History is God’s Story. It’s a beautiful story of God loving people and people rebelling against God. It’s also a story of God calling humanity back to himself. God sent Jesus to teach us His will for us. Jesus called this teaching the Kingdom of God. Life in God’s Kingdom is life where God reigns as King.
The Jews of Jesus’ day were anxiously awaiting the Kingdom of God. They were living under the oppression of the Roman Empire. They were waiting for God to send a deliverer, a Messiah that would overthrow their Roman oppressors and restore them back as God’s Kingdom on Earth. What they didn’t realize is that God was up to something new. He would be bringing a new kingdom to earth. This Kingdom would be open to everyone, regardless of their nationality, class or gender. It would be open to Jews and non-Jews alike. It was a kingdom that was not confined to a nation, it was open to the whole world.
As Jesus taught about God’s kingdom people listened eagerly, but they all had their own pre-conceived notions as to what the Kingdom was and how it would come. It’s important to understand the viewpoints (or framing stories) that the people of Jesus’ day held. Trying to read and understand Jesus without understanding the world that He lived in would be like trying to understand the Gettysburg Address with no knowledge of the Civil War. It wouldn’t make sense and we wouldn’t really understand it’s meaning.
The framing stories that people lived in then (and also now) can be understood as follows:
Everyone is looking for peace and security but they have different ways of going about it.
1. The Domination Story. The only way for peace and security to come is for us to be in control. The Roman Empire operated under the Domination Story. They believed that they were bringing Pax Romana, or the Peace of Rome. This peace worked well for those in charge but was not so great for others.
2. The Revolution/Revenge Story. We do not like being dominated. Peace and security will only come when we depose our occupiers. We must get revenge on them for what they have done to us. Many people in Jesus day were part of this story. They were called Zealots. They believed that God’s Kingdom would come if the people would only rise up and revolt. Around AD 70 they lead a revolt against Rome and were crushed, Jerusalem was destroyed and the nation of Israel ceased to exist for nearly 1900 years.
3. The Purification Story. The Pharisees propagated this story. They believed that the real problem was the sinners in Israel. If everyone would just become holier then God would rescue them. They like to “scapegoat” certain people groups and blame them for all of societies ills.
4. The Victimization Story. These people get their identity by being victims. The Galilean farming peasants that Jesus taught were part of this group. They were very much into getting sympathy for the ways that their rights were being trampled on by their Roman Oppressors and Jewish neighbors who financially exploited them. (Victims are real and people do get exploited, but it becomes a problem when the way that you relate to the world is always seeing yourself as a victim.)
5. The Isolation Story. In Jesus’ days there were a group of Jews called the Essenes who withdrew from society and formed their own community in the desert. They were waiting for God to come and destroy their oppressors and rescue them.
6. The Accumulation Story. The Herodians were a good example of this. They knew they couldn’t beat the system, so they would just work the system. They decided to acquire as much as they could and basically looked out for themselves. They would not make and “waves” and encouraged people to not resist Rome.
Now when you begin to really understand these viewpoints and the people that held them, a lot of Jesus’ teachings take on new meanings. Jesus was not advocating any of these stories. He was teaching them a new way to live and relate to each other and the world as a whole. He taught them of God in a new way and taught them how God wanted them to live. In Jesus’ story, God is the hero and His will and love are supreme. Jesus was not so much advocating or denouncing these groups as much as He was teaching ANOTHER option. Sometimes he would sound similar to them sometimes opposing them. Sometimes he would make one group angry, sometimes ALL of them would be angry at Him. (He had the ability to make common enemies agree on one thing: disliking Him!) He was adamant that the kingdom of God was not found in theses viewpoints nor would it come by their means. If Jesus rejected these means then we must identify them as false avenues to peace and security. They are lies from the Kingdom of Darkness, the opposite of the Kingdom of Light. Notice this interaction between Jesus and some Pharisees.
Luke 17:20-21 (NIV)
Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, [21] nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”
Jesus is pointing out that if it is an observable method, a way that you think it will come, it will not come that way. The kingdom begins within you.
HT: New Life Church
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