Wednesday, June 29, 2005

peacemakers

my faith has been stirred as i have been studying the life of jesus through the eyes of mark. this past sunday i did a talk entitled "traveling to the other side" which you can download for free from our kairos los angeles website. i shared some challenging thoughts when it comes to peacemaking. one quote that i came across recently that has really caused me to think is by daniel berrigan in his book "no bars to manhood". see if this quote doesn't rock your world.

“We have assumed the name of peacemakers, but we have been, by and large, unwilling to pay any significant price. And because we want the peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course continues, because the waging of war, by its very nature, it total – but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial. So a whole will and a whole heart and a whole national life bent toward war prevail over the velleities of peace… “Of course, let us have the peace,” we cry, “but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stay intact, let us know neither prison not ill repute nor disruption of ties…” There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war – at least as exigent, as least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.”

2 Comments:

At 11:56 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

If this author's audience is the typical American Christian, he's got a point that we need to be riveted by.
But from what I've heard of the sacrifices of Christians in China or Sudan, this guy is preaching to the choir (so to speak).
May God help us to live like aliens and strangers in this world.

 
At 3:16 AM, Blogger J.R. Woodward said...

this message was written for any audience, but my home base from which i do ministry is in the us, specifically los angeles, so obviously it was written with my context in mind. thanks for your thoughts.

 

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