Announcing the Kingdom

This article is based on material from Mortimer Arias' book, Announcing the Reign of God: Evangelization and the Subversive Memory of Jesus. When this article appeared, the book was scheduled to be released by Fortress Press, Philadelphia, in February 1984.—The Editors

Jesus announced the inbreaking kingdom as a call to radical discipleship. Today we are watching a recovery of discipleship in the life of the church and in evangelistic strategy. Some years ago, Robert Coleman wrote a book entitled The Master Plan of Evangelism, which has become a classic manual for evangelism courses and workshops. It stresses the fact that the "master plan" of Jesus was the training of his disciples.

The "church growth school" based in Pasadena, California, has also insisted that the so-called "great commission" is essentially a mandate to "make disciples." It is true that the church growth understanding of discipleship evangelization may be seen as limited to a primer introduction to Christian faith, enabling the candidate to make a quick decision, but the movement has stimulated the personal work of "discipling" in place of an excessive dependence on mass evangelization.

Among the evangelicals in the United States, probably the most creative and challenging movement has been the radical discipleship stream. This radical discipleship stream is less naive about some traditional stereotypes of evangelical piety and style of life and has been strongly critical of "cultural Christianity"—the illegitimate marriage between evangelical faith and the American way of life or American politics. Through publications and community experiments, its participants have been trying to respond to the call to discipleship in the kingdom and to engage in costly discipleship evangelization both inside and outside the church.

The same is true of the extraordinary renewal of the Roman Catholic church in Latin America during the 1970s and '80s. At a phenomenal rate, the basic Christian communities (comunidades de base) emerged, showing a wholistic type of discipleship, including common celebration, Bible study, interpersonal growth, and social engagement. It was estimated that there were 150,000 of these communities all over Latin America, 80,000 of them in Brazil alone.

It is a fact of the biblical record that "disciples" is the oldest name for Christians: "It was in Antioch that the disciples were for the first time called Christians" (Acts 11:26).

In the book of Acts, the name Christians appears only twice, while disciples is used 30 times. The point is that even if we call ourselves Christians or evangelicals, we are Christians-in-the-making; we are still learning, still following. We are disciples in the kingdom, followers of Jesus on the way. In fact, "followers of the way" is the other name for Christians in the book of Acts.

To be disciples of the kingdom and to make disciples in the kingdom is what evangelization is all about. At least, this was Jesus' way of evangelization in the kingdom perspective.

Jesus invented discipleship. Of course, there were teachers and disciples in the Greek schools of philosophy, and the rabbis in Israel had their own disciples of God who were taught in the Torah.

But a rabbi would never call a disciple to himself; he would be sought out by the would-be disciple, while Jesus called his disciples and challenged them to forget everything else and follow him. A disciple of the rabbi might dream of some day becoming even better, if possible, than his master; but a disciple of Jesus could never expect that some day he would be the Son of God.

Jesus discipleship is one of a kind. Juan Stam, from the Seminario Evangelico Latinoamericano of Costa Rica, has made a list of seven distinctive features of an invitation from Jesus. One of them is its life-long character: "Jesus discipleship was permanent. The invitation was for life. Consequently, nobody could expect to graduate!"

Jesus discipleship was discipleship in the kingdom. Jesus started his proclamation of the reign of God by calling his first disciples. He called them to be with him, and he sent them "to announce the Kingdom of God" (Matthew 10:7).

Jesus discipleship was the model for kingdom evangelization. His disciples would have a taste of the kingdom that had come in Jesus' ministry: They were going to be a sign and anticipation of the new order of God; and they were going to be witnesses of the kingdom to the end of time.

Jesus left behind two things: the message of the kingdom and a community of disciples. As George Ladd has said, Jesus left no other structure:

no separate synagogue, no special place of meeting, no fixed teachings, no new legislation ... no organization. The one thing which bound them together was their personal relationship to Jesus and his message about the Kingdom of God.

Discipleship is in itself anticipation of the kingdom. Jesus' community of disciples was indeed an eschatological sign. As Ladd also says:

Those who accepted Jesus' message are also an eschatological fellowship in the sense that they have already experienced the kingdom: forgiveness, fellowship, commitment to God's reign.

Eduard Schweizer, New Testament professor at the University of Zurich, after almost 400 pages of careful exegesis of the Gospel of Mark in which the theme of discipleship runs as a golden thread, concludes that "discipleship is the only form in which faith can exist." Christian faith is nothing other than to follow Christ on the way of the kingdom.

This may seem an overstatement. But for those acquainted with the unforgettable little book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, the affirmation will be familiar. Bonhoeffer says, "Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ."

Werner Kelber, in his provocative study of The Kingdom in Mark, also insists on the intimate relationship between the kingdom and discipleship: "The enlistment of Simon, Andrew, John and James into the service of discipleship, from the very outset, accords a communal dimension to the Kingdom. It consists of people and it bids for people."

Is not this also the description of the church? The church is not the kingdom, but it is a sign of the kingdom. As such, it "consists of people and it bids for people." And what is evangelization but to bid for people? Kingdom evangelization is people's business—it has to do with the totality of life for people.

The church, being entrusted with good news for the world, "bids for people" in its evangelization. Indifference to people, unconcern for those who do not know the good news of the reign of God, is not faithful discipleship. The church, however, doesn't bid only for souls, but for people, real people who are called to enter into the reign of God. This multidimensional reign has to do with the totality of life for people.

And the church doesn't bid for people for its own sake, just for church growth. Church growth is never the aim of the church, but the fruit of its witness to the kingdom, the outcome of its ministry to the world, the free blessing of the Lord. The book of Acts, after describing the quality of life and ministry of the early church, spells out God's gift of growth: "And the Lord added to their number day by day" (Acts 2:47). Discipleship evangelization, then, means recruitment—invitation to participate in the blessings of the kingdom, to celebrate the hopes of the kingdom, and to engage in the tasks of the kingdom: discipleship in the kingdom and for the kingdom.

Here is where we need to correct our almost invincible tendency to present the gospel in terms of blessings or benefits to be received, answers to all our questions, remedy to all our evils, new life to be enjoyed, a future state to be secured, without also presenting the challenges, demands, and tasks of the kingdom. We need to remember Bonhoeffer's warning about reducing "costly discipleship" to "cheap grace."

The emergence of the basic Christian communities in the most deprived areas of Latin America during the years of major oppression and repression throws a new light on and poses a challenge to the meaning of discipleship in and for the kingdom. A comunidad de base is actually a discipleship community of 25 to 35 people, or sometimes up to 100 people in a neighborhood or town. Some of these grassroots Christian communities exist among urban middle classes, students, or professionals, but the great majority of them are among city workers, slum dwellers, peasants, people from small towns, river ports, or the rubber plantations in the jungle.

These people are in discipleship of the kingdom and for the kingdom. They may be destitute, but they know of God's love for them, they know of Christ's passion and resurrection, they know of the hope of the kingdom, and they are beginning to move, to walk toward the kingdom. They describe their experience of coming together—mobilizing for the life of their communities, constituting the church that is "born from the people"—as a caminhada (meaning a journey, in Portuguese). Great variety exists among them, but basically one can find a common element with other Christian cells throughout history: Bible study, hymn singing, catechetical instruction, fellowship, sharing of experiences and concerns.

What is remarkable, however, and not so common in other grassroots Christian groups, is the prominence of issues of community and society in general. The Bible reading is related to the surrounding reality, to the people's life and problems. The community sets the agenda of concerns: water or transport, schools or sanitary posts, eviction of peasants from the lands, police brutality, manipulation by politicians, unemployment, government indifference, corrupt authorities, and personal and family problems.

The Bible and life are not separate—they are the two books from God. The people read them both. They read their lives with the eyes of the Bible, and they read the Bible with the eyes of their lives. They can see themselves pictured in the Bible, in the persons and events of the people of God; they can discover the liberating power of God through history, both in the past and present. They can hold the promise and vision of the kingdom, and the challenge to search for justice, love, freedom, and dignity, according to God's purpose.

They do not separate "evangelization" from "social action," and perhaps most of them don't know the difference, not being used to our neat definitions and dichotomies. But they can understand that what God promises and God demands is to be done.

Evangelization in this kingdom perspective is natural and effective. It is not only verbal proclamation, but also the incarnation of the gospel in the lives of the people and the community. The Catholic bishops, who did not invent or promote these basic Christian communities, when they met in Medellin in 1968, had to recognize the evangelistic potential of this movement, saying in one of their pastoral documents: "The basic Christian community is the first and fundamental ecclesial nucleus ... the initial cell of the ecclesial structures, and the focus of evangelization, and it currently serves as the most important source of human advancement and development."

Evangelization and human development go together. Most of the people participating in the basic communities were already nominal, baptized Christians, but now they have become disciples. This is not numerical church growth (all of them were considered members of the church), but it is evangelization, making the gospel real and effective in their lives and their community. This is evangelization inside the church.

Even more, it is becoming the evangelization of the church, challenging the traditional church and its hierarchy to new understandings of the gospel. The great discovery of this century for the Latin American church has been that not only is the church evangelizing the poor but the poor are evangelizing the church. Consequently, the church can reach a new authenticity, a new credibility, to proclaim the good news of the kingdom to those outside. Only God knows the impact of a church that is able to present a new face and new life to unbelievers, agnostics, indifferents, and people of anti-Christian ideologies.

Bonhoeffer spoke of "costly discipleship" in his classic exposition on the Sermon on the Mount. In time, as a prisoner of Hitler—and finally executed by a firing squad—he would know by personal experience how costly it might become to be a consistent disciple in this world. Many Christians in Latin America today (as in other parts of the world) are discovering the meaning of discipleship in the kingdom and paying the price for it.

As Jesus said, the kingdom "makes violence" and "suffers violence." He told his disciples in advance that he was sending them "as sheep among wolves" (Matthew 10:16). They should have no illusions. Jesus had been hated and rejected, and the disciples should not expect different treatment. Jesus warned, "A disciple is not above his teacher" (Matthew 10:24); and "If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too; if they obeyed my message they will obey yours too" (John 15:18-20).

Discipleship in the kingdom takes place in the world where the forces of the anti-kingdom are operating. Before the kingdom, we have to make a choice: for or against it; with the kingdom or with the anti-kingdom; with life or with the anti-life; for Christ or against him. In Jesus' words, "Anyone who is not for me is really against me; anyone who doesn't help me gather is really scattering" (Matthew 12:30).

One of the most difficult challenges for Christians today is to test the spirits, to read the signs of the times, to see clearly where the line of division between the kingdom and the anti-kingdom is passing. In Bonhoeffer's times the Confessing Church in Germany came to this point of division and confronted Nazism, while many others were silent or cooperating with it. In today's Latin America, many Christians have found the line of division and confession in the defense of human rights.

As we have seen in Jesus' evangelization of the inbreaking kingdom, the challenge of the kingdom issues a call to conversion, to give one's allegiance to the kingdom. This call to the kingdom is something that we need to recover in our present evangelization, in which conversion is focused on a purely personal and individualistic transaction between God and the soul. Certainly conversion is a most personalizing experience, when we are face to face with God and called to make the most eventful decision of our lives. Jesus' call to discipleship always began by looking at the individual—Levi at the tax-collector's counter, Zaccheus in the tree, the Samaritan woman at the well—and loving that person.

This was also the case with the rich, young ruler. Jesus called him to turn to God and God's kingdom present in him. It was an invitation to enter into a community and a movement. But while Jesus' call is personal, it is not individualistic. To turn to Christ is to turn to the kingdom, to turn to others. Jesus asked the rich, young ruler to give to the poor and then come and "follow me" (Matthew 19:21).

Salvation was declared for Zaccheus because he was ready to put his economic and social relationships in line with the kingdom.

No means for relationship with God in the New Testament exists that is not connected through the neighbor. To love God and your neighbor are the first and second commandments. You cannot love God if you do not love your sisters and brothers, because to love them is to pass from death to life (1 John 3:17-18 and 4:20). The reverse is also true: "We love because we were loved first" (1 John 4:19), and "The new commandment is to love as he loved us" (John 13:34).

No vertical reconciliation with God is possible without horizontal reconciliation with your sister or brother who has something against you. Nor is forgiveness of sins possible if you do not forgive those who sin against you. To serve "one of the least of these" is the only way to serve the King before inheriting the eternal kingdom.

Conversion to Christ means conversion to our neighbor, conversion to Christ in our neighbor. We need to incorporate this idea into our call to conversion if we want to be faithful to the gospel of the kingdom and to the total witness of the Scriptures in our evangelization.

Gustavo Gutierrez, the well-known Latin American theologian of liberation, tells us that this conversion has been a long process in the present generation of Christians in Latin America. They began unaware and unconcerned about people's living conditions, making a radical separation between the religious and the secular, this life and the next. Then they became aware of the suffering and the problems of the Latin American people and tried to respond with aid programs, applying social principles from the church. Then they moved into politics in an attempt to change the situation through legislation.

Gradually they evolved a rigorous analysis of poverty and exploitation, its sources in international and national structures, and entered a process of "radicalization." With this process came the major discovery of our generation: the "other"—the neighbor. This discovery amounted to a real conversion experience.

The fascinating thing about conversion in the kingdom is that even though it has a first moment of turning, of radical decision, of new beginning, it is also an ongoing process: the conversion of the evangelizer in the process of evangelization. We grow in understanding of the gospel the more we share it, and we learn from those with whom we want to share it.

That was precisely Peter's experience. When we speak of conversion, we think of Paul's unique experience or somebody like the jailor from Philippi. We seldom go to Peter for a conversion sermon. The reason may be that we don't know exactly when he was converted—he had so many conversion experiences.

The first event was Peter's entrance into discipleship through his brother Andrew (John 1:40-42). The second conversion was his awareness of being a sinful person in the presence of Jesus' authority and power (Luke 5:1-11). He then came to his third conversion: he was illuminated to confess Jesus as Christ, the son of the living God, and to make a profession of faith before the others (Mark 8:27-30). After Peter's shameful negation of Jesus, he was rehabilitated and reinstated by the resurrected Lord as a shepherd of the sheep through his triple affirmation of love for Jesus Christ (John 21:15-19). Then he had what might be considered a fifth conversion: his experience of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:4, 36-38).

Even the Pentecost experience was not enough. Peter received the visions and call to go to Cornelius' house, another spiritual crisis of conversion and growth. However, this time Peter was theologically blocked by his attitude toward the Gentile world, illustrated by the separation of clean and unclean food. He needed three visions and a visit to be persuaded to go to Cornelius' house. There he saw how the Spirit of God was already working among the non-Jews. "Now I understand," he said. "I now see how true it is that God has no favorites" (Acts 10:34).

This is the exciting thing about conversion in the kingdom and discipleship evangelization: Like Peter, we are always on the way, following Jesus, witnessing to the kingdom in every imaginable situation. We are in a process of constant conversion, until the day when the kingdom will come in its fullness and "God will be all in all."

Mortimer Arias was professor of Hispanic studies and evangelization at the School of Theology at Claremont, California, when this article appeared.