The Church: A foretaste of the kingdom

When we think about social justice — or, often, our world’s lack of it — we usually think of solutions in terms of lobbying, activism, community organizing, ethical consumerism, protests or voting. We do not usually think of the Church itself as having much to do with our society’s struggles, except maybe as a resource base for those other activities.

Yet the Church, I would suggest, is precisely God’s answer to the world’s problems. This is not because I long for a return to the Middle Ages, to Christian kings or papal states, or to the 1950s, when we sometimes imagine that Christianity enjoyed a bit more cultural hegemony. Rather, the Church is the solution to our problems because God intends the Church, right here and now, to be a community that is a foretaste of the kingdom of God.

What do I mean? We know that one day Christ will return to establish his kingdom. His reign will see the sorting out of our messes. There, in Christ’s future kingdom, centered around the worship of Christ in the flesh, we will live in harmony with God, one another and the rest of creation.

That the Church today is a foretaste of this kingdom means that it is meant to consist of little pockets of people who try to live now, however imperfectly and brokenly, the life of that world to come. And the crazy thing is, in God’s wisdom — or folly as it may look to us — he has willed to make these communities the starting point for the transformation of the world.

That the Church is a foretaste explains a lot about the picture Scripture gives us of the Church. We are, here and now, gathered around the Lord’s flesh in the Eucharist, just as we will be in the kingdom. And out of this worship, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles, comes a tightknit community; so tightknit in fact that they had “all things in common” (Acts 2:44), and “no one claimed anything to be their own” (Acts 4:32).

So, not only is the Church a radical community in the way early Christians were “always together” (Acts 2:46), but it also reordered the hierarchy that their world, and ours, usually attaches to wealth, status and achievement. In the Church there were “no needy among them” (Acts 4:34) because they all “sold their possessions and put them at the feet of the apostles” (Acts 4:35). The poor, foreigners, the homeless, the uneducated and even slaves were given full membership, on equal footing with the well-to-do.

Worship, community and “upside-down” social and economic relations; these should be characteristics we strive for within the Church even now, precisely because the Church is meant to be a little glimpse — a sneak peek — of what the kingdom of God will be like. Then, after all, “the first will be last, and the last first” (Mt 19:30).

The Church is first intended to be the community among whose members social justice truly exists, precisely because it is a little image of that perfect kingdom to come. But importantly, it is also precisely by this community that God has chosen to begin to make a just world. God wants to evangelize the world by each of us individually bearing witness to Christ with our words and in our life. But he does so by giving the world a community — the Church — that is a living picture (however halting and even goofy our efforts are) of what human relationships with God, possessions and one another can be, and one day will be.

In this way, the internal life of the Church is essential to our mission. Our first task is not to change the world, but to be the Church, for it is only by seeing such a real, living, breathing community that our society can come to know that it is not sufficient unto itself, and to see what it could be.

Miller is director of Pastoral Care and Outreach at Assumption in St. Paul. He has a Ph.D. in theology from Duke University, and lives with his family at the Maurin House Catholic Worker in Columbia Heights. You can reach him at colin miller1@protonmail com

Not funny

I was shocked to read a comment by Matt Birk in Dave Hrbacek’s Feb. 23 article, “Matt Birk: Man on a Mission.” When commenting on the support of his wife Adrianna through years of his chaotic life, he jokes: “We got eight kids, it’s not like she can go anywhere. She’s trapped. That’s my joke.” It’s a misogynistic joke in very poor taste and is horrifying to hear from a man who is being held up as a role model. It’s just as horrifying that both the author of this piece and the editor chose to include it. You can do better.

Sarah Cronin Mary, Mother of the Church, Burnsville

A ‘Driver’s Licenses for All’ counterpoint

In response to Loras Holmberg’s complaint about “Driver’s Licenses for All,” (Letters, March 9) maybe the previous law disallowing immigrants driver’s licenses had no heart. Some laws are like that.

When my son was 11 (now 32), he became friends with a family who had come here because America had flooded the Mexican corn market and their father’s corn farm couldn’t sustain them anymore. At the time, licenses were legal, but he couldn’t renew it when the law changed. He was profiled in a traffic stop and kicked out of the country. Through great personal loss he was able to get back in and be reunited with his young family, but again was arrested for driving without a legal driver’s license, and with the threat of years of imprisonment, they — we — kicked him out again, and he never spent a day with his family here again. He died 10 years later in Mexico much too young, missing his family. He will never see his new grandchild, his two boys now grown and U.S. citizens, or his dear wife. This Saturday (March 18) is the anniversary of his death. I feel the resentment in the tone of the letter. I wish for healing, for the letter writer, and for the family of my son’s friends.

Elizabeth Rosenwinkel St. Albert the Great, Minneapolis

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When I was asked to pray and to consider “Why I am Catholic” there was some good reflection that took place before agreeing to give this testimony of my faith. I believe the Lord made it clear to me that I have an experience to share that might resonate with others. Being Catholic is a joy, provides a strong foundation for my life in all things that I do, and my relationship with Christ is nurtured and deepened through the holy Catholic Church.

First and foremost, all honor and thanksgiving to my mother and father (Anne and Bob Miller) who laid the foundation for the entire Miller family to have a relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. Praise and glory to our heavenly Father, who established his holy Church so that we would experience his love for us in so many ways.

Mom and dad were daily Mass-goers until their 90s. Besides building a strong family, they were wonderful advocates of the Catholic Church to their children, finding opportunities for each one of us to experience Christ wherever we were in life. If there was an adage that described their advocacy for me, it would be to serve and share. When possible, find opportunities to serve the Lord and share him with others.

For me, serving the Lord began as an altar server at All Saints in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. As an altar server, I paid attention to what was going on in the Mass, developed a profound respect for what was