download here

This week we brought a close to our Anabaptist Values series with a topic close to the foundation of Mennonite communities around the world, peace. Mennonites claim to be a people of peace. But what does it mean to be a people of peace? Though, through time, the notion of “peace” that Mennonites have embraced has shifted, at no point was peace ever simply relegated to an inner-heart peace that did not impact the way one existed in the world. Though we have vacillated between non-resistance, non-violent resistance, pacifism, conscientious objection etc. (not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts), there has always been a recognized core that affirms our call to live in peace as Jesus taught us. We are people that embody and manifest the peace of Christ in the world.

In this sermon, I offer five points of discussion that I think help us work out our foundation for peace, and I hope what comes with it is a call—a call to be people of peace in the world. Not to feel peace, or simply enact peace, but to be people of peace.

The five points you will hear are:

• Jesus’s peace is not (just) personal
• We are not the quiet in the land
• No justice, no peace
• No reconciliation, no peace
• Being people of a third way.

Think about these questions as you listen and in reflection

1. What does it mean for us to be a people of peace in the world?
2. How are we creating spaces of resistance in the world that promote God’s peace?
3. How are you being formed into people of peace?

Do not fear and do not let your hearts be troubled, Jesus leaves his peace with us.

 

For convenience sake, there is also a podcast available. You can find that here.