Lost theology
Confession: I am addicted to Lost-the T.V. show. This evening I imagined myself as Kate en-caged by the others (yes I am in season 3), and someone comes and lets me out. But I don’t trust that person. So when that person is off guard I knock him out and run through the jungle going my own way. That weird black monster cloud thing comes and just before it moves through me, my rescuer whom I have treated like a captor stands turns the energy field on and the cloud turns away. I am back with my rescuer and am safe. After a few days, I get suspicious again, why is he so interested in helping me? There must be some other motivation. I am better off on my own. So I run away again.
“Repent and believe the good news!” What does that mean? We have Christianized those words beyond comprehensibility. We seem to think “repent” means admit that you are a sinner. “Believe” means wish something so hard that it comes true. And “good news” means “gospel” which means that Jesus died on the cross so that we sinners can go to heaven.
But we leave out the beginning Jesus’ main message “The time has come, the kingdom of God has come near.” The good news is that the kingdom has come near. On Saturday evenings my family gathers with the family who lives downstairs from us and is in fact our landlords for a time of worship and prayer. This evening my Dad read Mark 1:14-15 and he told us the contextual meaning of these words. His teacher these days is N.T. Wright. Wright talks about a story which Josephus (a first century Jewish historian) tells about being sent to put down a rebellion. When he reaches the rebels he tells them to repent and believe in him. Only those rebels didn’t hear the religious mumble-jumble we hear, rather they understood him to be saying stop trying to make your own way out, trust in me and my way.
This is just what the Kingdom of God is–the rule and reign of God. The ‘place’ where his will is done. So again I have to ask myself what that means to me. I know I’m that feisty girl that just keeps running away– who thinks she knows a better way. But I have set my whole life around entrusting my life to God, I say I believe in Jesus. Do I? Do I trust Jesus or do I think that I have a better way?
