Jesus taught us to pray: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” He told his followers the Kingdom of Heaven is here and also that the Kingdom of Heaven is to come. I find it hard to keep both ideas in my head simultaneously, but the excercise is good for me. The hippest Trinitarian theologian in America is Fred Sanders and he recently said in a social media feed: “That whoopie cushion sound when ‘already-not yet’ eschatology collapses undialectically into ‘halfway there & making progress.'”
And I dialectically thought: “Those fools!” And then I dialectically thought: “Right. I can fall into that trap.” And then I dialectically thought: “I have often fallen into that trap.” And then I concluded: “I may be in that trap today.”
The dialectic can be cruel.
We cannot fix ourselves by good works, we cannot avoid damnation by good works, and we cannot bring the Kingdom to Earth by any good works. Jesus took grace on us and saved us from ourselves, offers us Paradise, and has already instituted the Kingdom. When Jesus comes the works is done and nothing is left for us that must be done.
This is true.
Why then do we work? Why call for justice? If the Kingdom is here, then why is there vice, slavery, abortion, injustice toward the poor?
The Kingdom is here and it undergirds the world, but humanity, and even nature, groans against the power of that deep truth that is bending, slowly bending, everthing toward the consumation of history. There is a curve to history and it is toward Jesus and His Kingdom. Politicians are foolish when they pretend that they can see that curve . . . especially when some local place or time defies the will of God. Augustine had that right: the curve of history is the work of centuries not the work of this or that American administration.
We need do nothing and His Kingdom has come and will come. We do works out of love of that Kingdom. What else would we do? When we see nature defying redemption, we gently push it into order and help create a little corner of the Kingdom. When we see ourselves ignoring reality and betraying Jesus through injustice, then we want to change. “Jesus! You are here! Change me!,” I cry.
We do “good works” in the name of the Kingdom of God. When we free the captive, feed the poor, or supress vice, then we are not “advancing” the Kingdom, we are revealing the Kingdom. I am not a necessary agent of that reconciliation of appearance with reality, but God allows me the joy. Jesus made the deeply crooked straight, the rough plains smooth. The foundational work is done and time is rushing to the moment when the work will be visible to everyone.
Jesus was, is, and will be Lord. We just pretend He wasn’t, isn’t, and will not be. Someday even the pretending will stop. The Kingdom will not be more here in the End, but more obvious to blind humanity and the perversity of nature will be finally tamed. I cry justice not to create justice, but because injustice is so out of step with what is and justice should be seen. Wisdom stands on every corner and it is humanity that creates folly. Meanwhile, I can relax. My job is not to create the Kingdom, labor, rush about, strive. He is here, He is Lord, and all is well and will be better.
Thanks, Fred, and I know I need to keep thinking . . . dialecticially
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