Your emotional reaction to the title for today’s blog is already an indicator of your readiness for curiosity. It’s not a direct statement from Scripture, but I want to raise the question of the kingdom anticipated in the Bible for Jesus’ reign.
Isaiah 11:1ff puts us in mind of what God’s intentions were (and are): I ask you to read verses 1-9 to make sense of today’s blog.
Did you notice? Jesus was “the shoot from the stump of Jesse.” If you’re an apprentice of Jesus, this is the mandate to which we bow: “His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.” Not to be afraid of the Lord, but to honor, respect, follow, and obey the Lord. This oracle forecasts a new king coming out of the line of Jesse, not out of any political party, but from a long past of faithfulness to Yahweh. What is the nature of this new kingdom?
- Infused with God’s spirit
- Practicing justice and righteousness (i.e., morally and spiritually right in accordance with God’s standards). In fact, Jesus turns up the heat on this way of living by saying to his followers, in essence, your righteousness must be excessive, not timid (exceeding the righteousness of religious people who are known to believe in their own righteousness).
- Deciding with equity (fair play, even playing field) for the meek of the earth.
The fiercely unexpected example is for enemy animals to live at peace with one another: wolves and lambs? Calves and lions? Cows and bears? In what universe can that be the case? In the already here and yet-to-be-completed kingdom of God. “Get used to different,” they said in The Chosen. In Jesus’ realm and rule, where a little child shall become the leader, not in belligerence, vitriol, and violence, but in safety, where a nursing infant is safe to play over the hole of the asp and a toddler able to put its hand on the adder’s den?
When Allegiance Shifts
I saw an eagle the other morning. That’s not unusual in my world, but this one was trying to get liftoff and struggling because it carried in its talons the headless corpse of a seagull from an earlier hunt. “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” said Tennyson.[1] The same can be said of me when my allegiance is to any king other than Jesus. The same can be said of any of us who judge what we see or decide by what we hear: “They,” whomever we label as enemy, prey, target, adversary, rival, antagonist, foe. What changes when we define another person as an enemy? We stop seeing and no longer listen to the enemy that is “the other.” So, we choose a king and a kingdom antithetical to both “the fear of the Lord” and the “shoot that shall come out from the stump of Jesse,” whose name is Jesus.
Deny it if you must, call him weak if you dare, turn from his ways to an utter and shameless denial of the image of God in those you define as enemies. But in words and ways, Jesus said “no” to a devil’s bargain of revenge, retribution, and hatred.
This Jesus who spoke words of peace to a hometown audience who turned to rage when they heard him say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[2]
This Jesus who said, “the last shall be first (i.e., the least in our culture), and the first (the strong, the winners, those with assets to spend) will be last.”
This Jesus who told us those who are already blessed: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for riotousness sake, who are also reviled and persecuted because they speak of Jesus on behalf of those who cannot.[3] These are not ethical qualities to which we are to aspire; they are characteristics of us when we are aligned with Jesus. And when we are not?
Blessed Are the Aligned
We are greatly divided as a people—in our politics, families, and churches. We have different agendas and dreams, different hopes and goals for our nation. It is thus and always will be. That is our human nature, our culturally determined way of seeing others. If you aren’t with us, you must be against us. If my agenda is other than yours, you must be an enemy.
But again, if you follow that path, you will deny this Jesus who sounds like Isaiah once again: “…I say [4]to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”
This Jesus, was he…
- A prophet with a countercultural kingdom?
- A peacemaker with a countercultural agenda?
- A partisan seeking violence, harm, and death to anyone?
Prophet, Peacemaker, or Partisan?
We each will make our decision. But the outcomes are freighted with consequence. I prefer open-ended questions to binary ones because I like answers that give me a way off the hook. Joshua stood before his people without compromise to say: “Choose you this day whom you will serve.”
It seems there is no way off this hook.
A Simple Practice
This week, take a few quiet minutes—alone or with someone you trust.
- Notice where you feel reactive toward another person or group.
- Ask gently: What’s really going on in me right now?
- Pray simply: Jesus, teach me how you would live this part of my life if you were me.
If you’re meeting with others, share one small insight and listen without fixing. This is mentoring work—making space for honesty and learning, together, the peacemaking way of Jesus.
_______________________
Keith Anderson, D.Min., is a Faculty Associate for Spirituality and Vocation at VantagePoint3 and President Emeritus of Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. He is the author of several books, including his most recent: On Holy Ground: Your Story of Identity, Belonging and Sacred Purpose (Wipf & Stock, 2024). His other works include Reading Your Life’s Story (IVP, 2016), A Spirituality of Listening (IVP, 2016), and Spiritual Mentoring (IVP, 1999). In his writing, teaching, and mentoring, Keith seeks to set a table for people looking to enter the “amazing inner sanctuary of the soul” in the most ordinary and extraordinary moments of life.
[1] Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H.
[2] Luke 2:18-19
[3] Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:1ff
[4] Matt 5;44-45.