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Thinking About the
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The meaning of God's Kingdom is incredibly simple. It is the coming of God's "domination-free" order. Jesus' message has traditionally been treated as a timeless, eternal, contextless teaching proclaimed in a socio-political vacuum. However, his teaching and deeds are actually directed at a specific context, a social system which is based upon or perpetuates the domination of people or groups by other people or groups. Jesus does not condemn ambition or aspiration, he merely changes the values to which they are attached. "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." He does not reject power, but only it's use to dominate others. He does not reject greatness, but finds it in identification and solidarity with the needy at the bottom of society. (Matthew 5:3-12) He does not renounce heroism, but expresses it by repudiating the powers of death and confronting, unarmed, the entrenched might of the authorities. These are the ideas and deeds not of a minor reformer but of an egalitarian prophet who denounces the very premises on which domination is based: the right of some to lord it over others by means of power, wealth, shaming, or titles. In his beatitudes, his healings, his table fellowship with outcasts and sinners, Jesus declares God's special concern for the oppressed. Jesus' actions embody his words. According to John's Gospel, Jesus washes the disciples' feet, a task considered so degrading that a master could not order a Jewish slave to perform it. In parable after parable, Jesus speaks of the reign of God using images drawn from farming and women's work. It is not described as coming from on high down to earth. It rises quietly and imperceptibly out of the land. It is established not by aristocrats and military might, but by a subtle process of growth from below. Jesus is not looking for a kingdom for himself or anyone else, where power can be wielded in order to impose Gods will on the world. He is inaugurating a domination-free society. Walter Wink
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