Seeing Kingdom Principles as Cultural Habits
I’ve recently moved to a new country and that naturally comes with the challenge of adapting to a new culture. In this new Asian culture, life is based on a hierarchy system. This means that depending on things like social status or money, a person may have different ways of acting in the culture. For example, if there is a person of higher status they do not have to greet those of a lower status than them, while those of lower status have to greet them with respect. Another example is that in this culture it is rude to show the bottoms of your feet. So when a person goes to sit down they have to be thoughtful about where their feet are pointing too. These cultural norms are neither right nor wrong inherently, but simply a standardized way of living in a country that has developed these practices over the years. To live in this culture requires following these cultural norms because a failure to do so would be seen as strange or in some cases even rude.
This got me thinking. After a rather embarrassing moment whenI insisted that a corner store had a certain payment option when they did not. I felt/believed that it was only right for me to apologize to the employees who had been the victims of my frustration. Seems normal right? When you do something wrong like wrongfully getting mad at someone, you should go say sorry. These are the basic life lessons one learns in kindergarten, right? Yet, in this culture, what I was about to do went in direct opposition to the cultural norms. Remember the hierarchy system mentioned before? Teachers are considered to be of high social standing in many Asian cultures. So as a teacher, my attempt to apologize was certainly seen as outside the norm.But according to the teachings of King Jesus, you could say it was a “cultural norm” for me to go and apologize. He taught that if there is a conflict between you and another it is the right practice to go and resolve this conflict in order to be at peace with them. Unity matters a lot to King Jesus (go read Matthew 5:23-24 if you are interested in learning more on this). This created quite the dilemma. Which cultural norm do I then follow? As a newcomer to this culture, should I respect the system they have in place and not seek reconciliation in order to follow their hierarchy structure? Or do I follow King Jesus’ expectations and go in direct opposition to the cultural norms around me by going to apologize for my outburst?
Jesus calls us to live life against the stream of the world around us. As you can see from my example above, it’s so different that it forces us to pause and think on how we are truly meant to live in the world. Do we live to simply respect cultures or represent the Kingdom of Heaven? A Kingdom that commands forgiveness, even for those who hurt you the most (Matthew 6:14, Matthew 5:43-44). A Kingdom that calls you to give up your own desires and seek to live a life fully devoted to the King (Matthew 16:24-26, Matthew 6:33, 1 Peter 1:14-16) A Kingdom that boldly claims that your sense of worth should not come from your social status, wealth, physical belongings, degrees, connections, intellect, things you are good at or accomplishments (Phillipians 3:1-12). So, if not from any of these, then what does it say we should gain our sense of worth from? The simple fact that we know Jesus and our relationship with him. That’s it. In almost every way it offers a radically different way to live than the way the world tells us to live.
The challenge to you then is this: are you willing to live no longer according to the cultural norms of the world around you (whatever they may be) but instead live according to the cultural norms of the Kingdom of Heaven? In doing so, in saying yes, becoming a person that on a daily basis lives life in their thoughts, words, and actions in such a way that it will catch the eyes of people around you. And hopefully invite them to see and think upon a radically different way to live life then they could have ever imagined. Are you willing to take up the challenge?