“Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”
Luke 4:24
I am pretty certain that one of the reasons I have been able to sustain an almost 40 year career in congregational pastoral ministry is that I love reading the Bible. The oft quoted line of Karl Barth about the “strange world of the Bible” comes to mind. In pastoral ministry I have had the weekly opportunity to read, study, pray through and talk about some part of the Bible and it has been a fascinating place to spend my time. It has opened me up to a world that I would not have known. It has informed me about an identity that I possess that is at times in conflict with the identity informed by my genetics, history and geography. It has helped me to set my life in a bigger context and stretched my otherwise stunted imagination.
The Bible has helped me to understand that I am a citizen of two kingdoms. I haven’t had any say in the creation of either of these kingdoms. I have been placed in each of them by circumstances or powers that were not subject to my initiative. But one thing I do have a daily say in is the question of how I am going to navigate the tension of belonging to these two vastly different, and often conflicting, orders.
The writers in the Bible who have been the most help in navigating this tension are the prophets. In seeing the big Truth of a Kingdom that remains largely hidden to the vast majority of their audience, the prophets have a heavy burden to bear. The gift of dual citizenship can be a rather severe mercy. It isn’t easy to give witness to something that people have a hard time seeing, or perhaps what few actually want to see. But that’s their job and the report of how they did that job has much to teach us about finding our footing on what is often a rather rocky path of living our faith.
Prophets are not accepted in their hometowns because they cause discomfort. Like the pain we experience as the physical therapist shows us the limits of our tight, weak muscles, prophetic words point to truth that is hard to bear. The pain of the stretch is something we would rather avoid. But the stretch expands our movement and so delivers us into God’s “broad and open space.” Or perhaps more specifically, it places the life we live in the little kingdom of this world into the big context of the Kingdom of God. And when this happens, we are both beset by a conflict and delivered into the clear air of truth that sets us free. How’s that for a strange world!
But that’s the one we occupy the minute we say yes to Jesus’ invitation to “come and see.” We say yes to this status of dual citizenship and staying in shape for the journey of following Jesus requires a number of stretches that teach us about muscles we never knew we had. God no longer fits in our box. The magnitude of God’s justice, grace and mercy begin to teach us that God is not merely concerned about the success of our little kingdom, but that God actually has room in his heart for everything he has created. In Jesus, God gives witness to his desire to reconcile all things to himself.
Over and over again history tells the story of how we have tried to resolve this tension of dual citizenship by futilely attempting to squeeze the Kingdom of God into the cramped and constricting containers that hold the kingdoms of this world. It doesn’t work. But that doesn’t keep us from trying. It doesn’t keep us from wielding the tools of judgement, hate, arrogance, might, and fear, to wedge out those who don’t “fit” in our kingdom all the while hiding behind the delusion that we are somehow purifying the Kingdom of God.
Last time I checked God had not relinquished his exclusive right to the title “Refiner’s Fire.” So for now, in this confusing place of holding dual citizenship, perhaps the better characterization of the Way on which Jesus has called us to walk is the work of simply enjoying rather than striving to usher in the Kingdom of God. Humility is a great liberator. For to be delivered out of the pit and into the broad and open space of God’s love is above all else a call to a lived gratitude where we strive merely to pass on what we did not produce and what we cannot kill; to love as we have been loved and so shine with the light that illumines the pathway to life.
David Rohrer
04/24/2021