I’ve been playing around with this thought for a while.  After thinking about collections and how I think that they are in many ways anti-kingdom, James sent me this quote:

All of the computers on Ebay are mine. In fact, everything on Ebayis already mine. All of those things are just in long term storage that I pay nothing for. Storage is free.

When I want to take something out of storage, I just pay the for the storage costs for that particular thing up to that point, plus a nominal shipping fee, and my things are delivered to me so I can use them. When I am done with them, I return them to storage via Craigslist or Ebay, and I am given a fee as compensation for freeing up the storage facilities resources.

This is also the case with all of my stuff that Amazon and Walmart are holding for me. I have antiques, priceless art, cars, estates, and jewels beyond the dreams of avarice.

The world is my museum, displaying my collections on loan. The James Savages of the world are merely curators.

As I am the curator of their things, and thus together we all share the world.

While realistically this is not how we have setup the world.  Our culture and deep greed make this unthinkable, and in many ways, it makes this entire way of thinking pretty stupid.  I think however, that there is an argument for this that needs some more air time.  In fact, I think we are one of the first cultures where present leading Christian thinkers talk about this very little.  Ask a Christian leader to sell his library of books today and he will accuse you of all sorts of things and give you plenty of excuses.  However, Origen got to the point in his journey of following Jesus that lead him to sell even his books.  Why are we so afraid?  What are we really holding on to?

I’ve said things like this before to friends while playing around with this idea of common possessions for all.  Typically the response is “ok fine, give me your Ipod.”  Which only tells me that the reason we don’t like a belief system like this is because it means we have to give up the possessions we value far too much to anyone who wants it.  They think I don’t actually believe in this system because I am selfish like the rest of them.  It is true that I am selfish, but it doesn’t follow that I don’t really believe in this, or that it is not true.  If you don’t see the world with private possessions, then someone taking your Ipod wouldn’t mean much to you.  Also it would mean that you could take it back whenever because it’s not theirs either.  I realize, because of the culture we are in, that this is a highly idealistic way to see the world.  However, I don’t think that prevents it from being true or real or good.

If we are working along side of God in the realization of the kingdom of God, I have a feeling it looks a lot more like the commonality of all things rather than everyone having their own private possessions.  Private possessions are for those who have not learned to share.  Private possessions are for those who see something they have not created as their own.

I picked up a book called Faith and Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance and Use of Money by Justo Gonzalez and I realized I am not alone.  Most early church fathers had lots to say about money, possessions and ownership.  Most of them agree that the idea of private ownership is pretty far from the gospel.  Instead of making a case for it myself, here is a bunch of quotes from different early church thinkers.  I wrote a few quotes from this book already here, but these ones are going to focus more on the commonality of goods.

According to Clement, the commonality of goods–or at least of their use–is not a strange notion taught by some philosophical schools or fanatical groups.  It is part of the original order of creation.  Clement’s argument is that whatever we own we possess only for use; that any use beyond the necessary is superfluous and a burden to the Christian life; that the only way in which we can truly possess what we do not need is by giving it away; and that therefore the best management of private property is to make it available for common use.  God created humanity for sharing and began this process by sharing the divine logos.  Is is our sharing in this logos that makes us human.  Therefore, not to share is inhuman and goes against the verykoinonia that is the basis of our creation (ouk anthropinon, oude, koinonikon).
- Clement of Alexandria

God created our race for sharing (koininia), beginning by giving out what belonged to God, God’s own Word, making is common (kinos) to all humans, and creating all things for all (panta poiesas yper panton).  Therefore all things are common (koina oun ta panta); and let not the rich claim more than the rest.  To say therefore “I have more tha nI need, why not enjoy?” is neither human nor proper to sharing (ouk anthropinon, oude koinonikon)…For I know well that God has given us the power to use; but only to the limit of that which is necessary: and that God also willed that the use be in common.
- Clement of Alexandria

To own things is to be indebted to Caesar–or, in some of the passages, to “the prince of the world”–and therefore the closer one is to being free of material possessions the less hold Caeser has on one.
- Origen

Why do you (the rich) drive out of their inheritance people whose nature is the same as yours, claiming for yourselves alone the possession of the land?  The land was made to be common to all, the poor and the rich.  Why do you, oh rich, claim for yourselves alone the right to the land?

The world has been made for all, and a few of you rich try to keep it for yourselves.  For not only the ownership of the land, but even the sky, the air and the sea, a few rich people claim for themselves…Do the angels divide the space in heaven, as you do when you set up property marks on earth?

When you give to the poor, you give not of your own, but simply return what is his, for you have usurped that which is common and has been given for the common use of all.  The land belongs to all, not to the rich; and yet those who are deprived of its use are many more than those who enjoy it.

God our Lord willed that this land be the common possession of all and give it fruit to all.  but greed distributed the right of possessions.  Therefore if you claim as your private property part of what was granted in common to all human beings and to all animals, it is only fair that you share some of this with the poor, so that you will not deny nourishment to those who are also partakers of your right (by which you hold this land).

Greed is the cause of our want.  The birds have abundant natural food because they have received in common that which is necessary for their nourishment, and they do not know how to claim private ownership.  By claiming the private we (humans) lose the common.

Why do you consider things in the world as possessions, when the world is common?  Why do you consider the fruits of the land private, when the land is common?…Birds who own nothing, lack nothing.

Nothing graces the Christian soul so much as mercy: mercy as shown chiefly towards the poor, that thou mayest treat them as sharers in common with thee in the produce of nature, which brings forth the fruit of the earth for use to all.

But this is not even in accord with nature, for nature has poured forth all things for all men for common use.  God has ordered all things to be produced, so that there should be good in common to all, and that the earth should be the common possession to all.  Nature, therefore, has produced a common right for all, but greed has made it a right for a few.”
-Ambrose

Let no one regard anything as theirs, or as private.  On the contrary, to all of us were given, as gifts from the same Father, not only the same beginning of life, but also things in order that we might use them.  We must emulate God’s goodness poured upon us, following the excellent example of the Lord who has given us all these things.  Therefore, in order to be good, we must consider all things as being common to everybody, and not allow ourselves to be corrupted by the pride of luxury of the world, nor by greed after wealth, nor by seeking after vainglory.  On the contrary, we are to submit to God and remain in the love of every common life, living in communion.
- Hilary

Let us not be more beastly than the beasts.  For them, all things are common: the earth, the springs, the pastures, the mountains, the valleys.  One does not have more than another.  You, however, who call yourself human, the tamest of animals, become fiercer than the beasts and shut up in a single house the sustenance for thousands of poor people.  And even so, it is not only our nature that is common to us all, but also many other things: the sky and the sun, and the moon, and the choir of stars, and the air, and the sea, and the fire, and the water, and the earth, and life, and death, and growth, and old age, and sickness, and health, and hte need to eat and be clothed.  Also common to us all is the spirutual, the sacred table and the body of the Lord and his precious blood, and the promise of hte Kingdom….Is it not then absurd, that we who have so many great things in common….will be so greedy when it comes to riches, and rather than maintaining that commonality we become fiercer than the wild beasts.

Whence, then, does such great equality arise? It arises from the greed and the arrogance of the rich.  But I ask that in the future you act in a different manner: closely bound together in those things that are common and most needful, let us not be rent asunder by those that are earthly and lower, such as riches and poverty.”
- John Chrysostom

Any who wish to serve the Lord must not rejoice in the private, but in the common.  The earliest Christians made common property of their private good.  Did they lose what was theirs? … It is because of our private possessions that there are disagreements, enmity, dissension, wars…”
-Augustine

It’s pretty clear to me that one of the chief reasons the world is in the state it is in is because of a poor view of commonality of things.  How we determined that certain people deserve more than others is beyond me.  The only way we could get to such a massive unequal distribution that we see today is to allow a system of greed and privatization to run rampant.  If we seriously insist in following Jesus, and his most earliest followers in ushering in the Kingdom of God we should begin to uplift and support more commonality.  I don’t know what exactly this looks like in reality but I do know its a direction we must go.  We need to loosen our grip on our possessions and let them flow in and our of our lives more easily to constantly be ready to be used by anyone in need.  We need to be in more relationships with those that actually need the things that we have.  We need to remember that we all came from the same place, we all have the same destiny and none of us has earned any extra favour beyond the grace of God, and to act like we have is to forsake our humanity.  We need to remember that when we give and share, we are not sharing that which is ours, but that which is in common to all of humanity.

The Following is an excerpt from “Tales from the Secret Annex” written by Anne Frank. The quote inspired this post that I wrote a few days ago.

“I wonder if any of the people sitting in warm, comfortable homes have any idea what it must be like to be a beggar. Have any of those “good, dear people” ever asked themselves about the lives of poor people or children around them? All right, everyone gives a beggar a few coppers now and then. But it is usually pushed hurriedly into his hands, and the door is closed with a bang. And what is more, the generous donor usually shudders at having to touch such a dirty hand. Is it true, or isn’t it? And then people are surprised that beggars become so rude. Wouldn’t anyone, who was treated more like a beast than a human being?

It is bad, very bad indeed, that in a country which claims to have good social laws and a high standard of culture people should treat each other in this way. Most of the well-to-do people regard a beggar as someone to be despised, dirty and uncared for, rude and uncivilized. But have any of them ever asked themselves how these poor wretches have become like this? Just compare your own children with these poor children. Whatever is the difference, really? Your children are clean and tidy, the others dirty and uncared for. Is that all? Yes, that’s really the only difference. But if a poor beggar’s child were to receive good clothes and learn nice manners, then there wouldn’t be any difference at all.

We are all born alike; they were helpless and innocent too. Everyone breathes the same air, a great many people believe in the same God! And yet, the difference can be so immeasurably great, because so many people have never realized where the difference really lies. Because if they had realized it, they would have discovered that there really wasn’t any difference at all. Everyone is born the same, everyone has to die, and nothing remains of their worldly glory. Riches, power and fame last only for a few years! Why do people cling so desperately to these transitory things? Why can’t people who have more than they need for themselves give that surplus to their fellow citizens? Why should some people have such a hard time during their few years on this earth? But above all, let the gifts be given kindly and not just flung in their faces; everyone has the right to a friendly word! Why should one be nicer to a rich woman than to a poor one? Has anyone sorted out the difference in character between the two? The true greatness of a person does not lie in riches or power, but in character and goodness. Everyone is human, everyone has his faults and shortcomings, but everyone is born with a great deal that is good in him. And if one were to begin by encouraging the good, instead of smothering it, by giving poor people the feeling that they are human beings too, one would not even need money or possessions to do this.

Everything begins with the little things. For instance, don’t only stand up in a tram for the rich mothers; no, remember the poor ones too. Say you are sorry if you step on a poor person’s toes as you would for someone rich. People will always follow a good example; be the one to set the good example. Then it won’t be long before others follow. More and more people will become friendly and generous, until finally poor people will not be looked down upon any more.

Oh, if only we were that far already, that our country and then Europe and finally the whole world would realize that people were really kindly disposed toward one another, that they are all equal and everything else is just transitory!

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment; we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straight away! Just as with so many things, most people seek justice in quite another quarter; they grumble because they receive so little of it themselves. Open your eyes. First make sure that you are always fair yourself! Give of yourself, give as much as you can! And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness! If everyone were to do this and would not be as mean with a kindly word, then there would be much more justice and love in the world. Give and you shall receive, much more than you would have ever thought possible. Give, give again and again, don’t lose courage, keep it up and go on giving! No one has ever become poor from giving! If you do this, then in a few generations no one will need to pity the beggar children any more, because they will not exist!

There is plenty of room for everyone in the world, enough money, riches and beauty for all to share! God has made enough for everyone! Let us all begin then by sharing it fairly.”

“When I respect the image of God in others, I protect the image of God in me”
-Rob Bell-

I’m really struggling with what it means to be with the poor. I grew up never really thinking about it. There were poor people and that sucked but I cared about where I was. As I grew in my faith and my friends and environment started to change I noticed a trend of it being cool to love the poor. Poor people was where it was at. We started to focus on the many verses where Jesus talked and admired the poor. We started to realize how close the poor people were to Jesus’ message of the good news. It became a hot topic. We talked about it, ran conferences about it and eventually I found myself living among the poorer neighborhoods of Sarnia. The question that still lingers is why? Sure we know what. For some reason our society and faith can always tell us what we need to do. So we know that we should be with the poor. So now I’m starting to wonder and understand why.

What do poor people got that the wealthy folk don’t? Well I’m sure we could all list a bunch of great spiritual answers to that like simplicity, the Sabbath, community and they are all important. But I feel like anyone with money can attain all these same things. It’s easier for poor people maybe to get them, but wealthy people aren’t absent of them.

I think the secret lies in that there is no secret. Poor people aren’t better than rich people. Poor people don’t have a secret access to the Kingdom that rich people can’t get to. That is what is so surprising though. We are always looking for the right kind of people to be around. There is no special person that has a better chance than anyone else. Some people say that if you don’t have poor friends well then you’re not following Jesus. I just can’t buy it.

I think what Jesus was doing was undermining the system that said that those without money were less human than those with money. He wasn’t creating new classes that said the poor are the best and powerful and the rich are the outcasts. He created a system that said there was no powerful anymore besides God, there was no rich or poor or male or female. He did it with money, health and power. The point was never to take the people at the bottom and make them rich, powerful and healthy later on so that they get their turn to have all the perks. The point was to say that no matter where you find yourself, with money or without it, with power or health or without it, you are still valuable and you are still human and you deserve to be treated the same as everyone else and God still loves you.

It sucks to say, but I don’t think that moving downtown to where the poor people are at is going to make you any more of a Christian or any closer to following Jesus. It’s not where you are and who you are with, but how you treat and love those people wherever you are. We tend to pedestalize people who are doing either what we wish we had the guts to do or whatever our bubble says is cool and holy. It sucks because we are falling into the same traps that we hated and pulled away from. Instead of going to bible studies every week, it’s moving near the poor. Instead of going to church every Sunday it’s getting a bus pass to save the enviroment. Instead of buying only Christian music it’s not shopping at Wal Mart. We’ve created another list of righteous and unrighteous things to do and we judge people on whether they do them or not.

I’m tired of jumping on one band wagon after another. Judging people by where they shop, live or how they spend their money. I think it’s time that we learned to treat and love humans as humans no matter what class, race or gender. Rachel and I are not living in this ‘poor neighborhood’ because there is something spectacular about this place. We’re not living here because we want to look cool for moving downtown. We are not living here because God told us to or there is something more spiritual about it. We are living here because it didn’t matter to us where we lived. We are living here because people are people in the rich areas, nice areas or poor areas and this house was a good deal.

Below is my rough transcript for what I shared at the Cultivate Gathering this weekend. This a long one to read, but hopefully it gets you thinking. I wanted to come at it from something that I was currently trying to understand and grasp a hold of as opposed to something that I give the impression that I’ve figured it out; and because of that its probably more broken apart than it should be. If you were at Cultivate this probably says a lot more than I do by talking.

Easter Sunday was a day of celebration for us. We left Friday morning in a downer; with the bad taste in our mouths that we were the ones that crucified our God. It wasn’t a happy ending. In contrast, Sunday we thought we’d bring more of a celebration to our gathering. We told everyone to bring their instruments. Drums, guitars, bass, more drums, instruments that have no name and keyboards were all part of the band on Sunday. So you can imagine what it sounded like. All these musicians in one room following the chords which we put up on the overhead PowerPoint, the sound was horrible. Nothing was on beat, let alone in tune, you couldn’t really hear any of the good musicians, and it was a blur of chords that didn’t really go together.

It is this Sunday that I want to talk about. There was something about this Sunday which put me on a journey of discovering beauty in places that are usually offensive.

Let’s contrast this Sunday with a regular worship service. Worship services nowadays are pretty awesome. At the bigger churches we have CD quality musicians and sound guys putting on a seamless performance while everyone lifts up their praise to God. The lights are just right, the PowerPoint slides are transitioning perfect and every song flows into another. Most of the other churches are just wannabe’s of these churches. They play Hillsongs as if they won’t ever be putting out another CD again, they try and get the perfect sounding mix, after all its worship to our creator right? We better do it with excellence. In fact, even the suggestion of a Sunday like we had would almost be blasphemous. Some churches pay their musicians because they require such high standards of music coming from the stage. Why would we ever take the leadership away from our trained worship leaders and offer it out to the crowd? To do anything less than excellence for many churches is wrong and sacrilegious and there is a list of other reasons that people make up for the need of concert sounding worship music and experiences.

In many ways I think that we on Easter Sunday made a spectacle out of the entire praise and worship culture that has hit Christianity with quite a force over the last few years. We took what was sacred to some (perfect music, perfect atmosphere) and we crapped all over it. We said the music is going to suck, the atmosphere is going to be annoying and it is still going to be beautiful. And it was.

Let me give you another example. How many of you have seen Little Miss Sunshine (Spoiler Ahead)? I want to show you a clip from the movie, but let me set it up for you first. The entire movie is set around this young girl who gets into a Little Miss Sunshine competition. Basically it’s a competition where girls that are 6 dress up like 18 year old strippers and put on fake to win the competition. Throughout the movie this little girl is practicing her routine with her grandpa who taught it to her. No one knows what the routine is except her Grandpa who is basically her only source of self confidence in the movie who dies before she ever performs it. Her gay, suicidal uncle is the guy who gets up and claps first. Her overachiever, motivational speaker (not a very good one) dad is the one who starts dancing with her, the brother who refuses to speak for over 6 months is the younger guy and the mom is a trying to make ends meet sweet lady who wants her daughter to be happy. Those are the characters, and it is absolutely beautiful how they all come together.
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In the end, her entire recital was almost a mockery of the whole competition. Yet, there is something beautiful about this mockery. Her family is reunited through it. She is debunking something that objectifies these little girls and has for as long as anyone can remember made little girls feel insecure. As her family gets up on stage they are saying with her that she is beautiful because of who she is and not because they judge her a certain way. The other competitors, the judges and the organizers were disgusted by who she was and what she was doing, yet the movie was absolutely beautiful and said more to our culture than most preachers do in a year about what true beauty is. Why is something so offensive to one person so beautiful to the next?

Let me give you another example. It’s found in John 2. Jesus is at a wedding. They run out of wine and so Jesus’ mother comes up to him and tells him to do something. Jesus says fine and goes and does what his mother says. So he tells the servants at the wedding to go and grab six stone water jars, the same kind of jars that are used in ceremonial washing totaling between 120 and 180 gallons (8-12 kegs). He tells them to fill them up and take some and bring it to the master of the banquet. I’m not sure what Jesus was trying to pull here. But he takes what is most precious to the Jews, obedience to their rules, because it was their job to cleanse themselves with this water before times of worship, in which the wedding would be considered one. So here is Jesus taking an important ceremony of Jewish Culture and their rules, taking all that water that should be used for spiritual cleansing and turning it into wine. We have enough people now that would be upset if Jesus turned our mini shot glasses of grape juice into alcohol, so imagine 12 kegs.

If you’ve read Walter Wink’s book The Power’s that Be, he explains culturally the three stories of turning the other cheek, carrying the pack the extra mile and if someone wants your coat give them your undergarment too. These stories are loaded with undertones that eventually put the one being slapped twice, the one carrying the pack and the one getting naked in a position where they are making a spectacle out of the oppressor. The stories are fascinating; maybe I’ll post in more detail about them soon, if anyone is interested. Basically though Jesus is telling these people who are being oppressed to make a spectacle out of their oppressor; to put them in a position where their foolishness is exposed. Or what about Jesus healing on the Sabbath? The Pharisees would get so low that they actually got upset that Jesus was healing someone on the Sabbath. If that didn’t look ridiculous, I don’t know what would.

And finally there is the ultimate spectacle; the crucifixion. Jesus, the perfect, innocent man who came to heal and save all mankind was brutalized, beaten and killed. The Passion was uncomfortable and awkward. It’s supposed to be. It was never supposed to happen. But God let humankind get to its most ridiculous state and ridiculous it was and really in many ways communicated a lot about humanity.
So with all these examples, I’m just left thinking. What is the role of a spectacle in our lives? Is it a valid form of communication? It seems to work in our culture and in cultures before us. Look at Stephen Colbert for instance. His entire show is him over exaggerating culture’s weaknesses to a point where it’s made into a spectacle and you can’t help but laugh at how ridiculous it is. When someone challenges the Bible he gets all upset and starts challenging them by telling them that of course “the Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true.” And he will keep saying it over and over again until the other person gives up. He fights so hard government, religion, and other things that culture loves and always goes too far and in doing so makes a spectacle of what he was fighting for and revealing all sorts of truth about it in the midst. There are statistics now that say that just as many people get their news from Stephen Colbert and John Stewart as the main news channels. So maybe there is something to this spectacle thing? Maybe cultures throughout time respond to spectacles made out of ridiculousness. Is part of our calling to living in the Kingdom and this culture to make a spectacle out of religion and culture in hopes to actually help people see the Kingdom?

If it is; this demands creativity. What would it look like to make a spectacle out of capitalism? Or to make a spectacle out of materialism? Or to make a spectacle out of religion? I’m not saying do things out of spite, anger or even retaliation. I think there is an art in confronting with a spectacle that we as Christians need to learn. Spectacles communicate something to culture that regular conversations don’t. I think we need to uncover this practice of Jesus and not be afraid to make spectacles of ideals and standards that the church and culture holds over our heads. What this looks like I have no idea. How to do it with love, I think will be a challenge, but I think its part of our calling. I think its natural for the Kingdom to make spectacles of all other kingdoms. Not in a sense to make fun of it like Stephen Colbert maybe does but in a sense that actually living as part of this paradoxical Kingdom makes anything else seem ridiculous.

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Colossians 2:13-15

Last night I couldn’t sleep and having to leave at 5am for the Free Methodist Class that I’m sitting in right now it only seemed normal with my sleep patterns to be up at 2am watching The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. On The Daily Show, John Stewart was interviewing the 2006 Nobel Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus, about his amazing accomplishment with the Grameen Bank that eventually won him this prize. Maybe this is my sheltered self, but I had no idea who this guy was or what he has and is doing, so when I was watching this episode I could feel my entire heart soften at simply how amazing this was. This truly was an amazing invention.

His invention? Banking to poor people. He gives loans to those who have no money. He said that he really didn’t understand why the people that have lots of money can get more and those that have none can’t get any at all. It just made sense to him. It just made sense. He said that baking built on trust works, and he knows it works because he’s doing it right now. He said that there is no better people to give money to than those that are desperate and need to make a life for those around them.

He has seven million borrowers. 97% of them are women. They all were poor and had no credit rating.

It is men like Muhammad Yunus who will change the world. Why the hell haven’t we figured out yet that the only way to change a system as corrupt as ours is to stop continually pour into it to try to fix it. How does lending money to rich people and people who have had money already in anyway help stop a system of keeping the poor the way they are and the rich the way they are? How does throwing money to rich people in poor neighbourhoods to help get the poor neighbourhoods of their feet ever actually give the poor neighbourhoods a chance to work at getting off the ground instead of patching bandages over the issues?

All this to say that I think the Kingdom is in many ways a lot simpler than we make it. Muhammad Yunus is changing the world by looking at a problem and offering the most simple solution. It’s as almost as he woke up and said “Well, Duh, of course let’s give the people that don’t have any money, money to help them get started.” Instead, we work up elaborate plans of welfare and other social assistant programs and government projects while banks sit back and give the rich people more money and put themselves more in debt. I am not a social economist by any means, but are we just lying to ourselves and making this more complicated?

As the church, we need to give to those that are in need. We need to stop serving a system that keeps people poor and in lives of oppression. We need to stop pretending to ourselves that everything is ok, because the only reason we think that is because we are the benefactors (or so we think) of this system. It’s time for us as the church to act subversive to these systems that are destroying us and take our selfish priorities out of the way so we can see how simple some of these answers really are, because as I see it, its our selfishness that makes things more complicated.

I’ve been trying to understand better what the kingdom of God is like. I’ve read through the parables, and they all amaze me. Here is a few things that are shaped by the parables that I read that help me understand what maybe the kingdom of God (heaven) is like.

Let us say there is an immigrant from Italy named Tony. Tony however, now lives in Canada. Tony lives in Canada, does all kinds of things in Canada like eat, work and spend time with people. Yet Tony is Italian at heart. His true identity comes from being Italian. When Italy one the World Cup, he was out on the streets dancing. If Italy goes to war, he is out on the streets mourning. Tony lives in a house with his family and his wife is also Italian and only cooks Italian food. Tony also sends his kids to an Italian school and he doesn’t even speak English, he only speaks Italian. How many people would say that Tony isn’t Italian anymore because he lives in Canada?

I think the Kingdom of God works like this. Even though we live in the world. Even though we do not leave the world. We are still kingdom people. We talk kingdom talk. We live the kingdom way. We look at every circumstance through a kingdom filter. We have given our allegiance to the Kingdom, not to the world. Our goal is not to get to Italy….heaven. Our goal is to stay here and to make more people experience the kingdom.

Now if we added to this story a bit. Let’s say that along with Italy comes a bunch of values that they uphold. They go to every major league soccer game that is played in their local city, they finish eating everything that is front of them and they never wear socks. Italy has values, and therefore Tony has the same values no matter where he is because his heart is with Italy. So Tony starts to go to a lot of soccer, eating a bit more and not spending money on socks. Let’s say though that Tony wears socks one day because his feet are cold. This does not mean that Italy has changed; all it means is that Tony isn’t living inside the values of Italy.

I think the Kingdom of God is bigger than just members of the Kingdom. I think it works and is progressed by values of the kingdom like the fruits of the spirit. There are kingdom ways of doing things, and not every kingdom member does them all the time. This is why it’s hard to look at someone and say if they are a kingdom member or not. It’s bigger than just one person here and one person there. God is advancing his kingdom in members and non-members.

The kingdom is a mentality that we hold. It’s a way of life. It’s a different kingdom than that of money, power and sex. To value a kingdom mentality is to value the kingdom. To live a kingdom mentality is to live in the kingdom. Could this be what John was talking about all through his gospel? Some say that the term “eternal life” is synonymous with “kingdom of god” and “kingdom of heaven” in the other gospels. So to live a kingdom mentality is to live in the kingdom which is to possess eternal life.