I’ve been hearing and reading a lot about hope recently; and I must admit I find it very intriguing. One such example of this is the campaign of Senator Barack Obama, a politician that has built an entire platform on the word hope. I try to be conscientious of over used, buzz words that easily suck people into disappointing rhetoric, but for me, at least, the significance of the word hope seems to transcend the rhetoric of politicians and other clever wordsmiths.
I recently finished a book by one of my favorite authors, Brian McLaren, called Everything Must Change: Jesus, global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. I liked this book, but at times felt overwhelmed by the breadth of its content and everything the book’s author insisted could not remain as status quo. In the book, McLaren references a conversation he once had with Christian leaders from Rwanda:
“We talked in particular about the metaphor Jesus used again and again to convey his essential message: the kingdom of God. We considered how this message of the kingdom—contrary to popular belief—was not focused on how to escape this world and its problems by going to heaven after death, but instead was focused on how God’s will could be done on earth, in history, during this life.”
If McLaren is right, (and I think he is) then many of us who claim to have hope in Jesus Christ need to evaluate what this means for us living in the here and now, living in this current earth, this current life. Do we have our hearts set on “going to heaven,” or do we really believe the words of the Lord’s Prayer when we ask for Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven? This book has been a very helpful challenge to my understanding of authentic Christian hope. Although my understanding of Christian hope seems to be maturing, what I’m realizing is that if Christians are to bring this kind of hope into this broken world we really have our work cut out for ourselves. This is going to be the hardest thing I could have ever imagined.
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Scot McKnight is doing a series on the difference between the words kingdom and church. Oftentimes they are synonymous with one another in Christian circles. So far it seems that it has been found that kingdom is something future oriented while also something we experience now. Clearly the kingdom of God is something far different than all the religious elite were expecting around the time of Jesus because he was considered radical. What I hear you talking about is how we reflect the kingdom that is here now and how this reflects the kingdom that is also to come. For me it is something I plan on asking myself my whole life...that is a little overwhelming to think about.
its funny. i started to post a comment on how i knew what hope meant and what it meant to me but as i started typing i realized i didn't. it seems to be such a basic concept yet is so foreign to us. i think my view on hope would be in an instance like this.
i can only hope that the people that i meet each day will be sitting next to me at the heavenly banquet. but before they do, i sincerely hope that i eat a meal at my house with them first.
to touch on what tyler said, if there is no kingdom on earth, there wouldn't be a kingdom in heaven, right?
so you started a blog and you didn't tell me? I had to find it out by seeing it on drew's blog? yes. anyway, i have linked you.
Okay, so I've decided that I am the most unoriginal person alive. N.T. Wright talks about the "kingdom of God" as God's future penetrating the present. Another way of thinking about this is to imagine (again, N.T. Wright) heaven and earth permanently joined together. So, what we have is not two completely separate things (heaven & earth); but rather, two things merging together. It's easy to talk about this as a future reality, but very difficult to think about this as a current day reality. I'm with ya Tyler, I don't think we will ever get our heads around this completely (unless maybe we're N.T. Wright).
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