Today, this Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, we hear Jesus say: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few...I am sending you like lambs among wolves.” He reminds His Disciples to bless others with peace. The peace Jesus speaks of--Pax Christi, the peace of Christ—waits and works for true peace by sacrificing the false self of power, prestige, and possessions. Such peacemaking will never be popular. The follower of Jesus is doomed to minority status.
Jesus warns us that we will be hated from all sides. When you’re working outside the system, when you work for peace, you will not be admired inside the system. In fact, you will look dangerous, subversive, and unpatriotic. One thing you cannot call Jesus was a patriot as He was serving a far bigger realm... Our Pope Leo the 14th has made the call for peace in this world.
If you are truly a peacemaker, your very means have to be nonviolent and you have to be consistently, truly, pro-life—from womb to tomb. One of the most distressing qualities of many of us Christians today is that we retain the right to decide when, where, and with whom we will be pro-life peacemakers. If the other can be determined to be wrong, guilty, unworthy, or sinful, the death penalty is somehow supposed to serve justice. That entirely misses the ethical point that Jesus makes: We are never the sole arbiters of life or death, because life is created by God and carries the divine image. This is a spiritual seeing, far beyond any ideology of left or right.
War is a means of seeking control, not a means of seeking peace. Violence will always create more violence. It is not real peace. As Pope Paul VI reflected, “If you want peace, work for justice.”
John Dear, an internationally known voice for peace and nonviolence, says that as Christians, “We cannot support war, participate in war, pay for war, promote war, or wage war.” It is our responsibility to work to “end war and create peace . . . to be a peacemaker.” (Blessed are the peacemakers…)
How can we be peacemakers? It begins by being peace ourselves, by connecting with the source of peace within. It means standing up in nonviolent resistance to systems of injustice. It involves learning the skills of nonviolent communication and conflict resolution. We could certainly use more of these skills in these days of division and partisanship.
Today we hear that the Kingdom of God is at hand—in our hands. Those who work for the Kingdom, those who work for peace will have their names written in heaven. Food for thought.
Keep singing!
Elizabeth Dyc
Jesus warns us that we will be hated from all sides. When you’re working outside the system, when you work for peace, you will not be admired inside the system. In fact, you will look dangerous, subversive, and unpatriotic. One thing you cannot call Jesus was a patriot as He was serving a far bigger realm... Our Pope Leo the 14th has made the call for peace in this world.
If you are truly a peacemaker, your very means have to be nonviolent and you have to be consistently, truly, pro-life—from womb to tomb. One of the most distressing qualities of many of us Christians today is that we retain the right to decide when, where, and with whom we will be pro-life peacemakers. If the other can be determined to be wrong, guilty, unworthy, or sinful, the death penalty is somehow supposed to serve justice. That entirely misses the ethical point that Jesus makes: We are never the sole arbiters of life or death, because life is created by God and carries the divine image. This is a spiritual seeing, far beyond any ideology of left or right.
War is a means of seeking control, not a means of seeking peace. Violence will always create more violence. It is not real peace. As Pope Paul VI reflected, “If you want peace, work for justice.”
John Dear, an internationally known voice for peace and nonviolence, says that as Christians, “We cannot support war, participate in war, pay for war, promote war, or wage war.” It is our responsibility to work to “end war and create peace . . . to be a peacemaker.” (Blessed are the peacemakers…)
How can we be peacemakers? It begins by being peace ourselves, by connecting with the source of peace within. It means standing up in nonviolent resistance to systems of injustice. It involves learning the skills of nonviolent communication and conflict resolution. We could certainly use more of these skills in these days of division and partisanship.
Today we hear that the Kingdom of God is at hand—in our hands. Those who work for the Kingdom, those who work for peace will have their names written in heaven. Food for thought.
Keep singing!
Elizabeth Dyc
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