The Work of God

THE WORK OF GOD
The truth of God which sets free, and is a way or path we follow into the heart of the Work of God. Traditionally this work has been referred to as the Kingdom of God but some Emerging Church leaders like Brian McLaren suggest we call it something else in order recover the spirit of the phrase as they exist in the gospels. He recommends ‘the Enterprise of God’ or the ‘industry of God’ among others.
I instead prefer to use Work of God, as the Kingdom of God is something we are building in our midst as a present tense reality. It is not a top down kingdom but instead a bottom up revolution – a mustard seed revolution as the Progressive Christian Alliance would say – that seeks to create a world of fairness and equality. Here we return to the mission of Jesus and ask how we continue the work of inclusion of outsiders that Jesus began in his ministry. The work does not END with what Jesus said and did but BEGINS – we must continually discern who the world/church has excluded and then create a space for them.
It is obvious in our history that the world/church (for much of its history these have been on par with each other) has excluded women, gay people and racial minorities. But we should also turn our attention to, let us say terrorists and find a place at the table for them. If we are honest many of these people are from areas abandoned by wealth and priveledge and whos homes have been over run by injustice. Be it the Buddist terrorists of Japan, Irish Catholic terroists or Muslim terroists in too many cases what has resulted has happened at our failure to include the voices of the lost, oppressed and deprived in our conversations.
When Jesus performs the Lords Prayer – that prayer for God’s Kindom Come, not as an other worldly power but as a present tense reality – he prays for two things of import: bread and the forgiveness of debt. The cycle of oppression is easily broken when we feed the poor – or ensure that all peole have the means to have, aquire and grow food and when we ensure that all people have the ability to escape their debt through work, through gainful contribution to society and through the removing of unjust debt desighned to keep the poor out of society as full contributors.