Cliches

What do you do when push comes to shove? When you have to put your money where your mouth is? When the rubber meets the road?

I recently listened to Dallas Willard speaking about the Kingdom of God. He reminded his audience about the passage in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 6, in which Jesus admonishes his disciples to "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness" and all other things will be added to them. Jesus clearly warns against putting trust in money and material possessions, a common human foible. In fact, Willard points out that trusting in money is a problem even for people who don't have any, or at least not enough. It is difficult to come to grips with the sayings of Jesus when the everyday needs of life seem in jeopardy. Seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness can seem ethereal, nebulous, a luxury for someone who is struggling to make sense out of the cataclysms of life, but  Jesus clearly calls his followers to shift trust from the resources of the world to the resources of God. So how do I seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness? How do I shift my trust from the resources of this world, which I obviously need, to the unseen resources of God?

It's easy to listen to a sermon or give space to prayer regarding this idea of seeking God's Kingdom and depending on God to provide for all needs. It's more difficult to live it out, to put your money where your mouth is. Is a sermon about seeking God's Kingdom and not trusting in earthly resources just a pep talk, a mind game? Where is the reality, the power in the message? Can I give myself to that sermon, entering into the words of Jesus with faith and hope, jumping off the cliff, in effect, trusting that there will be a safety net at least for my soul? Willard contends that the person who is well off is the person who is alive and functioning in the Kingdom. What does this mean? How do I get there?

Matthew, chapter 6, comes on the heels of Jesus famed Sermon on the Mount. He is speaking to people who live on the margins of society economically, socially, politically. Most of them probably lived a day to day existence without access to the best food, health care, economic opportunities, or political connections, and whose survival could be threatened in an instant. Jesus does not offer them solutions to their earthly problems. Instead, he offers them identity and a Kingdom in which to live out that identity. Jesus proclaims how blessed are the poor, the meek, the merciful, the hungry, and goes on to tell his disciples, "You are the salt of the earth...You are the light of the world." Wow! Does this mean anything when push comes to shove, when I am feeling hungry and poor? Will I believe this, or would I rather have the security of earthly resources? Will I take seriously Christ's command to let my light shine? Will I allow the light of Christ to shine through me, rendering me the light of the world? Will I keep this in the realm of some esoteric or philosophical discussion, or can I have the courage and imagination to take this message as a way to move forward in my life? This is the great struggle, the place where the rubber meets the road.

These cliches might seem trite and silly, but they are where I am living right now. The ball is in my court. I can listen to the revelation of the Divine Trinity from the love of the Father through the words of the Son and the illumination of the Holy Spirit, or I can choose the logical, rational way of the world and scramble through my own efforts for the resources I need to survive and thrive. God's Kingdom is an upside down Kingdom, a Kingdom of paradox. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." When my influence is diminished and my security is threatened, I still have an identity--I am the salt of the earth, the light of the world. I can live today in that identity, seeing God's light all around me and letting that light shine through me.

Truthfully, if I can't live out this Kingdom way of living, the gospel I claim to believe has no power for the suffering masses of the earth. I have no message for refugees languishing in camps or struggling through arduous and dangerous journeys to reach safety. I have no message for girls held in sex trafficking, their souls and bodies ravaged. I have no message for those who suffer hunger and thirst, who fear for their lives amidst the violence of their neighborhoods. I have no message for those in cancer wards or at grave sites or in unemployment lines. If I cannot live this message when it demands my total attention, then I have no message to bring to the world, no light to shine in the darkness.

Money and possessions aren't the problem. It is how I perceive money and possessions and where my trust is placed. Inasmuch as my life is focused on securing material resources to the detriment of living a Kingdom life, I forfeit my influence in the Kingdom, forfeit the brightness of my light in the world. This might be hard to parse out in the nitty gritty, but my effectiveness and joy in the Kingdom of God depends on it.