Piling It Up
“For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Romans 14:17
Eating and Drinking – God’s kingdom will be found on every map but it cannot be located on any map. It’s not a place. It’s a relationship. Wherever there are sons and daughters of the King, God’s reign and rule will be found. But it will never be here or there. The Kingdom of God is not heaven, concealed from human eyes. The word means reign. It emphasizes the relationship between the ruler and his subjects. When Jesus said that the kingdom was “at hand”, he meant that the relationship of ruler to subject was already in existence, ready to become the dominating factor in your life.
Unless we realize that Paul is talking about a reign of relationship, we won’t see the rest of his imagery. There are two kinds of reigning kingdoms. One builds its power on the basis of a hunger for temporal fulfillment. The other emphasizes the characteristics of the eternal. One is about my needs now. The other is about my legacy later.
The kingdom of eating and drinking portrays the world consumed with satisfying itself in the actions of acquiring. It is convinced that hard work and luck are the building blocks of successful accumulation. That plus compound interest and real estate. Subjects in this kingdom often don’t even find satisfaction in actually having the objects of their desire. They are only satisfied in getting these things. As soon as the actual object is obtained, they discover that the thrill of ownership is not nearly as enticing as the thrill of acquisition. It’s the process that makes the juices flow, not the end result. That’s why Paul doesn’t say that this kingdom is food and drink. Those are the objects. He says that this kingdom is the activity of eating and drinking, the act itself, not the substance used.
You might reflect on this a moment. If your experience is like mine, there were goals in your life that you thought would bring fulfillment and satisfaction. “If I could only get that, I would be happy.” But, of course, you never were, even after you had that special desire. What you learned is that the world’s version of happiness is the seduction of “just one more”. The world never gives anything without demanding payment. It is in the usury business. There are no good-faith lending laws. Whatever you want, you can have, but the price will be that what you have will not satisfy the want. Nothing temporal is designed to fully satisfy. There is no “full satisfaction or your money back” guarantee. How could there be? The only time you will reach the end of the rainbow is at your grave, and then you still have to pay.
It’s funny how we quickly acknowledge the truth of the eternal and just as quickly chase another promise of the good life here and now. One hotel in Las Vegas advertises, “Live famously”. Is that enough? How long does fame last? What did it cost to have it?
If your life is caught in the process of acquiring, maybe it’s time to ask why? Go visit a graveyard. What process is occurring there?
