Living a life of integrity should be a goal for every Christian. Integrity is defined as moral uprightness, a state of being whole and undivided. It means that we will be and act the same regardless of situation or circumstance. That in dark times, when we are faced with the choice between what is easy and what is right, we will choose what is right (HT: Albus Dumbledore). Or if you prefer the words of a real person, it is choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them (Brene Brown).
Too often, however, we want to compartmentalize and divide. Over here is my personal life; over there is my family life; next to it is my work life; and way over there is my spiritual life. We may not consciously think this way but it is often revealed in how we live and the choices we make. Obviously, those are different areas of our lives and our roles in them may differ. But that leads to a temptation to think that the standards are different for each and we can end up in hypocrisy, putting on one face at home, one at church, one at work, and one in the presence of God.
The kingdom of God challenges us on this issue of integrity. We can think that the kingdom and the church are only concerned with “spiritual” matters. However, that carries with it an implicit Gnosticism, a heresy that has been around since the early days of the church and which held that physical reality was irrelevant or even inherently evil and all that mattered was the spirit and the spiritual. That is not biblical. Instead, as Scot McKnight reminds us, but as Christ became incarnate so also the Body of Christ is incarnate: it is a living, breathing, physical reality. A local fellowship is to be sacred space and kingdom space by taking up real space in this world for the kingdom to breathe out redemption.
Having such a view leads to two missteps. First, it can cause us to think the king (Jesus) only rules or has a say over the spiritual parts of our lives. Again, we might never say that explicitly but think about the parts of your life where the Lord is currently bringing conviction for a lack of integrity. Those areas are often not the “spiritual” parts (though he convicts there as well) but areas of integrity in how we conduct our work, how we manage our finances, choices we are making for our family, our attitudes to others who don’t think or look like us. The kingdom of God impacts and influences all of life and Jesus in his call to follow him is demanding that we submit all of our lives to him, not just the spiritual parts.
The second misstep concerns how we relate to others and to the wider community. If we think the kingdom is only spiritual, then we will only view people as projects to be saved and that our only responsibility to them is to share the gospel with them. Again, we certainly have an obligation of love to share the good news of the King with those outside the kingdom. But we also have obligations of love to pursue justice, to demonstrate mercy, to care for the widows and orphans (the mark of true religion according to James). In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats. When it comes down to the difference between the two, it comes down to concrete love and care of others (feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, going to those in prison). These were not the foundation for their being part of the kingdom but evidence of it and the signs were found in their involvement in the nitty gritty of real life.
So, as we conclude this series of posts on the kingdom of God (and we have really only skimmed the surface), the question becomes: How do we become such a community? The church learns that its spiritual disciplines foster this kind of community rather than just personal spiritual formation (McKnight). That is, we need to expand our vision beyond our personal relationship with the king and begin to see the importance of our corporate life together and the practices we embody together. And so I leave you with two questions: Do we want to be the kind of church that lives out all the realities of the kingdom of God, individually and corporately? And what kind of disciplines and practices do we need to embrace and commit ourselves to in order to form and foster such a community?
