There is a New World Coming: The Real Good News
Getting off an airplane one day I noticed the very engaging advertisements in the jetway placed there by a global bank expressing where they saw things were heading in the world—all under the title, “There is a new world coming.” That’s it, I thought. That’s the central message of Jesus. It is the heart of the good news which, according to Jesus is this: the kingdom of God has come and is coming.
His first message was “Repent for the kingdom of God is within your grasp” (Matt. 4:17). By my calculation Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God 129 times and 3 about the church in the gospel accounts. It is the master thought of Jesus, the key to grasping what Christianity is all about, and the hope we have for our own daily work in this struggling and pandemic-laced world.
We begin to experience this new world coming right now but the full renewal of everything will be completed when the end has come and when Christ comes a second time (Matt. 19:28; Rev. 21:5). The Christian gospel is not just getting our souls saved and gaining a ticket to heaven. Yes, that is part of it. But the whole gospel is the whole: deep integration and deep renewal including our work, human enterprises, workers and workplaces.
Why Talk About Work, Especially Today?
Is this a good time to be talking about work, about human exchange when people are hiding behind masks, many are facing unemployment and the economy is faltering, indeed some would say devastated? Yes, the best time ever. And here is why. We need to know why we work whether that work is remunerated or unremunerated. We need more than ever to be inspired to find new ways of loving our neighbor as ourselves through providing goods and services. Especially in times of massive social disruption what is needed is innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship. This may be especially true in the continuing and post-COVID gig economy as well as in large enterprises.
Human beings will continue to need to be served by human beings, possibly more extremely as robots and AI replace so many contemporary service functions. Formal and informal neighbouring, friendship and counselling will become critically important. And this innovation of new work is something which the Christian way is uniquely capable of inspiring.
The Christian faith inspires creativity and design. This is based on a great promise of God (leading to human flourishing), based on the revelation that the will of God is not merely a divine fiat but is an empowering purpose inspiring initiative, and, finally, based on the fact that humankind, in the light of God’s grace, is encouraged to embrace risk. [i]
Surveying the social achievements of the Christian church a Canadian pastor, decades ago, noted that we have done our best work in history not as an ambulance for the victimized, though that is needed. We have done that well, and are doing it today; [ii] but our best work was done as pioneers. [iii]
But the best reason to take up the theme of the marketplace and kingdom of God is hope. If God is salting his renewal into this age; if God is folding yeast into the dough of our everyday work and life, then we can have hope. There is more and better to come.
Where Is the Kingdom Now?
So where is the kingdom of God in the midst of a pandemic? Right here, and yet still coming. Living with the tension of "here and not yet here “and” now but also coming" is indispensable to healthy faith. The kingdom is in people, situations, workplaces and even nations, but usually hidden. Nevertheless the kingdom is bringing human flourishing, renewal and hope.
So in the middle of a pandemic we can actually work in the kingdom, even in our homes, whether it not we are remunerated. We can be a sign, servant and sacrament of the kingdom even as we deal with the effects of the pandemic. And not just “even as” we deal with a pandemic but “in the way” we deal with the pandemic. And we can find ways of loving our neighbour as ourselves even while keeping a safe distance from them.
References:
[i] This is implicit in the Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-30) and the Parable of the Minas (Luke 19:11-27) and magnificently explained in Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 1996/8).
[ii] The Asian Theological School in Manila organized staff, faculty and students to take essentials (food, masks, soap and disinfectants)to people in the local prisons where these essentials were missing.
[iii] Edmund H. Oliver, The Social Achievements of the Christian Church(Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 1930/2004), 176.
