Bethel 08/16/20 Service

From The Book of Resolutions of The United Methodist Church - 2016.
Copyright © 2016 by The United Methodist Publishing House.

Then justice will reside in wild lands, / and righteousness will abide in farmlands. / The fruit of righteousness will be peace, / and the outcome of righteousness, / calm and security forever. / Then my people will live in a peaceful dwelling, / in secure homes, in carefree resting places. (Isaiah 32:16-18)

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. (Ephesians 2:14 NIV)

Christ is our peace. He is the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). Yet we know that the peace of Christ, the peace that passes all understanding, has not always ruled our lives and swayed our actions as peoples, institutions, or nations. We have not always followed God’s will for peace evidenced by the many conflicts and wars waged throughout human history. We have not always sought counsel from the Christ whose words assure us justice and peace, compassion and forgiveness, and yes, salvation and liberation, even in our wayward and non-peaceful ways.

The Bible makes justice the inseparable companion of peace (Isaiah 32:17; James 3:18). Both point to right and sustainable relationships in human society, the vitality of our connections with the earth, the well-being and integrity of creation. To conceive peace apart from justice is to compromise the hope that justice and peace shall embrace (Psalm 85:10). When justice and peace are lacking we need to reform our ways.

Peace is God’s will and must be done. Christ’s true disciples must work for peace: build it and not just keep it; live it and not just aspire for it. If Christ is our peace, then peace must be imperative. In the end, war and conflict will not triumph over the Prince of Peace.

Even God’s people, however, do not always see and acknowledge the peace of Christ and God’s justice. As the prophets have done, God’s people must be reminded and warned of their collusion with destruction and with injustice and non-peace. The United Methodist Church, whose commitment to peace is rooted in its obedience to the Prince of Peace, must recognize the things that make for peace.

The Council of Bishops asserted in 2009 that God’s people “have neglected the poor, polluted our air and water, and filled our communities with instruments of war. We have turned our backs on God and one another. By obstructing God’s will, we have contributed to pandemic poverty and disease, environmental degradation, and the proliferation of weapons and violence” (“A Call of the Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church to Hope and Action for God’s Good Creation,” 2009).

The bishops’ call was prefaced by an assertion that God’s creation is in crisis and that our neglect, selfishness, and pride have fostered a trio of “threats to life and hope.” The gravity of these threats prompted the bishops to call for a comprehensive response that urged United Methodists and “people of goodwill” to offer themselves as instruments of God’s renewing Spirit in the world.

“God calls us and equips us to respond,” the bishops exhorted. They reminded us of God’s offer of redemption to all creation and reconciliation to all things, “whether on earth or in heaven” (Colossians 1:20 NRSV). The bishops made us recognize again that God’s Spirit is always and everywhere at work in the world fighting poverty, restoring health, renewing creation, and reconciling peoples.

The bishops’ collective prayer is that God will accept and use our lives and resources that we rededicate to a ministry of peace, justice, and hope to overcome poverty and disease, environmental degradation, and the proliferation of weapons and violence. The bishops’ 2009 call for hope and action built on their 2004 document, “In Search of Security.” The 2004 document asserted that “the longing for safety is a feeling that all human beings share with one another. . . . The way to real peace and security is reconciliation. We will not attain full reconciliation between all peoples before God’s final consummation because the forces of evil and destruction are still at work in the hearts of human beings and in their relationships. But we are called to be peacemakers and ministers of reconciliation until our Lord comes (“In Search of Security,” Council of Bishops Task Force on Safety and Security, 2004).

The 2009 call for hope and action also recalled the bishops’ 1986 study document, “In Defense of Creation: The Nuclear Crisis and a Just Peace.” The 2009 document described “In Defense of Creation” as “an urgent message to all United Methodists and the Church at large on the growing threat of nuclear war and of the extinction of life on the planet through a ‘nuclear winter.’” The bishops reasserted that “the nuclear crisis threatens ‘planet earth itself,’ that the arms race ‘destroys millions of lives in conventional wars, repressive violence, and massive poverty,’ and that the ‘arms race is a social justice issue, not only a war and peace issue.’”

“Peace is not simply the absence of war, a nuclear stalemate or combination of uneasy ceasefires. It is that emerging dynamic reality envisioned by prophets where spears and swords give way to implements of peace (Isaiah 2:1-4); where historic antagonists dwell together in trust (Isaiah 11:4-11); and where righteousness and justice prevail. There will be no peace with justice until unselfish and informed life is structured into political processes and international arrangements” (Bishops’ Call for Peace and the Self-Development of Peoples).

The mission of Jesus Christ and his church is to serve all peoples regardless of their government, ideology, place of residence, or status. Surely the welfare of humanity is more important in God’s sight than the power or even the continued existence of any state. Therefore, the church is called to look beyond human boundaries of nation, race, class, sex, political ideology, or economic theory and to proclaim the demands of social righteousness essential to peace.

The pursuit of peace is a universal longing. It is a fervent prayer of all religions. It is the pilgrimage that the ecumenical community continues to embark on. At the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Busan, Korea, Christian leaders asserted in their “Statement on the Way to Peace”: “Those who seek a just peace seek the common good. On the way of just peace, different disciplines find common ground, contending worldviews see complementary courses of action, and one faith stands in principled solidarity with another. Social justice confronts privilege, economic justice confronts wealth, ecological justice confronts consumption, and political justice confronts power itself. Mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation become shared public experiences. The spirit, vocation and process of peace are transformed...”