The Culture of the Kingdom of God

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" Galatians 3: 28 (ESV).

"It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o'clock on Sunday morning" Martin Luther King Jr.

I've been noticing something in church that's been bothering me for some time. After services are over, I see people gathering into their usual circles to chat and hang out.

Upon closer inspection, I notice that these groups of people are usually composed by people of the same nationality and cultures. These circles can be so closed that it can be really difficult to be "in".

Despite the fact that my congregation is mostly Latino, and as Latinos we all share some common cultural threads, we can still be very segregated.

And yet this is so normal that it hardly surprises us. After all, it is perfectly normal to feel more comfortable with people who share the same culture. If I had more Nicaraguans going to my church, I would probably hang out more with them than any other cultural group.

It is normal in our collective cultures, but seeing the scriptures it is clear that it is not normal in the kingdom of God.

I feel God has been putting this issue in my heart in the past months.

What is more important for me, or for us as a church, that we belong to a specific culture or that we belong to Christ?

If our answer is, of course, that we belong to Christ, then are our actions reflecting this?

There is a study by Rice University sociologist Michael Emerson that found that only 8% of U. S. congregations are racially mixed, that is, where no one racial group is more than 80% in a congregation.

It is certainly not easy to step into another culture and learn from it and be acquainted with it. It can be really uncomfortable, but I feel that unless we do this, we are not witnessing the kingdom of God to the world.

Living out the gospel is not a matter of comfort, but of continual denial of oneself, even if that means holding on lightly to our culture if in doing so we are holding on tightly to the culture of the kingdom of God.

Following Christ is not about patriotism or, in some cases, being a model citizen. Many times it is counter-cultural and offensive to our cultures.

The culture of the kingdom seems to be the opposite of our cultures: Give to the poor all that you own; lose your life and you will find; the first will be last and the last first. This is a kingdom where prostitutes and tax collectors are entering before many!

Are these issues in your congregation? How can we participate even more of this kingdom in our churches?

Humility is Truth Part II - A Confession

Click here for part I.

In part I of my humility posts, I used the story of the washing of the feet as a framework to talk about humility.

In part II I want to share about my struggles with humility.

As many of our struggles do, this one started many years ago.

I grew up in a middle class home in Managua, Nicaragua. We lived in a relatively poor neighborhood. I lived in between two worlds, the world of middle class Managua, full of private schools, nannies and maids, and the world of my poor neighborhood,  full of improvised games on the streets,  shared meals and non stop pranks.

Because of my involvement in both of these worlds, I never really felt like I belonged to any of them.

I never was the popular kid. Never was good enough for sports, or the sorts of athletic feats that makes you popular in my country.

I was into classical music, art and technology.

Somehow knowing how to use Photoshop at the age of 12 and knowing the difference between a violin and a viola doesn't really make you the center of attention.

The mocking, the lack of connectedness, created a lot of resentment. I retreated into my hobbits.

One summer vacation I spent most of my time painting scenes of mountains, lakes and forests, creating my own little world, the decider of every fate at every brushstroke.

I may not be the best athlete, I thought, but I bet they don't know how to paint. What do they know about computers anyways?

My pride in my own little hobbits grew. My identity was found in them.

Eventually this pride slowly grew into cultural snobbery.

Yeah, they may mock me, but I'm better than them. I know more about the stuff that "matters". But I wish they knew how much better I am.

Even now as a follower of Jesus, I'm still struggling with this. I know my identity is found in Christ alone, but it is so easy to retreat into these cultural things to find comfort and self esteem.

But a metanoia is starting to occur in my mind, where culture, with all its fancies, style and ultimately, divisions, is starting to lose its taste.

And I believe that's where conversion starts.

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will" Romans 12: 2 NIV.

Culture is important, and has its important place in life. But culture is ultimately of this world, a construct of our hands and minds that in the end is perishable.

It is worth our time and attention, but not our lives.