Across the Pastor’s Desk: Thinking of kingdoms as cultures
Published 7:29 pm Thursday, March 15, 2018
Across the Pastor’s Desk by Kenneth Jensen
Jesus said, “Those who love their life will lose it and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also” (John 12:25-26 NRSV).
Kenneth Jensen
The word “life” in the original Greek of the New Testament is “psyche.” One’s psyche is that vital life force, that very inner core of our being, that motivates and sustains us on our daily journey. It shapes who we are and the direction of our journey. We assume this life force is ours to do with as we please.
Andrew Prior is a pastor in Australia. In reflecting on the biblical image “kingdom of God,” he noted that in our democratic societies we no longer think in terms of kingdoms. It might serve us better to think in terms of cultures.
Just as there are human kingdoms, there is also the kingdom of God. Just as there are human cultures, there is also the culture of God.
Human culture emphasizes self-interests. It values such things as influence, wealth, prestige and power. In God’s culture the emphasis is on compassion. We are, in a sense, “our brother and sister’s keeper.”
To follow Christ is to walk in his shoes. And wherever he walked, he showered compassion on the sick, the handicapped, the grieving, the poor, the alien and those whom others looked down upon as misfits or embers of the underclass.
We are midway through the season of Lent. It is a tie when many Christians practice self-denial. But self-denial is more than giving up chocolate for 40 days. Self-denial reminds us that we are made for more than what we can buy or sell.
Lent reminds us that we were created to enjoy, not merely more stuff, but the abundant life that is found in Christ. To possess abundant life is to learn to live without, or to refrain or to sacrifice so that others may have more. In God’s culture, we share both the joys and suffering of those around us as we become knit together in spirit.
Lent challenges us to leave behind the human culture of self-indulgence and to embrace God’s culture of compassion.
Kenneth Jensen is a retired ELCA pastor living in Albert Lea.
