Vol 1:31 Walking in the Rhythms of the Kingdom

We become aware that in being God’s missional people participating in what God in doing in the world that we are called and sent to live out our lives as a contrast society – revealing a different reality, a different way of being human, one that is informed by being a follower and disciple of Jesus Christ. But how do we become such a society? Where are the maps, the directions, the steps to guide our steps? How are we to walk according to the rhythm of the kingdom of God?

Though many present-day sermons try to give detailed steps or directions about the way we are to live in contrast to the ways of the world, I have discovered that sermons are not the best way for shaping the way we walk and live as the people of God.

Rather, we are shaped by the stories to which we give attention. We become what we read, we become what we hear, we are shaped by stories. I am aware from numerous settings in which I find myself that quite a few of us approach the Bible as if it were unable to shape us – at least positively. We have predetermined notions that it is a book of principles and rules, do’s and don’t’s, moralisms that are outdated. Yet, if these same people would take a closer look, they would see that is very little of this, rather it as a book filled with stories – stories which can grab hold of our imaginations and lives and have the ability to transform us.

Roxburgh and Boren express that, “the gospel invites us to enter an alternative story shaped by the mystery, memory, and mission of God. Theologian Barry Harvey offers a way of seeing the Bible as God’s ‘travel narrative’: ‘The Bible provides nothing like a map that charts the precise path for us to follow into the future. What it does give us is the travel itinerary of God’s people, that is, the story of their pilgrimage as strangers and foreigners through this world toward the kingdom of God. . . . An itinerary, by contrast, consists of a series of performative descriptions designed to organize our movements through space: “to get to the shrine you go past the old fort and then turn right at the fork in the road’” (p. 105).

Further, Roxburgh and Boren state that we “can’t really understand a travel itinerary without actually getting out and walking the path, whereas a map can be comprehended without ever going anywhere” (p. 105). What that means is that we can only become a contrast society, walking in the rhythm of the kingdom, as we start journeying, as we live our lives by the rhythms of the biblical stories, as we engage the story of the Gospel with the story of our unfolding lives.

Living biblically is not so much living by the rules of the Bible, but being open to the stories of the Bible to shape our living, inform our stories, so that the rhythm of our lives imitates the rhythm of Scripture.

Walter Brueggemann describes the Psalms as an ongoing rhythm of being oriented, disoriented, and reoriented (cf. Spirituality of the Psalms). As we engage the story of the Gospel we are oriented to the rhythms of God, and when we, as we do, digress from these rhythms by living for ourselves, being uncompassionate to our neighbors, we experience disorientation – no longer in step with the rhythms of God, and so we are called to refocus, repent, reframe our lives in order to be reoriented to the rhythm of God’s reign once again in our lives.

Living in this way, we walk with a different cadence in society; we become a contrast society. It is living being mindful of God’s Story and Vision found in the biblical narrative, being shaped by its stories, its rhythms. When we see the Bible as something we only refer to on Sundays, we will never discover the rhythms and stories that are meant to shape our lives – the Bible will only remain a book filled with religious information, rather than becoming an itinerary to guide our journeying.

As the Bible, its stories, its people, the Gospel of Jesus, the letters of Paul, etc., begin to find their way into our imaginations, then we will find ourselves walking and living in the rhythms of God’s reign, and in so doing, we are sign, foretaste, and instrument of God’s passion for the wholeness of all humanity and creation.