Heretics book 3 - The Apocryphile Press

THE KINGDOM :: 99
everyone divided themselves by their ideas of who’s acceptable
and who’s not—”
“That sounds familiar.”
“Yeah, except that he treated everyone the same. He sat
down and ate dinner with rich people and poor people, with
religious people and criminals, with high society ladies and
prostitutes. And he loved every one of them, just like God
does. And that changed people’s lives. The people who had
been socialized to feel like nothings, he made them feel like
something. The ones who felt like people should bow and
scrape at their feet, he treated them as equals and pissed
them off royally. In biblical language, he raised up the valleys
and made the mountains low.”
“Oh...is that what that means?”
“The vision of Jesus is a simple one: to create the
Community of God—or in traditional language, the
Kingdom of God—where everyone is welcome, where none
go hungry or homeless, where no one is lonely or afraid.
Where there are no ‘have-nots,’ only ‘haves.’”
“That’s a pretty rocking vision. But it’s pretty unrealistic.”
“Sure it is, on a global scale. So we do it in pockets. This
house, to the best of our ability, is a little pocket of the
Kingdom of God. If you got enough little pockets, then you
can change the world. That’s what churches—or religious
orders, or anywhere that people of faith try to live as if the
Kingdom were already here—that’s what they are supposed
to be about. Not getting people ‘saved,’ not coercing them to
believe exactly like we do, but embracing people just as they
are and loving each other the way God loves.” She stared at
her teacup for a moment. “So, yeah. We know this world is
a long way from the Kingdom, from the way God wants it
to be. But we believe we are faithful to the vision so long as
we live as if it were already here.”
“That’s kind of beautiful—and eccentrically quixotic!”