Citizens of God’s Reconciling Kingdom

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Originally Published in the Diocese of West Texas Reflections Magazine


I remember this summer when every week there was news of more killings. I felt overwhelmed, and felt sick and helpless. It also pushed me to remember to pray. Since I could not turn back time and somehow save the senseless killing, the ripping apart of God’s family, I invited people near to me to gather and pray for peace. Then I felt another weight: how are we to pray for peace? I was frozen not by the need for peace and the end of senseless killing, but by another ripping apart of God’s family. The political climate in which we live. There is certainly no peace there. Public discourse rips us apart on a different level. It seems like the ones who we are to turn to for governance are at such opposition, it led Kendrick Lamar to call them “Demo-Crips and Re-Blood-icans” referencing the gang like mentality. Would someone out there be offended if we pray for peace? What does peace mean?  Then I realized, we are not of that world. We are the church. We speak for a different kingdom, a kingdom whose mission is peace and reconciliation. A mission to restore all humanity to God. 


I turned to from there to others who have written about the quest to live the Peace of Christ in the midst of a terrorized world. Stanley Haurerwas wrote during the cold war, regarding his church’s stance to nuclear war, that the reason Christians should promote peace has nothing to do with secular reasoning, nor even the hope of survival. Christians are not about survival; we follow Jesus Christ, who gave up his live in order to save. We are to promote peace because Christ has already saved us. Instead of looking to the world to find an alternative to war and fighting, the church is the alternative. Christians, followers of Christ, are to be the peaceful alternative. (need Hauerwas Reader reference/direct quote) 



The kingdom of God, of which we are citizens by our baptism is about living the peace that Christ has already given us. So, prayers for peace, begin with prayers to live peace from the inside, where we have enthroned the king. There, from within, we might live out our baptismal covenant in the midst of our relationships. To live in the kingdom of God is not to look outside to the world for salvation, it is to live the salvation that we have already been given. We cannot turn to the capitol to find peace, we have to, time and time again, turn to Jesus as the source of peace, the to live in as resident aliens (to borrow from Hauerwas again) wherever we find ourselves in the world. 


I am not advocating removing ourselves from society, as some monastic movements have modeled before us. I’m advocating for the more difficult task of being a reconciling presence wherever we find ourselves. Consider how much Good News you take in as compared to how much bad new, or simply secular news you take listen to, watch, or read. Is it at least balanced? Would you say you spend as much time as prayer, with scripture, and in fellowship with others who seek to live in the kingdom as you do taking in the 24 hour news cycle? 


I’m not even advocating for listening to Christian radio or television; I’m advocating for going to the source, and going to church. Participating, and taking discipleship seriously. Learning the way of Jesus, and finding ways to live his teaching. 


At our prayer service this summer at Trinity by the Sea, we sat and prayed for the peace of Christ to well up within us, and then to help us to see the world as God sees it. Our police chief, members of our bishop’s committee, faithful church goers, and strangers to the faith, for a moment, sat still with God in the kingdom. We sought leadership from the Holy Spirit, not institutional plans from government. We realized, in that moment, that Christ had already won the battle, and has offered us a way of living in his kingdom that might spread peace person to person, relationship to relationship. The kingdom of God is not of this world, but through the church, it might be more realized in this world.


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