I am reappropriating spiritual mentors in my life these days. Most of my life my list of “saints” has been tragically truncated since I grew up in a religious fellowship that shunned the idea of “sainthood” and the basics of Church history. As a child, I had heard of the Christian Calendar, but thought of days like Christmas as a day associated with Santa Claus and presents (certainly not the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ).

Recently however, I have been discovering saints like Francis of Assisi, Benedict of Nursia, and Augustine. As you know, I am never one for putting the lid on any box, so I have been starting a unwritten “list” of people that might or might not be in any denomination’s list of saints, but are nevertheless a saint in my (and the world’s) mind.

What is a saint? To me, a saint is simply a man or woman who are a incarnated capsule of the Kingdom of God. In other words, they uniquely remind me of the already/not yet reality of God’s pervasive heavenly presence.

A recent addition to my own personal list of Kingdom capsules (saints) is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He is absolutely a genius, and if you haven’t just sat and listened to some of his speeches, stop whatever it is you’re doing right now and listen to them! (Check out this and this).

King looked at the world through compassionate eyes. His relentless pursuit of a transformed society grew both from grassroots levels and from policies made in Washington. His active commitment to nonviolence in revolutions most likely reoriented the quickly devolving civil rights brawls into a respectable movement that went places and changed the nation. His “dream” for his country was spoken out of the goodness he saw in peoples’ hearts as he spoke the reality into existence with powerful words before those realities would even have a chance to take hold. In other words, much like God at creation, or a minister presiding over a wedding service, his “words created worlds”. His compassion dug deeper than simply “flinging coins to a beggar”; he believed that the world could actually become a better place for ALL, and he gave his life to that end.

King’s view of social change in the Kingdom of God:

“A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”    (emphasis mine)

Thus saith the KING!

This is language that points to another world; an alternative reality that is more real than the rotting and corrupt world order set before us.  We have a choice: live in the world that King describes, or continue ripping each other apart.  That is why he is a saint - he speaks and acts in a Kingdom that is still coming.  I lift him up as a fellow brother, and as a incarnate capsule of the Kingdom!

Click below for an added bonus for reading the post! ~ by my beautiful wife!

Just a quick note to invite any and all to read through Josh’s Subverting the Empire blog series. They’re quick, thought-provoking, and a great opener for conversation. Many blessings.

I was reading Psalm 23 in the Hebrew, and as I began to dig into some of the words, I was amazed at what I found. I’m still not sure on some of the phrases (”my owl is full?”). But I am convinced that this Psalm has a lot more to say to my life right now than most of its English counterparts. Be blessed:

Psalm 23 - A Psalm for David.

The LORD is my shepherd; I am never lacking anything.

He causes me to lie down in green spaces; he brings me upon a place of quiet waters.

He brings back my soul. He guides me in tracks of justice, for the sake of his name.

Even as I walk into the valley of the death-shadow, I will not fear evil, because you are with me.

Your family and your (holistic) support they comfort me.

You arrange in the presence of my enemies a Table; you have anointed my head in oil, my cup is saturated. (or…my owl is full?)

Only a good and loving loyalty will pursue me all the days of my life.

And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever and ever.

This morning at BOBS I ate with an elderly black man who had one of those curious grins on his face. You never get tired of seeing a smile like that - its the kind of smile that says, “He is Risen, Risen Indeed!”

He told me of his difficult, tumultuous life in Abilene during the ’60’s when integration was sweeping through West Texas. He talked about being afraid to go to the grocery store, for fear of not knowing if he’d come back. I could hardly believe it. He talked about watching a woman committing suicide and having to just walk by for fear of “looking like he was involved”. This man grew up in a life that was constantly scrutinized and looked on with suspicion from the racial majority.

After coming home, I read the story of Israel as slaves in Egypt. I thought about the plight of the Israelites, and the plight of my new friend. Both have seen the struggles, both have had to hide from the “superior” race. But you know something? I’d wager that both know that smile - that “Risen, Indeed” smile.

What might happen if we all understood that we too are oppressed? What if we all saw our oppression, distraction and attacks not as a means for becoming cynical of the world and its people, but rather as an opportunity to rise above to find that resurrection smile living inside each of us. And when it breaks out - when it truly erupts from within - nothing can ever take you back to the mire of self-pity you were wallowing in. Suddenly it doesn’t matter what your circumstances, you have found victory!

This man this morning found victory, and all I want to ask him is where to find it.