Seeking: To Live As Children of God

The way of Jesus calls us back to a posture of seeking. We are invited to seek the spiritual fortitfude to re-root ourselves (over and over again) in the radical Gospel stories of nonviolence. We are invited to realize the reign of God on earth today, and each and every day thereafter. To resort to violence as an instrument of change is rejected as a strategy by Jesus. Instead, Jesus distilled from the long experience of his people that nonviolent resistance was a way of opposing evil without becoming evil in the process. Jesus advocated for means that were consistent with the desired end; that is, a society of justice, peace and equality.

Yes, we seek the reign of God. And, yet while doing so, we must ask ourselves in what ways do we contribute to its realization? In what ways do we stand in its way? How can we recognize the kin-dom of God as it continually emerges and re-emerges?

WHERE is God's reign?

God's reign is wherever domination is overcome, wherever people are freed, wherever the soul is fed, wherever God's reality is known.

WHEN is God's reign?

God's reign is whenever people turn away from worshiping power, wealth and fame. It is whenever we insist on creating a society of equals.

WHAT is God's reign?

God's reign is the transformation of the Domination System into a nonviolent, humane, ecologically sustainable, livable environment which enables all creation to grow and live well.

The reign of God cannot just be "inner" or "outer"; it must be both or it is neither. That is, the reign of God necessitates a complete change in our way of being and acting, as well as the transformation in the world around us --from the ways of domination to the way of God.

Query: What do you do to keep yourself open to the type of deep change and transformation that is provoked when God's reign breaks in?

Texts: Psalm 14:7-9 and Luke 4:18-21