It’s Time to Leave the Country

Who said? Jesus did. While he didn’t mention one’s country per se, he did say we had to leave everything if we wanted to follow him:

In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples (Luke 14:33).

While Jesus didn’t mention country, he did include family, which suggests that he really did mean everything:

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them, he said:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Granted, the word “hate” had a wide range of meanings in Hebrew and Aramaic, the latter being Jesus’ native language. And with Jesus, you also need to factor in his prolific use of hyperbole, not to mention his call to love everyone, including our families. So what point is Jesus making? What's this about?

It’s this New Reality Jesus continually talked about. He called it the kingdom of God. And guess what: if you’re willing to give up everything, it’s yours.

Some of you may be thinking, “That’s not what I was taught. I was taught that we are saved through faith.” Absolutely. It takes faith to let go of one’s old life and enter another. It took faith for Abraham to leave his family and land to go to a country he knew nothing about. It took faith for the first disciples to leave their families, occupations, and villages when Jesus said, “Follow me.” Why did they? Jesus had been saying that the kingdom of God had come near, and they figured Jesus had something to do with it. They were right, of course. He was the King, God in human flesh, come as the expected Messiah.

At first, it was just four fishermen. Then Jesus embarked on a teaching and healing mission “proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people” (Matthew 4:23). He went throughout Galilee, but people came from all over, including Syria and other non-Jewish territories, as well as Jerusalem, to see and hear him. He likely snagged a few more disciples along the way before he went up on a mountain and sat down. Then his disciples came to him, and he began to teach them:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3).

That’s the first of what are often called the Beatitudes; there are eight of them. First, let me explain the term “kingdom of heaven.” This is Matthew’s way of referring to what other Gospel writers call the kingdom of God. Matthew’s target audience consisted mostly of Jewish Christians who, like Jews in general, were reticent about saying the name Yahweh or even the word God out loud. In other words, Jesus (or Matthew) wasn’t talking about heaven or a way to get into heaven, but about God’s master plan to restore everything into the New Creation. That’s what Christians ask for when they pray, “Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”

Kingdom Now!

We’ll get to the “poor in spirit” part in a minute, but a key word in this beatitude that usually gets short shrift is the word is: “ ...for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” How we understand this tiny, two-letter word is crucial for understanding the Beatitudes and the entire Sermon on the Mount. I understand the word “is” here to mean several things.

First, the kingdom is available to anyone who is poor in spirit.

Second, people who fully acknowledge their spiritual poverty and follow Jesus can actually enter the kingdom of God.

Third, for Jesus' followers, living in the kingdom is ongoing and permanent until and beyond Jesus’ return.

Finally, the kingdom belongs to Jesus’ disciples. Disciples don’t just live in the kingdom but have significant responsibility for what happens there. You could call them vice-regents, just as at the beginning of creation (Genesis 1:26), or people who “reign in life through Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17). Praying "in Jesus' name" is also related. In other words, Jesus came to restore humankind to its original vocation, which was to rule over creation. This fits with the description in Revelation of what will happen when Christ returns:

The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever (22:3b-5).

This also corresponds with something Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew’s Gospel on two different occasions:

Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:9, 18:18).

I view the Sermon on the Mount as a kind of Kingdom Manifesto. It describes how we can live and lead in the kingdom of God now, in the present age, with all its counter-kingdom challenges. Dallas Willard called it “training for reigning."

We start by reigning over ourselves and, in particular, over our character. In the kingdom of God, character counts for just about everything. That’s not the case in any other country or kingdom. (It’s definitely not the case in our country right now.) In a previous post, I described character as “care-in-action.” I still think that’s a pretty good working definition. Our character reflects what we ultimately care about and how we live out what we ultimately care about.

Resident Foreigners

So what did I mean when I said it’s time to leave our country? For many Christians, I sense that it’s their overidentification with the United States that’s holding them back from fully entering God’s kingdom. For example, when Jesus talked about money and wealth, he told his followers they had to choose: “It’s money (Mammon) or me.” He didn’t mean they couldn’t use money anymore. Jesus meant that instead of being devoted to money and what money could buy, his followers had to focus on Jesus and his kingdom. They had to choose.

I think the same applies to our relationship with our country – whatever country we live in. We can still live there, but it can’t be our primary residence any more. One scholar described it as having one foot in the kingdom and the other in the United States. But I don’t think that’s it. We must keep both feet in the kingdom wherever on planet-earth we happen to live. It’s keeping both feet in the Kingdom of God that enables us to be the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13), the light of the world (5:14), and recruiters for prospective disciples (Matthew 28:19). If we don’t plant both feet the in the Kingdom, Jesus said the salt is likely to lose its saltiness, its distinctness. The kingdom is a great place from which to venture out and love one's neighbors.

The apostle Peter calls us “resident foreigners” (1 Peter 1:1, 2:11), whatever our documented status or citizenship. It didn’t matter if people like Paul were also citizens of the Roman Empire: they considered themselves resident foreigners, strangers, exiles, or immigrants. (The Greek word can be translated in any of these ways.) While Paul used his citizenship to further his ministry, it was no longer a core part of his identity. He had become a citizen and ambassador of the kingdom of God.

Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon put it this way: “Christianity is an invitation to be part of an alien people who make a difference because they see something that cannot otherwise be seen without Christ.” Yes, we can make a difference in the country we reside in, and we want to. Christ offers a particular vision for how to do that.

The advice the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah gave the Jewish exiles still applies:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.... Multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare (Jeremiah 29:5-7).

Are Most of Us Christian Nationalists?

I’ve become convinced that most Christians in the United States today are Christian nationalists, at least with a small “n.” There’s a portion who believe that Christianity should become the established religion of the United States. But even those of us opposed to that idea have allowed the United States to become entangled in our minds and hearts with the kingdom of God – when, in fact, these are two completely different realities. This confusion has led to our unrealistic expectations of the United States.

I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t be upset about what’s unfolding in Washington right now. Even the normally non-alarmist conservative evangelical David French is not only concerned but pessimistic about the future. He sees the President blowing through Constitutional guardrails and suspects that some form of authoritarianism is likely on the horizon.

But where is our primary residence as Jesus followers, and how does that influence our response?

In her book Faithful Politics: Ten Approaches to Christian Citizenship and Why It Matters, Miranda Zapor Cruz suggests that the United States and the kingdom of God have overlapping but different understandings of freedom, justice, and power, and that it’s important not to confuse the two realms:

The Kingdom of God and the United States differ in foundational and radical ways. As such, they cannot and should not be treated as one and the same. While the demands of each may be compatible at times, their origin and direction diverge from each other significantly. These differences do not mean that the United States, or any other earthly country, is bad for failing to be the Kingdom of God, any more than a window is bad for failing to be a door. They are simply different in origin and aim. The United States is not, and will not become, the Kingdom of God, any more than a kiwi can grow into a cantaloupe. And yet, Christians live in both simultaneously, and must therefore learn how to live in the tension between the eternal Kingdom of God and the temporal United States.

Yet many Christians have only a vague understanding or picture of the kingdom of God, which is why I think they so easily equate it with the United States (e.g. “God and country”). As a consequence, we end up worshiping the same gods: Venus (sex and pleasure), Mars (power and violence), Mammon (money and possessions), and Babel (nationalism and empire). We offer blind worship to the last three and convince ourselves we’re not worshiping the first one, Venus, even though many Christians gauge their worship “experience” on how pleasurable it is. Also, when we fixate on what people do in their bedrooms and try to impose our values on others legally, aren't we in danger of worshiping Venus by obsessing over her – especially when we care more about people’s gender identity and sex lives than we do about the poor and the stranger? Whether or not we’re right about the issues, we can be wrong about the weight we give them, thus turning them into idols.

There's quite a contrast between life in the kingdom and what’s happening in our country now. The apostle Paul often begins his letters by saying, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” These are the two Persons overseeing the kingdom of God. In the United States right now, it’s Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The Father and his Son seek to bring grace and peace into the world, while Trump and Musk are sowing chaos and retribution.

So what should we do? What is this season in our country’s life asking of Jesus' followers?

I suggest we start by meeting Jesus at the mountain – the Sermon on the Mount mountain. It’s an incredible document, arguably the most beautiful text ever written. As I indicated in a previous post, it’s not a rulebook or playbook. It’s filled with hyperbolic metaphors meant to provoke, challenge, and ultimately reshape our character; which, again, is care-in-action.  The Sermon on the Mount isn’t a compendium of perennial wisdom. Sure, there are teachings here that anyone can benefit from. But these sayings, metaphors, and parables are specifically designed to describe life in this upside-down, counterintuitive reality called the kingdom of God. Jesus gave this message or manifesto to his disciples, with others listening in. Jesus was always open to others joining his band of disciples, but he wanted people to know what they were getting into.

Yes, the kingdom is always open to receiving new students of The Way! After Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus’ disciples were directed to another mountain, where they were commissioned to make disciples of all nations, teaching them everything they had learned from Jesus (Matthew 28:16-20). Their initiation would involve Christian baptism, a sign of being born again or dying to one’s old life, and dedicating oneself to learning this new way of Jesus – a way of life that would make them much better at caring for their families and contributing to the life of their communities.

A Way to Understand the Beatitudes

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3).

This is how the sermon begins, which is appropriate, as people usually aren’t willing to give this new kingdom a try until they’ve reached the end of their rope. It’s usually only when we’re destitute, depressed, or desperate that we’re willing to entertain life in the kingdom.

Unfortunately, many Christians have been spoon-fed or force-fed a gospel that equates spirituality with patriotism, kingdom with country, Christian culture with culture wars, shalom with material wealth, and Christian identity with the Republican Party. I sense many of us are trying to squeeze our country into an inner void that only God and God's kingdom can fill. Maybe we were taught a gospel focused on heaven but had little to do with the kingdom of heaven. Here’s our chance: I say, let’s meet Jesus at the mountain.

I know biblical scholars and theologians through the centuries have had many different perspectives on what each beatitude means and how the beatitudes relate to one another. I want to offer my own. My perspective is based on the overarching story of the Hebrew Bible, which Jesus says in this very sermon he came to fulfill (5:17). Most scholars suggest that Matthew presents Jesus as a new Moses. After the people of Israel were set free from slavery, Moses went up on the mountain to receive the law of God and then brought it down to the people. But here it’s Jesus who gives the instructions and the disciples who are “prophets” (5:12) like Moses, eventually being told to share Jesus’ teachings with others (28:20). The disciples will be the prophetic/apostolic leaders of a renewed people of God.

Speaking of Moses, one way to think about the Beatitudes is as a kind of Exodus journey. Just as the Israelites were poor in spirit when they were enslaved as resident foreigners in Egypt, Jesus’ disciples and the other people listening were poor in spirit about their political and economic circumstances. I hope, over the next several posts, to show how each beatitude offers another step towards increasing inner healing and freedom, culminating in the ‘purity of heart’ that’s highlighted in the sixth beatitude.

The sixth beatitude. In Genesis 1, the first humans were made on the sixth day as the climax of God’s creation. The Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ entire teaching, along with his life, death, resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit, work together to restore our hearts to their original innocence and wholeheartedness – our hearts becoming clean, serene, and single-minded in devotion to God and neighbor. (If this understanding of the sixth beatitude seems fanciful, just this week I stumbled across two theologians in the first centuries of the church who adopted a similar view.) In other words, God wants to restore what was lost at the fall. This fits with the New Testament portrayal of Jesus as the New Adam, the beginning of a new humanity.

But to what end? That’s where the seventh beatitude comes in. (In the Bible, the number seven symbolizes completion.)

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.”

Peace-making is a way to describe humankind’s original vocation. We were made to reign as God’s vice-regents, which has nothing to do with domination or exploitation, but rather, with contributing to the flourishing of God’s world. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom, which includes personal, communal, cultural, and creational flourishing. Making peace isn’t just attempting to mediate conflicts -- as important as that is -- but implementing God’s kingdom vision. That’s always been our vocation, but since the fall (however we understand that), we’ve lacked the character to carry it out. The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount can help us.

The Eighth Day

But if the number seven symbolizes completion (e.g. Jesus' seven “I am” statements in John’s Gospel), why is there an eighth beatitude? The number eight includes two fours. In the Bible, the number four symbolizes the earth (e.g. the four corners and the four winds). Even though we’ve made a mess of things, God hasn’t given up on this world, or on his divine image-bearers leading it. In fact, “God so loved the world that he gave his Son” (John 3:16). The third beatitude says that those who are meek will inherit the earth.” So this is a very down-to-earth” kingdom that Jesus wants to establish.

The number eight also reminds us of the “eighth day.” Shemini Atzeret, or The Eighth Day, is the last of the Lord’s Feast days on the Jewish calendar, following seven other Feasts and placed on the end of a seven-day Feast, Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. The Eighth Day signifies consecration, consummation, and new life. The eighth day of creation is when humans first began to reign. Jesus’ resurrection is sometimes called the Eighth Day or the beginning of New Creation. The Eighth Day can also refer to Jesus’ second coming, when the New Creation will be consummated. But how does any of this relate to Jesus’ eighth beatitude?

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

This is the only beatitude that Jesus elaborates on:

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (5:11-12).

Jesus repeats the promise stated in the first beatitude: “…for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Followers of Jesus begin to live in the kingdom of God or New Creation while still living in the present age. This brings both joy and conflict. Persecution happens when kingdoms clash. This happened already during Jesus’ ministry. The words “blessed,” “rejoice,” “be glad,” and “reward” reflect the joy of living in God’s kingdom amidst the conflict.

The Eighth Day has begun, the kingdom is breaking in! Its progress is slow because its strategies – e.g. resisting temptation, trusting God, non-anxious living, lavish loving, forgiveness, caring for the poor, and love towards one’s enemies – are difficult to learn and are meant to influence rather than coerce. Believers don’t fight sword with sword, nor do we attempt to “lord” it over others (Matthew 20:25-27) by imposing our will or even God’s will. In our weakness, Christ is strong (2 Corinthians 12:9), even as we experience insults, rejection, and death at the hands of those who feel threatened by Jesus’ kingdom righteousness/vision for this world.

Moving towards Whole-heartedness

Exit polls indicate that 82% of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, and 58% of the rest of the population voted against him. For some of us, those numbers are almost as troubling as what we have seen this administration do so far. But this isn’t the time to point fingers. Remember, Jesus warned us not to call each other “fools” (Matthew 5:22). There has to be a way to work constructively through our anger or defensiveness and to bring the right spirit to our interactions. I believe Jesus' Beatitudes are just the ticket.

In my next post, I’ll describe how the Beatitudes are helping me. There is a way I work through the Beatitudes when processing my feelings that I’m finding extremely helpful. I believe they provide a path toward an emotional maturity and purity or wholeness of heart that makes peace-making or shalom-making more possible wherever we live, work, play, learn, and worship.

When David French was asked recently how Christians should live within a possible authoritarian regime, he pointed to the New Testament. The vast majority of Christians through the centuries have had to live under authoritarian governments. French describes the Constitution as an unrelenting assault on monarchy. But now that those Constitutional safeguards are being disregarded and the courts might be disobeyed if they rule against the President, we can turn to the New Testament, and in particular, the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, to learn how we can live this season with both feet planted in God’s kingdom. While we, like our documented and undocumented sisters and brothers (along with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph when they were in Egypt), may be resident foreigners, no one can deport us out of the kingdom of God. It's from there that we can best love and serve our country and one another.

See you at the mountain.

Home Page