The Now and Not-Yet
Which is more important...the now, or the not-yet?
The bias in the question reflects a human desire to have it one way or another. Logic tells us that A cannot be equivalent to not-A. Jesus says we cannot have two masters. We can't be in two places at once. Our country is polarized, everyone says, living in states that are red or blue.
But polarization (popular word these days), as in "either/or," is complemented by the nature of paradox, which is when truth lies in a "both/and" equation. I often think of the stringed musical instrument - piano, guitar, violin - that depends on tension for it's music. The taut string is a simple, but profound image, a pleasing one, I think, until we realize we are the string being stretched. And more often than not, we can't stand it, and we let go of one post or the other, declaring allegiance to this idea rather than that. Using the analogy of the string as guide, that means we break.
No more music.
In the question I raise above, the relative importance of the now and the not-yet, what I'm referring to is the ongoing life of the Kingdom of God. The "now and the not-yet" is a popular and effective way of expressing the tension between the Kingdom's current life here on earth and the forever life of the not-yet.
Another way to ask the question is this: which has primary focus?
Jesus said that in the kingdom, things are not as they seem, life is topsy-turvy. Small contributions are huge. What mankind values may be trash in the eyes of God. The poor can be rich, the rich most often poor. Our treasure is in heaven. Live as the virgins who had their oil lamps trimmed and ready. Live with the master's imminent return in the front of our minds. He told the rich young ruler, who had done very well in the now, that if he wanted the not-yet, he needed to sell all his wealth, and give it to the poor.
Couldn't that be construed as saying, "If you want the not-yet, you'll have to give up the now?" Sounds a lot like "If you want to live, you have to die."
Because of these and many other passages, church leaders often say things like, "This life is just a dress rehearsal for the next one."
For me, this is a hard saying, and one I frankly don't buy. Going back to our musical analogy, we just broke the string.
No more music.
My rejection of the "just a dress rehearsal" statement is not built on any notion that now is more important that the not-yet. Scripture is full of references to what I experience as plain fact - our lives here are but a mist, we are blades of grass withering in a single day of sun, and tomorrow we will be gone. The not-yet is forever. Seems like a simple call that Jesus got exactly right, and we ignore the supremacy of forever to our peril.
But here's the problem: I'm stuck with today. I stand on earth, fixed in cultural context, as a human being. The earth goes on, The Great Commission of Matthew 28 pronounced in the context of the ongoing commission of Genesis 3, which theologians refer to as The Cultural Mandate. There is tilling and keeping still to do, ruling and subjecting, and the filling of all the earth, to the glory of God.
To get at this more clearly, let's assume the question that asks which is more important, the now or the not-yet, is a question wrongly framed. It is not the importance of one or the other we are concerned with, connected as they are in one continuum of reality: it is the relationship of the two that concerns: how are the actions of human beings in the now connected to the forever reality of the not-yet?
More to come.
7:26:40 AM
