Pearls, Pigs, and Politics!

I don’t believe we have ever appreciated what Jesus meant when he told us to pray for God’s kingdom to come to earth. 

The actual wording from the King James Version is: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”

I believe we also miss his point when he told those who were trying to trap him over whether or not to pay taxes: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 

In the first quote we too often have allowed Platonic philosophy to obscure the real meaning of heaven for us. In the second quote we  have misunderstood Jesus to be saying that our allegiance to God and country is a 50-50 deal.

Both of these misunderstandings have caused considerable confusion among Christians concerning our relationship with both heavenly and earthly realities. So allow me to clear the air and offer a more Biblical explanation of these two sayings of Jesus and then apply them to our context today.

First, regarding heaven. Most Christians have an image of heaven that does not originate with Jesus but rather with the Greek Philosophers Plato and Plutarch (a younger contemporary of St. Paul). Both of these brilliant men envisioned heaven as a far off celestial place inhabited by disembodied spirits (sound familiar?).

Most Christians today believe this version of heaven is both orthodox and Biblical. The problem is that it is not the image of heaven we find in the New Testament in general nor in the teachings of Jesus in particular. 

Heaven, according to Jesus, is the new world created for those resurrected to a new life in Jesus Christ. John the author of Revelation envisioned a “new heaven and a new earth” descending together to become the new reality for all God’s children (Revelation 21:1-4). Put another way: Heaven comes to us and not the other way around. 

Jesus didn’t come so we could escape this world in order go to heaven as a disembodied spirit, but rather that we might become eternal resurrected residents in God’s kingdom living in a redeemed world recreated for resurrected people. 

How we have missed this is startling given the clear teachings of the New Testament. It would absolutely horrify Christians to know that their image of  heaven as a place for disembodied spirits is more pagan than it is Biblical.

Second, regarding Jesus’ teachings on paying taxes. It is often assumed that Jesus was teaching a 50-50 loyalty to both God and Empire (half to God half to Caesar). Nothing could be farther from the truth. Jesus was very clear in teaching Christians to give to Caesar the things that are his and to God give all of ourselves. God wants all of us, not 50% of what we have to offer him.

Caesar (Empire, the USA, or any other government today) does not have exclusive ownership over any of God’s children. We simply don’t belong to Caesar (a fitting metaphor for government) but rather we belong to another whose kingdom is not of this world but of God. 

So where am I going with all this?

I believe once we get our understanding of these two sayings of Jesus straight we can then see more clearly our role in the current political mess we find ourselves today. America is not the kingdom of God but rather the kingdom of Caesar (metaphorically speaking) and we should be extremely cautious when jumping in bed with any human political system.

As Christians you and I have a much larger agenda to promote, a grander vision to spread, and a heavenly kingdom worthy of our full support. 

It has not been fully revealed, God’s kingdom, but enough of it has to inform us that we belong to a governing realm that originates with God and not Washington. Thank the good Lord for this truth.

If this 2016 election has taught us anything it should have revealed to us just how broken and debased human politics is and can be. 

Jesus’ warning seems apropos for the times: “Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.”

God’s kingdom is not America; God desires all of us and not some reduced percentage of ourselves; and more importantly, mixing politics with the Gospel is akin to casting the sacred before dogs and throwing pearls at the feet of pigs.