Thin places in the Kingdom...

At this moment I’m suddenly encouraged by thoughts of the kingdom.

That may seem like a weird statement (when I read it I think it is) but I’ve come to find that in my life I have these bizarre moments where my heart feels warm and I realize that I’m in one of those “thin places” where the kingdom of God is so near that I feel as if I could just reach through and step into it.

Maybe I’ve had too many cups of coffee, maybe it’s just a combination music, reading blogs, looking at pictures, and thinking about my own emotional state that just create this moment. I honestly don’t know. I do believe, however, that God is near. He is so very near, at every moment, and that there are just some moments that He knows we need Him to touch our hearts. It’s like when a significant other spontaneously says that thing you love to hear or just gently touches you at the right moment and you feel the love that you crave when you weren’t even expecting it. We’ve done nothing in that moment to deserve/ask for this love, but they freely give it because of their mysterious love for us (mysterious because I sometimes wonder why anyone would ever or could ever love me).

I’ve actually been experiencing love in a new way this week. I dove off a cliff (metaphorically speaking) into a new realm of community, laying bare my heart in scary, embarrassing, intimate ways. I sometimes still feel strange when I look around at people who now know my heart more than some ever will and feel extremely vulnerable. There are people who now have the knowledge and power to hurt me at the very core of who I am. They can throw salt into and rip open a wound that has been healing for years (and isn’t quite healed yet.

Their response, love.

They have loved me and continue to see me through this time. When you live in that tension of being able to be hurt by anyone by no one does it community reaches a whole new dimension. The question was asked, and is still being asked, what if this is what community always looked like?

I believe that this is what the kingdom looks like, a place where we experience it not just in serving and intentional times of seeking, but in the random (or not so random) moments when we feel unloved and abandoned, moments where we least expect to feel the touch of God. It’s in those moments, too, that the kingdom is near.

God's Economy

So I'm going to play a little word association game with you. I'm going to say a phrase, and then I want you to remember the first thing that comes to mind. Ok? Here we go...


Fair Trade...


So what did you think of? That's right, coffee. Now I'm all about the fair trade coffee and we have a pretty rad supplier of strictly African fair trade goodness, but why does fair trade have to apply directly to coffee? What can't it be a much bigger idea than that?

I am writing this because I just started downloading Derek Webb's cd the Ringing Bell for free. And not the good old fashion pirate way, but a legitimate site from some artists who had an interesting idea; fair trade music. What if we let you pick the price of the cd? Or better yet, if you just spread the word about it we'll let you download it for free, because we want a different type of connection with our fans. There are several artists on this site and you can go there (http://www.noisetrade.com) and read more about what they're doing. Especially for musicians, the idea of allowing their music to be downloaded for free instead of for a fee is a counter cultural idea.

Now this got me to thinking about the idea of trading goods for goods and what it would look like if people stopped caring so much about cold, hard cash and started sharing what they had without cost to those who needed it. What could happen if we stopped relying on the all mighty dollar (Rand, Euro, Pound, or wherever your form of currency) and started helping those in need, and in turn they would help you in your need? This isn't a new concept, it's the early church in Acts. Now most of us who have been on this journey for some time know this story. We read it, say "What a nice thought" and go back to life as normal, maybe throwing a little extra cash in the basket this week at church and feel good about ourselves. I'm the guiltiest of all in this, because even though I have that nice afterthought that everything I have belongs to God, the way my life plays out doesn't show it. What I have is mine. I've worked for it (or in my current case I did the leg work to raise it) and I should determine where it goes and what it does, and I hold onto it with a not-so-loose grip. That is not the economy of God's kingdom. When will I truly follow Jesus's teaching on money? It's not at all about 10% of my wealth, but it's about everything I have. It's about my money, food, clothes, car, home, friends, trade/vocation, it's about everything I have to offer this world. What if my 10% is actually cheating God?

So, what would the implications be if we all started sharing? And I mean really sharing without interest, without a sense of personal justice, without holding it over someones head when they have taken more than they have given. Could it then be possible that we could then know no one who had need? What if the church, God's people, are the avenue through which God wants His people to not worry about tomorrow? Jesus speaks about the birds of the air and the flowers in the fields, and how he cares for them regardless of what they do for the kingdom. Could we care for people without considering what they can do for us, what they have to offer us? I know that's a stretch for me, but it seems that in God's economy this is the very point he is trying to make, that the last are first.

When I drink a cup of fair trade coffee, what does that mean? It means that someone who was once making next to nothing for their work is now being paid a fair wage for their labor and in some cases are also better educated in how to do their job (ie, better farming techniques). In one case that I was a actually able to hear from the source, a woman who could only send one child to school can now send both due to the fact that she was being paid a fair wage and was also taught better ways to farm her crops. Though it's small, I think thats a picture of the kingdom on earth.