizens, they share all things. Every foreign country is to them as their native country, and every native land as a foreign country” (Letter to Diognetus, from Pliny the Younger).

Sound familiar?

Or maybe the words of the prophet Jeremiah to the Hebrew exiles in a foreign country: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray for the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:7). Yes, to be sure, these United States are not our primary country. We live as part of a trans-national holy nation, which lives under the authority of its Lord, Jesus Christ, and under obedience to his radical teachings of peace and order and justice. Our ultimate authority belongs to that one “by whom and for whom all things exist.” Yet, at the same time he places us in the very real temporal nations, in order to be his own salt and light, to be the “sweet aroma of Christ” to our neighbors.

In the background of our formation is always that reality that Jesus is the One in whom the “mystery hidden for ages and generations is now revealed” (Colossians 1:26 in loc). This means that we have a two-fold stewardship in the here and now, i.e., we are primarily citizens of the kingdom of our God and of his Christ, and yet we are commissioned by him to also be his responsible citizens in the very real places in which we live (which can often be non-congenial, even hostile to this calling).

What does this mean, basically?

It means that we must speak the language of our cultural setting, its vernacular, its idiom, its images. We must speak its language. We live in a nation of a whole mosaic of sub-cultures and tribalism: neighborhoods, workplaces, political parties, recreational clubs, … those with whom we hang-out. We’ve got to know the language. We’ve also got to be engaged in its dynamics, but not captive to its power structures, its principalities and powers. We live in a culture so often defined by its “sullenness and hyperactivity” and yet as the incarnation of the love and joy and hope given us as we are in Christ.

It also means that we need to expose it lies, its deceptions, and those of its leadership, and to understand the social pathologies that infect it and make it less humane, less given to justice and peace and order. We identify with those in the political context of our setting who demonstrate such, even though they may be totally unfamiliar with that which motivates us. We are not (as has often been said) primarily Republicans or Democrats, but we seek to place our support behind those in either party who espouse those principles that are at the core of Jesus agenda for reconciliation. And … we vote our Christian conscience!

We are, after all, the light of the world, and the salt of the earth, … not someplace else, or in some other time, but in the here and now, at this moment, it will never return. At this place and at this moment in history is … our high and holy calling. It will never return. Go for it!

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