A Kingdom takes on the character of the king. If he is a cruel king then the kingdom will be dominated by cruelty. If he is a kind king then the kingdom will be dominated by kindness. If he is a generous king then the kingdom will be dominated by generosity. So we can understand by these then that the Kingdom of God will reflect the attributes of our King.
We should note that there has been a lack of training in this understanding and revelation. We have many good people sitting in churches and living out there lives who have no concept that they are citizens of the Kingdom and that being such affects their entire thinking and approach to life. They have been recreated but are living according to the old habits because they do not understand the new habits of God's Kingdom.
I preface this blog entry with this explanation because if I do not then we will miss the significance of Jesus' actions. One of the various reasons Jesus came was to demonstrate the Kingdom. Sometimes we reduce this demonstration to the power that enabled miracles. But Jesus also demonstrated the mentality of the Kingdom, which is revelatory-knowledge of Father's heart.
One of the extraordinary things Jesus did was "see" women. This was a time when the Jews treated women very poorly. There is a whole list of things they did to put women down and treat them worse than cattle. The Pharisees were the worse examples of this culture of prejudice.
How significant is this in understanding the Kingdom? Well, keeping in mind the treatment of women in Jewish culture, consider how many famous stories of Jesus were centered on a woman. Consider his acknowledgement and treatment of the women in his lives. Is it not significant that the recorders of the gospels left these encounters with women in the story of Jesus?
The Samaritan woman at the well was a dramatic encounter that probably is one of the first to come to mind but the one I want to highlight for you today is the woman who broke into Simon's home to wash Jesus' feet with her tears and hair. Simon was a Pharisee. But this woman had been so touched by Jesus that she needed to worship him regardless of the risk. To consider the significance of the moment we need a little background.
Women were not allowed to eat with Jewish men, especially when guests were over. On top of this, Pharisees, real women haters, would never acknowledge a woman, not even so much as a glance. Now realize what this woman of low repute, a prostitute, did. She broke into this Pharisees' home, entered into the dining area and began to touch Jesus. But how could Simon put a stop to this without acknowledging the presence of the woman? He tried to ignore her at the same time condemning Jesus in his thoughts.
There is a lot to this incident but considering all that I have mentioned maybe you can understand the significance of what Jesus said, "Look at this woman Simon".
WE know in reading the Scriptures that Jesus used this woman to teach Simon the proper response to sacrificial love and then he pierced this Pharisees' prejudice, lack of love, that encased this his heart and demanded him to look past his prejudice and see this woman : Simon, look at this woman". Jesus spent every day "seeing" the "unseen".
If you can get past the familiarity of this incident you will be awestruck by the actions of our King. There is no room for not "seeing" in the Kingdom. It is hard to believe that to this day women still have to fight to be seen. Nowhere is this more true than in some parts of the Church which is crazy. Instead of learning from our King and living the character of the Kingdom we have copied the behaviour of the Pharisees. Shame on us.
Now using this as our diving board, we jump into our current history.
The Church should not be in the background of this growing movement of "Black Lives Matter" because we should have been fighting for them to be seen from the beginning. That is our Father's heart, to fight for the "unseen". But it is more than that. If this is the character of the Kingdom, in the body that represents the Kingdom in this world they should never have been unseen. In our King, our Lord Christ Jesus, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. We can add, neither white nor black, settlers nor indigenous because in Jesus we are all one.
Does this mean that some will get special attention over others? You bet. Jesus loved Simon but Simon did not need the attention this woman did. She was "unseen" and needed to be brought into the light. Simon was "seen", privileged, and needed to be humbled. It did not lessen his value in the eyes of Jesus.
Black lives matter. That is rightfully the anthem for today because black lives need the attention right now. We all have the same value to our King, he loves us all very much. But many of us are in a position of strength, privilege, in our society and we need to give over some of this strength, privilege, so a disadvantaged group can rise up to their designed place. After this anthem cry there will be another group and we will need to give our strength to that group but for today it is "black lives matter".
Just a footnote : We should all understand that the vast majority of our world lives in rebellion to God's Kingdom. The only way to truly change a heart and a broken mindset is through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. So, it is good to see these shifts in our society but the underlying problem remains as long as Jesus is rejected as King.
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