Signs of that peace: peacemaking is everybody’s business

by Gerald W. Schlabach
America magazine, 22-29 December 2014

 

ROOTED IN FAITH. Israel’s President Shimon Peres, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (partially hidden), Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in the Vatican gardens on June 8.
ROOTED IN FAITH. Israel’s President Shimon Peres, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (partially hidden), Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in the Vatican gardens on June 8.

For decades now, popes and episcopal conferences have been insisting that to work for peace is the vocation of all Christians. Too often, however, peacemaking seems the domain of special vocations or technical specialists. This is certainly not the church’s hope. As Pope John Paul II proclaimed in his World Day of Peace message at the opening of Jubilee Year 2000: “The church vividly remembers her Lord and intends to confirm her vocation and mission to be in Christ a ‘sacrament’ or sign and instrument of peace in the world and for the world. For the church, to carry out her evangelizing mission means to work for peace…. For the Catholic faithful, the commitment to build peace and justice is not secondary but essential” (No. 20).

Yet peace often seems an activity only for those who are “into that sort of thing.” Many associate peacemaking mainly with protesting war and injustice. If they know a little more, they may think policymaking. If they know even more, they may think of on-the-ground practitioners in the developing field of peace-building. But even if all these associations are positive, peacemaking can still seem like other people’s business. Protest requires a certain disposition. Policymaking requires expertise. Peace-building practitioners need training in techniques like conflict resolution.

Pope Francis would change this by widening our focus in a way that places every vocation, technique or tactic in the wider context of God’s overarching strategy in history.  Continue reading “Signs of that peace: peacemaking is everybody’s business” →

Vatican and Lutheran World Federation to prepare common liturgies for 2017 commemoration of Protestant reformation

Mennonite – Lutheran reconciliation service in 2010 provided inspiration

 

(LWI) – Rev. Martin Junge, General Secretary of The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) says relations between the Lutheran and Catholic churches have reached an epoch-making turning-point.

Speaking during a panel discussion, held 18 December, in the Lutheran church in Rome, Junge emphasized that the relationship between Lutherans and Catholics was being transformed “from conflict to communion.” Precisely in a world “in which religion and faith are regularly portrayed and perceived as trouble makers,” he said it was a phenomenal testimony that the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches continued to move “towards a profound communion that frees us to serve God and the world.” Continue reading “Vatican and Lutheran World Federation to prepare common liturgies for 2017 commemoration of Protestant reformation” →

Ecumenical friendship calls for solidarity with ancient Christian communities in Middle East

Christians gather for Evening Prayer outside St. Joseph’s Church in Erbil. (photo: Don Duncan, CNEWA)
Christians gather for Evening Prayer outside St. Joseph’s Church in Erbil. (photo: Don Duncan, CNEWA)

Ecumenical friendship is not only about theological dialogue and common causes–it is also about solidarity in suffering, our calling to “bear one another’s burdens” in the body of Christ so that we might “fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). The Catholic Near East Welfare Agency (CNEWA) is a Vatican agency that provides humanitarian and pastoral support for the Eastern Catholic churches. CNEWA works in Eastern Europe, Northeast Africa and throughout the Middle East.  A key area of CNEWAs work has been supporting seminaries and training catechists in some of the oldest Christian communities that are struggling to survive in challenging conditions.

This year the church marks Advent and Christmas while many thousands of Catholic Christians have been displaced by expanding war in northern Iraq. They are waiting and wondering whether they will ever be able to return home. Their story is told in an article titled “Exodus” in the magazine ONE, published by CNEWA.  Here’s a brief sample:

At night, above this landscape of abjection reigns a scattering of glimmering crosses. On the feast of the Triumph of the Cross, celebrated on 14 September, Iraqi Christians erect illuminated crosses on top of their buildings and leave them there for several weeks. The crosses they left behind in Qaraqosh and Bartella have most likely been taken down or destroyed, but crosses seem to have redoubled across the recently overpopulated Christian enclaves of Iraqi Kurdistan.

While the presence of the crosses certainly brings hope to the faithful, the harsh reality grinds on: It has been months since their expulsion and they are still languishing in churches, tents, abandoned basements, unfinished buildings, repurposed schools and social centers.”

For the full story click here

On the bridge between Mennonite and Catholic shores

Bridgefolk couple Laura Funk and Gilbert Detillieux share their story in the Nov. 10 issue of The Canadian Mennonite:

Even if we grow up hearing stories of the Good Samaritan and the Woman at the Well, we may be more hesitant to seek out those who are different from us in real life. And that may be true all the more if we have grown up in a community where everyone knows everyone else and they all have a lot in common. (This can be true in faith communities, too, unfortunately. Sometimes we become educated beyond our faithfulness.)

But if we are to be true to the ways of Jesus, it may be important to look across the river, and get to know our neighbour on the other side. Sometimes surprising things happen when we venture out and stretch our comfort zones. Our story is one of those examples.

The full story is available here.

Communion and peace

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 7

Eichenberg's Lord's Supper (small)by Joetta Handrich Schlabach
Faith Mennonite Church
Minneapolis. Minnesota, 11 January 2009

 

Jeremiah 31:7-9a, 12-13; John 1:1-5, 10-14

A number of years ago the speaker at a retreat I attended gave a couple of pointers for dealing with difficult people.  By difficult, she didn’t mean the mildly aggravating kind, but the person with whom one is in deep conflict, perhaps to the point of loathing. Imagine that it’s almost impossible to speak with this person without getting into a shouting match, or having dead silence settle between you like a wall of ice.

Janet Hagberg told us that when she anticipated an encounter with the person with whom she had become estranged, she did two things mentally and spiritually to prepare herself.  First, she pulled out an imaginary electrical cord so that the negative current from this person would not flow to her. Second, she imagined offering this person the bread and wine of communion.  “I cannot hate someone with whom I share the body of Christ,” she said.

Mennonites have historically believed in a close relationship between reconciliation and communion. In former days when communion was a somber, holy, and rare occasion, practiced only once or twice a year, the pastors and bishops in some regional conferences would pay individual visits to each church member to ensure that no conflicts or hard feelings existed between any of the members. If such discord existed, people were expected to go and seek forgiveness and to set things right before receiving communion.  In that framework, peace-seeking and peacemaking preceded the table.  This was the living out of the teaching of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthian church that they should not eat and drink “in an unworthy manner” (1 Cor. 11:27).

In recent years many Mennonite churches, and we are among them, have begun to practice more frequent communion. They and we have come to believe that our communion practice and our commitment to peacemaking might be strengthened by greater frequency and by recognizing that peacemaking is linked not just to the preparation for communion but to the very eating and the drinking, and the actions that follow.

The essence of what we commemorate in communion is encapsulated in the words of John 1:  “…and the Word became flesh and lived among us.” However we understand the mystery of the incarnation—God entering the human experience in Jesus—we are offered the ultimate example of peacemaking in the incarnation. No matter how many times humanity turned its back on God, no matter how many times those who considered themselves “God’s chosen people” broke the covenant relationship God had established with them, no matter how cruel and barbaric people were toward one another, God chose to enter that fallen, broken reality and express through a face-to-face human relationship the love that God has always had for all of creation. Even without dying, this would have been more than anyone would expect.  To go even further and let this beloved humanity misunderstand and deal a death blow to the Holy One represents a love we cannot fathom. This is our example and our call to peacemaking.

Communion is not merely a reenactment, a memorial of something that happened in the past, the once-and-for-all death of Jesus for the sins of humanity. It is also an affirmation of the current commitment each of us who partakes makes to allow this saving love to operate in us so that we are ready to give our lives—our body and blood—in service to others. And it is a proclamation of a future reality—God’s Kingdom—that we believe, by faith, is already breaking into our world to be completed when Christ returns.

Therefore, when we take communion, we are fed and nourished by the saving love of Jesus. We are drawn into communion with our brothers and sisters in this congregation and in the worldwide body of Christ, which bids us to care for their needs as we care for our own.   We are called to compassion for the wide world of suffering, which has not yet tasted life in the kingdom of God’s shalom. This includes compassion for those who inflict the suffering, just as Jesus had compassion for his assassins.

Our participation in communion is practice: a holy rehearsal for the way Christ calls us to live, to interact, and to pray each day. Each day we need to be in communion with God, thanking God for coming to us despite our brokenness and sin and granting us forgiveness and peace. Each day we need to be mindful of our brothers and sisters in Christ, here and around the world, seeking reconciliation with any who have wronged us or whom we have offended. And each day we need to counter the messages of despair that shout out from headlines with prayers of persistent hope for God’s kingdom to come. When we pray for wholeness for others, we cannot at the same time wish or do them harm.  When we thank God for saving us, we cannot at the same time wish God’s wrath on others.  Communion calls us to a total life of peacemaking.

As we gather for communion, we will give expression to these various dimensions.  We invite you to come down the center aisle and approach the servers in pairs (whoever arrives at the same time you do). Each of you will take a piece of bread from the basket and place it in the hand of the other and then eat it together; you will do the same with the cup.  In the coming week, please be mindful of and pray for the person with whom you share communion.

After you have received the elements, you may move to the large table where you will find small pieces of paper and pens. Here you may write the name of a person, a relationship, or a place in the world that needs peace, which you will commit to pray for throughout this year.  You may use a paper clip to hang your prayer on the tree.[*] Everyone is invited to take part in this prayer exercise, even if you do not participate in communion.

When Jesus knew that his time with his disciples was coming to a close, he reassured them with these words:  “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”  As if words were not enough, he took bread and after giving thanks said: “This is my body that is for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, saying: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.”

As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes; we proclaim his presence with us here; and we joyfully anticipate his coming kingdom.

[*] The tree that was part of our Advent/Christmas/Epiphany visual elements was still standing on January 11 when this sermon was preached. It became our peace tree as we decorated it with prayers for peace.

Pope Francis: “War is never necessary, nor is it inevitable.”

Vatican City, 8 September 2014 (VIS) – This Sunday the Holy Father sent a video message to all the representatives of the Christian Churches, ecclesial communities and all heads of world religions who will meet in the Belgian city of Antwerp from 7 to 9 September for the International Meeting for Peace organised by the Sant’Egidio Community. This year’s theme, “Peace is the Future”, commemorates the dramatic outbreak of the First World War one hundred years ago, and evokes a future in which mutual respect, dialogue and cooperation will help banish the sinister phantom of armed conflict.

“In these days, in which many people throughout the world need help to find the way to peace, this anniversary teaches us that war is never a satisfactory means of redressing injustice or reaching balanced solutions to social and political discord. In the final analysis every war, as Pope Benedict XV stated in 1917, is a ‘useless massacre’. War drags populations into a spiral of violence that is then shown to be difficult to control; it demolishes what generations have worked to build and paves the way for injustice and even worse conflicts.”

Pope Francis stressed that “we cannot remain passive” when faced with “the innumerable conflicts and wars, declared and undeclared, that nowadays afflict the human family and ruin the lives of the youngest and of the elderly, poisoning long-standing relationships of co-existence between different ethnic groups and religions.” He remarked that with the power of prayer “our various religious traditions are able, in the spirit of Assisi, to offer a contribution to peace. … I hope that these days of prayer and dialogue will serve to remind us that the search for peace and understanding through prayer can create lasting bonds of unity and prevail over the passions of war. War is never necessary, nor is it inevitable. There is always an alternative: the path of dialogue, encounter and the sincere search for truth.”

“The moment has arrived for the heads of all religions to cooperate effectively in the task of healing wounds, of resolving conflicts and seeking peace. Peace is the sure sign of commitment to God’s cause.” The Pontiff concluded by encouraging all those present to be “builders of peace” and to convert communities into “schools of respect and dialogue with those of other ethnic or religious groups, places in which we learn to overcome tensions, promote equitable and peaceful relations among peoples and social groups, and build a better future for the generations to come.”

Communion: a witness for peace

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 6

Eichenberg's Lord's Supper (small)by James M. Lapp
Salford Mennonite Church
Harleysville, Pennsylvania, May 4, 2008

 

 

John 17:1-11, 20-24

Recently I participated in a peace witness in Washington DC.  About 3000 of us met on a Friday evening at the National Cathedral for nearly two hours of worship together.  We then went out into the cold wind and rain to walk together to the White House to give witness to the urgent concern we felt about the war in Iraq.  We carried tiny lamps as signs of hope in the darkness of night.  After walking perhaps two miles, we circled the White House singing, holding our small lights as a witness against the dark shroud of war that hangs over our nation.  Likely the President was not at home the evening we encircled his house, but this did not deter the enthusiasm of those who walked in an orderly way to give voice to the depth of their convictions.  It was one small witness for peace in a disordered and fragmented world.

I have occasionally participated in other gestures designed as a witness for peace, such as redirecting that part of my federal taxes devoted to past, present and future wars to ministries of compassion.  I have joined with countless others in writing letters to congressional leaders to call for refocusing of national priorities toward peaceful activities and to give witness to my faith in Jesus the Prince of Peace.  I realize these actions may seem strange and perhaps even reprehensible to some of you.   Many Christians agree that war does not represent God’s intention for humankind, but too often we sit back in helplessness not knowing what to do about it. Continue reading “Communion: a witness for peace” →

On the journey with Lutheran brothers and sisters: an interview with John D. Roth

By Andre Gingerich Stoner

At its most recent meeting, the Executive Board asked Ervin Stutzman, executive director, to send a letter of greeting and Christian friendship to Rev. Elizabeth Eaton, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  The letter recounts with gratitude the remarkable developments in Mennonite-Lutheran relations in the past fifteen years.  It acknowledges ways Anabaptists, too, have at times misrepresented Lutherans and Lutheran practices.

Further, the letter responds to occasional informal questions from Lutheran leaders as to whether Mennonites regard Lutherans as fully part of the body of Christ. Finally it affirms the current three-way dialogue on baptism between Mennonite World Conference, the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican.

John Roth, professor of history at Goshen (Ind.) College, was part of the formal dialogue with Lutherans both on behalf of Mennonite Church USA and later Mennonite World Conference.  We have asked him to reflect on the content and the significance of the recent letter sent on behalf of Mennonite Church USA to Presiding Bishop Eaton of the ELCA.

See the interview here.

Washing feet, getting real

Gerald W. Schlabach
Homily for liturgy of footwashing
Bridgefolk 2014
Texts: Psalm 33, Philippians 2:1-11, John 1:1-27

Perhaps you have read the novels of the Southern writer Walker Percy. Percy had barely begun a medical career in the early 1940s when he contracted tuberculosis. During his long recuperation he began reading the Russian novelist Dostoevsky, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, as well as other existentialists. He never practiced medicine again, but instead became a writer. And in 1947 he became a Catholic. Together with Flannery O’Connor and Graham Greene, his work has played some elusive role in weaving a Catholic worldview for me and perhaps others here. (In checking his bio I even learned this new factoid: Three months before his death in 1990 he became a Benedictine oblate and is buried in a monastic cemetery.)

Especially in his first two novels, The Moviegoer and The Last Gentleman, Percy’s lead characters are all uneasy. 1950s America has told them how to prosper, succeed, make their ways through the world, and engage in its obligatory pursuit of happiness. Yet the pretense and unreality of it all nags at them. Binx the “moviegoer,” for example, sees himself on a secret search, for what he is not sure. His step-cousin and possible love interest Kate is intermittently depressed in a slightly manic way. But is her condition simply depression? Continue reading “Washing feet, getting real” →