Saturday, September 12, 2015

Brokenness in the Kingdom

In our training before we started working here in South Africa, we talked a lot about poverty. Simply put, poverty is not merely a lack of material things, although this is how we commonly view it; rather, poverty is nothing more than brokenness, and it can affect even those of us with the most "wealth" according to our society's standards. When we think of poverty this way, we begin to realize that we are all wealthy in ways we may not realize, but poor in ways we might not have considered. And this should unite us, but it is so often something that separates us. We create The Other. The people we'd rather not love, rather not be around, rather not exist if we're being completely honest. Maybe we think we're better than The Other, superior in some way, or maybe we think they deserve to be where they are or that they are responsible for their own suffering. 

And in doing so, we likely compound their brokenness. And our own.

I struggle with the amount of brokenness I have seen and continue to see in this world. I know there is an "already/not yet" factor at play, so it makes sense for there to be some suffering in the world still, but why so much? Why does brokenness seem to increase every day if the Kingdom is already here in some way? I can understand suffering for our faith, but why is there so much suffering that seems to be just for the sake of suffering? In Matthew 4:17 Jesus declared that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Shouldn't more of that kingdom be present today? 

Luke 17: 21-22 says, "Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, 'The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed,  nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you,'" (ESV). 

 So I got to thinking, what if the Kingdom isn't found only in that which has already been restored, but in brokenness? Les Miserables is one of my favourite books of all times, and in it Hugo writes, "The pupil dilates in night, and at last finds day in it, even as the soul dilates in misfortune, and at last finds God in it."

I think, perhaps, it's possible that I've been thinking about God's Kingdom in the wrong way. 



So as I am confronted by brokenness, whether it be my own, that of my teammates, of the children I teach and the people I serve, in the U.S. or abroad, in The Other or in my friends and family, maybe instead of being frustrated or discouraged by it, I can recognize the presence of the Kingdom, albeit incomplete. And if the Kingdom is found in the midst of brokenness, it changes how I relate to brokenness, in all its forms. It changes everything. 

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