How do we live in faith now?

This post is another one of Fr. Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations. In this one he talks about living with faith, with trust and surrender, in the kingdom of God being something we’re beginning to experience now, not sometime in the distant future.

How do we live in faith now?

More than any other theme, Jesus taught the presence and availability of the Reign or “Kingdom” of God. All scholars seem to agree on this. He dared to say that you can live this full reality right now. Now that’s so extraordinary and counter intuitive, that most organized religion pushed the kingdom into the future and made it co-terminus with “heaven.” That is exactly what he is not saying! He is always saying it is indeed now, although not fully now (Luke 17:21, Matthew 4:17). Our only assurance for later is that we have begun to touch and taste it now. This is the peace and serenity of the saints, even under trial.

The word for living in this way, living in the in-between with trust and surrender, is called faith. Forget for the moment about believing in the Immaculate Conception, the role of the Papacy, any Atonement theory, or Biblical inerrancy. Those might be fine, but they’re not what Jesus is talking about.

Jesus is talking about the grace and the freedom to live God’s dream for the world now—while not rejecting the wounded world as it is. That’s a tension that is not easily resolved. It is the lovely, intimate, and spacious place that Jesus invites Thomas into when he tells Thomas to physically “touch” him in the very place of the wounds (John 20:27).

Adapted from Jesus’ Plan for a New World

Mantra:
Where there is doubt,
may I bring faith.

Oh, how easily I find myself thinking of the kingdom of God as something for the future, forgetting the biblical teaching of Jesus that is so readily accessible to me. Oh, how easily I find myself thinking of the kingdom of God as something for the future, and yet pray, at least once a day, and usually more, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven”. Those familiar words from the Lord’s Prayer, aren’t talking about a future event, but something for now.

I’m tempted to want to change the mantra slightly, so that it reads, “Where there is doubt, may I experience faith”. It seems to me that I have some thinking and praying to do about this.

The email this came from was one of Fr. Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations. If you would like to subscribe too, and I can recommend them, the website is here: The Center for Action and Contemplation. It won’t cost you anything.