THE BORDERS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

A major issue in our society since 9/11 is the border issue. How do we control our borders? What does it mean to be a nation if we allow open borders and allow anyone to enter our society who chooses to do so? Do we build a fence and keep out the poor Mexican who wants to work as a brick layer in order to feed his family as well as the Al Queda terrorist?

I have been reading a recent book by Brian McLaren, called The Secret Message Of Jesus. Just to give away a little of the plot, the Secret Message is the kingdom of God and Brian is exploring all the metaphoric quasi-hidden ways that Jesus described the kingdom without actually defining it. The title sounds like a good marketing ploy in the age of Dan Brown, but actually McLaren has a good point…by hinting at the kingdom, and allowing people to glimpse certain aspects of it, he was awakening interest and desire in people to pursue it, to engage it, and to think about it, rather than trying to shove it down their throats with 3 points and an invitation.

In one of this chapters, McLaren deals with how people cross over into the kingdom of God from the domain of darkness, and how we in the kingdom should guard our borders. He effectively shows that there are two possible errors: hostile exclusion and naïve inclusion. Here, McLaren is actually some significant theology about who can be saved and how they are saved. I am a complete novice in this issue but I promise I will read up on it and get back to better set of definitions. There are also some intermediate views.

Basically, the two errors that McLaren focuses on are those who attempt to close the borders and patrol the boundaries of the kingdom in order to keep out any but the most pure, the truly saved (according to the view of the kingdom sheriffs). On the other side are those who want to throw open the borders and let everyone in. This leads to a problem of identity: if everyone comes in, how will the kingdom be any different than the world? McLaren asks, “Can any meaningful kingdom, including the kingdom of God, exist with no boundaries, no outside?” (McLaren:163).

He finally comes down to an intermediate position: the kingdom invites marginal people—“It begins with the least—the sinners, the sick, the poor, the meek, and the children. Entry isn’t on the basis of merit, achievement, or superiority, but rather it requires humility to think again, to become teachable (like a child) and to receive God’s forgiveness and reconciling grace” (165). Nevertheless, the key requirement to cross the border and to become legal immigrant in the kingdom of God is a genuine change of heart. “a requirement that those who wish to enter the kingdom actually have a change of heart—that they don’t sneak in to accomplish their own agenda.”

This is in accordance with the example of Jesus’ tradition of “gathering in an inclusive community” (166). McLaren calls this “purposeful inclusion” and adds that “God seeks to include all who want to participate in and contribute to its purpose, but it cannot include those who oppose its purpose” (167).

McLaren concludes that it is clear that Jesus does not want us “judging, out-grouping, trying to shift between wheat and chaff, or holding people at arms distance” (168). But at the same time his challenge “to repent, to follow him and to learn from his humility and meekness” makes clear that the citizens of the kingdom must want to learn a new way of life and if they don’t pay the full cost, they will remain outside.

Years ago I did a careful inductive study of Jesus’ method of evangelism in the four gospels, for a paper I was writing for Dr. Robinson. It was an eye opener for me as a life-long evangelical. I was unable to find a single example of a mourner’s bench, an altar call, a requirement to assent to a set of theological propositions or the sinner’s prayer. Instead I found a series of encounters between Jesus and lost and hurting people that never twice repeated the same formula but in every case changed their lives (I would imagine that encounter between the rich young ruler and Jesus eventually changed the rich young ruler’s life, even if it made him miserable).

I began to see that salvation was much more of a process or a journey with a series of decisions, rather than normatively a dramatic, one-time life changing even like Saul of Tarsus experienced on the road to Damascus. I saw that there was an element of mystery in the process of regeneration and conversion and that it was above all an entrance into a relationship.

A meaningful passage for me in my attempts to relate redemptively to those around me has been: "He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me (Matthew 10:40).

I have noticed that when secular people find out that I am a “spiritual” person, they either retreat or draw nearer in friendship. I am assuming that those who “receive me” are getting a “bug” uploaded to them: love for God and a desire to follow Jesus. IF they receive me (and if he has sent me), they are actually, in real time, receiving him. (Christ in you, the hope of glory).

How do I know when they have legitimately crossed the border into the kingdom? I can’t go on the sinner’s prayer any more….nor even always water baptism. And only God can see the inner change of their heart…so I suppose (and I actually processing this as I write) I must patiently wait to see the fruit in their lives that will indicate the condition of the heart.

In the mean time, it is not my job to stop them at the border or expel them from the kingdom. My job is too continue to be friends, to continue to feed them from the bread of life until they include or exclude themselves from the kingdom by revealing the condition of their hearts.
Any thoughts?