The Rebel Generation and the Perfect Kingdom

Let's play that association game where I say something and you think fast and respond the first word that comes to your head. Game? Game. Go.

Peanut Butter.

Jelly.

Winnie.

Pooh.

Gotham City.

Batman.

Van Gogh.

Paint.

Guitar.

Music.

The-same-stupid-commercial-filmed-a-thousand-different-ways.

Corona.

America.

Freedom.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Indeed. Here we are, the United States, proclaiming freedom into all the world. "Come into our land and prosper." This is no commentary on what you may think of our current politics, economy or immigration policies. This is just our ideal. Freedom. The American Dream. I wonder, though.

Our Constitution created within itself the option to improve, change and alter the rules. I suppose we've interpreted this as ultimate freedom, superior to the rest of the world. Even Darius, the Mede-Persian king who overthrew the mighty Babylonian Empire tangled himself up at least once because he made a bad law and even as king was unable to change it. A dear friend of his nearly died as a consequence. I feel like giving ourselves leniency to change our rules leads to some sort of legal relativism, which permeates our morality as much as it reflects it. But obviously if you have a bad law that you cannot change and discover its nature only when confronted with its consequence, then you're screwed. Maybe your friend comes face-to-face with a lion or two because of your ill-advised logic as a political leader. So it seems to be that we are damned if we do, damned if we don't. Is it possible to have flawless laws in a world that changes with every sunrise?

If it were, we'd have to wonder what that would look like. It would be a kingdom, with an absolute ruler, because if he were to be flawless then there would be no need to impeach, replace, or assassinate. He would speak truth, because if he were a liar then we wouldn't want him in charge of a flawless kingdom. There's no room for falsehood in this place. His subjects would love him, because he would do only good things for them because he loved them as well, perhaps even before they loved him. He was probably the first one on the scene for that to work out. I would venture so far as to say that this kingdom would therefore be ruled by this love. Consequently, people would be inspired to obey the laws because they would respect the kingdom intrinsically. [Remember, this kingdom has flawless laws that never need to go under the Congressional knife]. Any violations of the law would go against the character of the kingdom, its king, and to that degree its subjects as well. It would be a threat. Perhaps even a betrayal.

If we're going to go so far as to speculate that there could exist perfect laws, we might as well go out on a limb and guess what they would be. Personally, I would think that they'd address relational respect, even love, to guide the actions and relationships amongst the people. The king would have to be a flawless example of these laws just because he's the leader. He can't get away with screwing up. The people could though, because if they were perfect too then we wouldn't need the laws at all. But we do have laws, so I'm guessing that the people are screwed up a little bit. But they like these laws so they try their best to honor them. That's what it is, anyway; a matter of honor. By abiding in it, people would defend this honor from things not of their kingdom, their home. While we're at it, let's say too, that because the king is perfect and good, he is very generous and though he's not going anywhere anytime soon, he wants to let some subjects inherit the kingdom. It would still be his, mind you, but they'd get to share in it on a deeper level just because this good king would have to like to share.

Now, the king would probably present this proposition at some point to all of the people in his rather large kingdom, so they would all know what was up. It's only fair. That might take longer than a day or two, because there are a lot of people, so he'd have to send messengers from the central area to the far reaches of the kingdom so all the distant folk heard the word as well. I imagine he would tell them that immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissentions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing and things like these would violate this perfect relational law he's created because it hurts other people's feelings, and his as well just because it's mean and wrong. But things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control would form the right kind of attitude to pursue this good law and share in the kingdom on a deep level. The king would be very proud of you, I'm sure, since he'd be a good king. Good kings have pride in good people. It would be a very good kingdom. If only.

I don't think that good exists because bad exists, or that right exists because wrong exists, but I do think that we've labeled good "good" and right "right" because we've been presented with an alternative. We've seen "bad," and we've done "wrong." [Go ahead, you can admit it to yourself]. So we've contrasted white with black and dark with light so we can wrap our heads around what we're dealing with in life. But my black probably isn't your black because we don't live in the kingdom I just talked about. We live in America, Land of the Free Thinkers. Land of Relativism. There is no place on earth you could get away with more, I'm sure of it. Even more than in Amsterdam. No one in Amsterdam has completely revolutionized the theories of the entire developed world. Tell me if I'm wrong. But we have the power to do that in America. So we put this thinking and speaking freedom to use and talk and discuss and challenge. And rebel. It's in our nature. It's why even in my good kingdom, there are laws. There would be a right and wrong. Now, in a perfect kingdom we wouldn't have to worry about it but I would imagine that any good king could eventually figure out a way to perfect his people so they didn't run around killing each other with words or stones all the time, if at all.

Do you think it would be okay to say that maybe we are so delighted in thinking all over the place that that is why we can change our laws? Because this isn't my good kingdom, so we'd probably have a few wrinkles to iron out as we went along. Do you think that we would be able to get the whole population to agree on even just one principle to found our laws on? Just one. We'll use the example of my good kingdom earlier, which was founded on love. Can we all agree on love? Probably, but then we'd argue over what love really is. Pure, true love; not just any love. My pure and true love could very well be the next person's lust. I think the love we would found our laws on would have to present itself to us somehow, which demands that this love would be bigger than us, bigger than America, bigger than our borders, bigger than our oceans, bigger than our world, bigger than our galaxies, bigger than our universe. It would have to be the center of it all, otherwise it would fall apart. If the foundation of a flawless kingdom can't measure up to a star, which blows up with time, or a galaxy, which could slowly fall victim to a black hole…then it probably isn't worth our time. I know it wouldn't be worth mine. Let me propose the characteristics of this love of which I speak, and you tell me if you think I'm hot or cold about the whole thing: what if it were patient? kind? not jealous? not boastful? not arrogant? appropriately flattering? selfless? What if this love didn't keep a record of any wrongdoing, but with its patience it taught us its ways because this love hates evil and rejoices in truth? [Remember, there's no room for falsehood]. What if this love would bear my burdens for me? Believed in me for all of the best things love could offer? What if this love hoped all things, endured all things [even rebellion, even betrayal]? What if?

The world would be beautiful for it. You and I, we'd be beautiful. We probably wouldn't even understand it. There is faith; there is hope; there is love. The greatest of these is love. Love would conquer rebellion against it, as it endures all things. Love would pursue, even through the deepest betrayal, because it endures all things, hopes for all things. Love is the action that defends honor and preserves the perfect Kingdom, the embodiment of its King.