What would happen if...

“What would happen if everyone did followed the values of the Kingdom of God? Turn the other cheek. Love your enemies. Forgive always.”

Chaos. Disorder. Violence. Civilization would cave in on itself.

The way of Christ is not realistic.

I just moved to Baltimore a month ago. In this short time, I’ve been intentional about soaking up what this city is about.
Overall, it is not a pretty picture.

I live in a nicer, midtown neighborhood filled with parks and museums, but it is only a few blocks away from the notorious east side known for two very different things: The great medical institution of Johns Hopkins Hospital and the poverty and violence of the projects. The irony is thick. The large and mighty institutions here do not appear to give life. All is not right in the world.

“So what would happen if everyone did that?”

Chaos. Disorder. Violence. Civilization would cave in on itself.

On the contrary, it is all happening anyway. So what are we doing about it?

I’ve also been about churches, looking for signs of the Kingdom of God in a space thick with the darkness of principalities and powers corrupted and turned in on themselves. They are here. They are small. They are growing. Baltimore is a city of local flavor and concern. Those who live here are forced to make a decision on whether to serve the city or ignore it. This decision is set before every church here as well.

“What would happen if everyone did that?

Maybe the police wouldn’t be twittering 2-3 shootings every couple of days. Maybe the homeless congregating outside churches would have a home. Maybe the boarded up row homes would be refurbished for the people who need it, not the institutions who want them. Maybe the youth would be empowered to serve one another instead of rival on the streets. Maybe schools would be provided the resources they need to educate. Maybe our churches would be beacons of light and community instead of ominous steeples of judgment. Where is this Kingdom of God that supposedly transforms suffering into victory against the dominant culture of redemptive “means to an end” violence and control?

But that’s not the question I should be asking. The real question is:

“What would happen if I did that?”

This is a much scarier question.

“The Kingdom of God is within you”

How will I love my God and my neighbor this year?

This is Baltimore. For this season, it is the space I’m called to live out my radical discipleship. It is so much easier to hide away in my apartment with my books. How will I live out the values of the Kingdom? How will I carry my cross?

Lord, I pray for radical passion, vision, and opportunity to be a disciple of your cross and resurrection. I pray for the streets and the skyscrapers, the prisons and offices, the universities and the inner city high schools, the storefront churches and the cathedrals. Work within these institutions. Lord, connect me with the communities of faith that serve and empower their greater community with the values and message of the Gospel. Connect me with the powerful and the weak, the fatherless and the widow, the well resourced and the homeless, the youth and the elderly. Lord, teach me how to engage the world with the spirit of the coming age, not that of the former. Help me to conquer death so that I might live free. I was blind, but now I see. Use me to help others see you and the world as it ought to be. Give us courage to live as you’ve called: bearing crosses and setting captives free.

“What would happen if everyone did that?”

The Kingdom of God would happen.