Oh tiny seed, planted in the soil of Creation
hidden joy and mystery
Warmed by the love of God
springing up in joyful expectation
Growing up to become the largest of shrubs
sheltering all of Creation in its shade.
The kingdom of God.
What I wrote in this chapter which focused on the second coming of Christ seems pertinent to today’s current reality:
“The biggest flaw in this Second-Coming-as-superhero type scenario is the idea that the God who created us as totally free-willed creatures will suddenly come along and coerce all of Creation into peace and harmony at the end of time. God has not worked that way, God does not work that way, and God is not going to work that way. God is not a God of coercion who will somehow force or manipulate Creation into harmony and rob it of freedom. God is not creating the kingdom of God through violence, and will not take away from Creation the gift of freedom. Somehow this great peace and harmony, and the blessing of all Creation, is going to happen through people who still have their free wills. Therefore God must persuade, rather than coerce, us to peace.
God is a God of persuasion, who calls us into harmony and peace, and through Christ, shows us the way to harmony and peace. We, all the people of the world, not only the baptized, are the instruments of God’s shalom peace — if we but knew it. From the beginning God created people for a purpose. All of humanity is created in God’s image, and we are all God’s children. Christians have to wake up to the realization of who we are in God, and one by one awaken all the rest of God’s children, and call these children to maturity. We have to start following the way, the truth and the light, and let the kingdom of God grow, and spread and become. We are God’s children, but we are not meant to stay as immature infants. We are called to maturity and partnership with God. And we are called to wake up all the rest of humanity to its role as partners with God. All of humanity has been created for this partnership with God. We are not mere spectators of Creation, called to be God’s cheerleaders, shouting or singing alleluias. We are created to enter into the plan of Creation, and are an active part of God’s plan.”
I have the custom of beginning my day with a cup of coffee and the news. It is important to know what is going on in our world. Lately I find I am reluctant to turn on the news because I know it will contain painful images of people being brutally and cruelly treated by an agency called ICE. There is something twisted in humanity that keeps returning to the forefront, a something so opposed to God and the ways of God that we can only call it evil. Our country was founded on this something twisted. People may have come to this country searching for a new and better life, but they brought this twisted something with them. No one can deny that the conquest of this country was violent or that we brought violence in the form of slavery with us. As children we are told myths that whitewash our truth. As mature humans we need to acknowledge our history.
As human creatures we have within us a place of freedom. It is the place where we find hope and despair, faith and fear, love and indifference, goodness and evil, and so forth. It is our center before we act, before we even think of acting. This place within us is easily tipped one way or the other, often dependent on the culture around us. Many things can twist us toward what Star Wars would call the “dark side of the force.” On the dark side people seek power over others. They seek power over others for many different reasons, but I believe the main reason is fear — the fear of losing what they have and the fear of not getting what they want.
There was a recent post on Facebook by A country Pastor where he wrote: “There is a sin that runs like a thread through our history. It shows up again and again, wearing different uniforms and speaking different languages, but it always sounds the same. What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine too. It is the belief that power gives permission, that strength justifies taking, and that domination can be baptized as righteousness. Scripture has warned us about this posture from the very beginning.”
Since we so easily tip toward the dark side, what is it that can save us from ourselves? Sebastian Moore in his book Let this Mind Be In You writes that it is through Christ Jesus that we are saved. I recommend this book to you. Sebastian Moore describes salvation not as a legal transaction but as a profound transformation of our inner life. For him, the real human problem isn’t guilt but the false self—the anxious, competitive identity we construct to feel worthy and safe. Jesus enters this human condition from within, sharing our vulnerability, yet he never clings to a fabricated self.
Everything about Jesus flows from God’s love. He dies on a cross to expose humanity’s failure to understand that fear, violence, and scapegoating will fail us. In the resurrection, Moore sees the unveiling of the true self—the self grounded in God’s love rather than fear. Jesus saves us by awakening our deepest desire for union with God and by drawing us into his own consciousness, his own way of being human. Salvation, then, is an awakening: discovering that we are loved before we do anything, that we don’t need to manufacture a self, and that our true identity is found in sharing the mind of Christ.
For myself I like to start with the belief that every baby comes into this world ready to be loved and ready to learn how to love. However, things happen in our lives that can shape us, especially as to whether we believe we are loved or learn how to love. I believe that evil happens when we forget who we are in God — forget we are the children of God who finds us fully desirable. Jesus brings us back to ourselves and shows us God’s love.
Here is what I wrote long ago: “Christ, incarnate in the human Jesus, is God, and shows us what God is like. This coming of God into the midst of Creation reveals a very different God from the one we had imagined in pre-Christian days. Remember, there is only One God. The oneness and uniqueness of God is the clearest revelation we gained through the experience and insight of the Jewish people. Therefore, whatever we know of Christ, we now know of God. The coming of God into Creation is not about atonement, appeasement, or expiation. Those things belong to a pre-Christian mindset. God constantly says: “Go and learn the meaning of the words – what I desire is mercy, not sacrifice!” Christ comes to us revealing mercy, reconciliation and forgiveness, and shows to us a clear pathway to peace. How sad it is that the fog of misdirection has so often hidden this path. ”
And so, I turn next to what I also wrote: “The kingdom of God is at hand, already present in our world. There was never a time in Created history that God was not present in our world, and therefore the ways of God have also been present, and able to be learned. Jesus proclaimed this Good News over and over again. The kingdom has come as a tiny seed, and is meant to grow and spread so all the creatures of the world may rest in its branches, safe and secure, in harmony and in peace. Christ did not become incarnate in our world to be merely another prophet, another teacher, another healer, another king, another messiah. Christ did not become incarnate in our world to continue and promote the same old world systems. Christ did not become incarnate in our world just to be worshipped or adored. Christ became incarnate in our world as the first born of a new and ongoing Creation; a new and extraordinary way of life. Christ comes, not only to reveal to us what God is like, but also to show us what God is doing, and then to say – follow me and we will change the world! Come and be part of the creative action of God. The primary instruction of Christ is “follow me.”
“Surprisingly, it turns out that we are the first wave of the Second Coming of Christ into the midst of Creation. We are the seeds of a new hope for Creation. Christ is the first born of a new way of being with Creation, and we are the continuation of something new come into the midst of the world. The power of the Spirit of God has been given to us, and is within us, not for ourselves, but for the sake of the world. It is all happening now! Wake up and realize the time is now, not in some distant future. We are not to sit, wait and pray for some distant far away future, but we are to actively spread God’s kingdom, so that it comes on earth just as it is in heaven. We are to turn away from the ways of the world, and be faithful to the ways of God. We need no super being to rescue us; with God we are enough in ourselves.”
So, we are called to be an active resistance to the brutality, cruelty, and meanness at work in our country today. It is not surprising that faith leaders throughout our country are speaking up and standing with their people. The Spirit of God within them will not let them sit back and watch. All of us are called to work toward the coming of God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. A kingdom where we act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
Bishop Kedda
Bishop Kedda 