Those of us who have faith in God will find that we always live at two planes. We live on an earthy plane with earthly citizenship and we live on an eternal plane with a Godly or Heavenly citizenship. St Augustine wrote of this after the Vandals sacked Rome in The City of God.
We live within a society or culture which aligns itself by somewhat agreed upon principles or even warring principles. For instance Americans live in a democratic culture with the ideal of "One man, one vote." Yet we war over who is included in that "one man." Once it was only white men. Once only males. Always there is an age qualifier. Citizenship is a qualifier and the degree to which you can prove it another.
Other cultures align citizenship by other qualifiers.
I once had a parishioner who could not prove his birth. Long story short he was born either in the South or most likely in Jamaica of an American mother and a Jamaican father. He was brought in infancy to the States, the South, and then migrated to New Jersey where he could get a job on a farm and later a factory to support his widowed mother and younger siblings. He lied about his age to be permitted to work and get a SS number and card. He lost it and years later got a new card with his real age. When in his late sixties he applied for Social security the two conflicting birth dates on SS cards caused him to have to prove his birth. After years he can find no birth certificate for himself or his mother since rural Black births often went unrecorded in the South. The effect of 9/11 is that he cannot receive SS benefits, drive a car or vote any longer. How strange earthly citizenship can become.
The Judeo/Christian faith holds to an additional and primary citizenship. We belong to the Reign of God or as we used to say, the Kingdom of God. It is not the same as the earthly reign and we see that reflected in today's scriptures.
In First Samuel 8 we learn of an early Biblical reflection on this divide. The people have come to Samuel:
Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, "You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations." But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, "Give us a king to govern us." Samuel prayed to the LORD, and the LORD said to Samuel, "Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. First Samuel 8:4-7
The rejection is not perceived as a rejection of Samuel's corrupt sons but in faith that even in this God can lead them. An earthly king is a corruption of the "King of Heaven", God. Loyalty will henceforth be divided. Kings will oppress, tax, demand loyalty that will enslave some. Freedom under God will shift by these loyalties required for earthly citizenship. We will lose our way to God's ideals and voice of governance. Sociologically it must have seemed essential to organize the people of Israel into a kingdom, an earthly nation to protect earthly place and power. The trade off will be mixed loyalty, though in truth it already existed.
Fast forward to Jesus in Luke's Gospel. The disciples are doing the earthly kingdom thing..."which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest." (Luke 22:24)
Jesus responds, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves." Luke 22:25-27
There is articulated here the bare boundaries of this other citizenship. It is to be based on one who serves and serves God. Other defining principles are in Jesus' broader teachings. They are essentially living a morality of care which reaches over divides, calling us to a forgiving compassion displayed in service one to the other. Those included will be many that are looked down on in the earthly plane. What would Jesus do is a modern take on this.
Jesus goes on.
"You are those who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Luke 22:28-30
The portrait is a mirror image of Earthly power corrected in the Heavenly Kingdom. As we act now so will we later find we are in God's reign.
The brilliance of Augustine's work was his ability to see how the two kingdoms are distinct by defining loyalty, love of earth or love of God. Yet he also holds that one can live, rather make pilgrimage in this world guided by Christ's principles and largely be uncorrupted. The art is to seek what God loves in all places, to know this will not be the same as earthbound loves necessarily. You may use earthly resources and power to aid God's reign. One needs to remain clear there will be dividing points measured by one key image: Does this promote God's reign, God's care? Is any given action or feeling acted upon reflective of God's purpose or compassion or forgiveness?
He also allows that earthly comforts are neutrals as long as they aid the advancement of this reign in our lives and that of others.
Thus the challenge daily remains. Earthly life is a gift. Even authority, power, is a gift. How will we use it to reflect God and compassion and care? Will we see where we do not? Will we change as we do? Is the world more holy for our life in it? Are we?
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