Flourishing in the Marketplace (Mostly)
My wife Gail leaned over the lunch table and said, “Please get the fertilizer out. Our flowers are just surviving and they need to flourish.” I thought, that’s it. That is what the kingdom of God is about—not flowers, of course, but people and people’s work. Flourishing is exactly what the kingdom of God brings about—life in fullness in contrast to just surviving. The text for this is Isaiah 61:1-7 which Jesus quoted in a one sentence sermon in his home synagogue at the beginning of his earthly ministry (Luke 4:16-30). Having had the passage read he said, in effect, “This is what I came to do. I came that they may have life and have it to the full” (or abundantly, John 10:10).
A New Way of Being Human
The kingdom of God, here now, and yet coming fully, is all about this new way of being human in the world and that way will last forever. It is not merely getting your soul saved so you can go to heaven. In Luke’s gospel Jesus’s return to his home town and home synagogue is right after the temptation narratives, so it is very early in his ministry. After Isaiah 61 was read Jesus simply said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). People were in awe.
The passage points to God’s special messenger, God’s Messiah or Anointed One, who would bring salvation and renewal. The passage also suggests that the wonderful prophecy in Leviticus 25 about the year of Jubilee would come, when slaves would be set free, land would be restored to the original owners, and people would flourish. This Jubilee year has really come—embodied in the life and work of a home-town boy from Nazareth.
The Kingdom of God Brings 7 Ways of Flourishing
Why is this important? The integrating theme of the Bible is the kingdom of God. So at the beginning of his ministry Jesus is announcing what the kingdom brings: life to the full—at least partly now and at the end of history when Christ returns, maximum human life. It has many aspects:
Economic flourishing: “to proclaim good news to the poor.”
Personal flourishing: “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners.”
Emotional flourishing: “He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted” (Isa 61:1).
Physical flourishing: “to proclaim recovery of sight to the blind.”
Spiritual flourishing: “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
Ministerial flourishing: “You will be called priests of the Lord” (Isa 61:6); and
Workplace flourishing: “They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated.” Isa 61:4).
Work as Redemptive and as Worship
The Institute for Marketplace Transformation is about work, workers and the workplace. We will flourish in the kingdom of God in all three, at least in part. That means that work will be redemptive—restoring things that have been broken or debased, and work will be worshipful. This is totally in line with Romans 12:1-2 where we are exhorted, in view of God’s mercy, to present our whole bodily life to God as a spiritual worship, including our work. So reconnecting faith and work, now a global movement, must include seeing our work as worship. This is prophesied by Isaiah in which the flourishing people are clothed in “a garment of praise.”
The Joy of Human Flourishing
Human flourishing—surely one of the most wonderful aspects of the coming of the kingdom, partly now and eventually completely. If this is not good news, then I cannot imagine anything better! No wonder the dominant mood of the passage in Isaiah 61 is joy, twice mentioned. Those who mourn (for the present situation) will receive “the oil of joy” and “everlasting joy will be yours” (Isa 61: 3,7).
Joy is a divine infusion of exhilaration, the touch of God and the most distinctive experience of people in the kingdom of God. Canon Stanley Evans once described the Christian as a “controlled drunk purposively intoxicated with the joy of the life which is perpetually created by God himself.”
Prayer
Gracious God, thank you that you do not want us merely to survive but to flourish. You came in Jesus that we may have life and life to the full.
Lord, some of us need your touch, we hear you knocking at the door of our lives, your voice… and we open the door. Please come in and have fellowship with us. Some of us feel we are half saved, half healed, half restored, half renewed… If it is your pleasure, please continue that wonderful and gracious work of renewal in us.
Thank you for giving us your favour, that we are accepted by you, because of your death and resurrection, and we are blessed by you. Thank you that you have called us to be priests, even if we are wounded healers and not as whole as we would like or will be when you come again. Amen.
