Peacemakers in a Violent World

We live in a violent world.

Some violence occurs so far away that it’s hard to comprehend, even when the images of it flash across our consciousness night after night on the evening news. Some is as close as the air we breath, making it difficult to even acknowledge and overcome. Near and far, day after day, violence inflicted by human beings on other human beings steals life, scars spirits, and inflicts fear.

I must admit that sometimes when I think about all the shooting and bullying and beating and bombing in our world – and the often rancorous and so far ineffectual debate over what to do about it – the psalmist’s words express my own thoughts:

I would hurry to find a shelter for myself from the raging wind and tempest…for I see violence and strife in the city…and iniquity and trouble are within it; ruin is in its midst. [Psalm 55]

Yet those of us who are marked with the cross of Christ and sealed with his Spirit are not called to lock ourselves in some underground bunker. We are called to do something about the violence around us and within us. We are called to own up to and address our own violent tendencies and to wage peace in the world around us.

The sixty-five synodical bishops of the ELCA crafted a pastoral letter about violence when we were together in Chicago at the beginning of March. This letter calls us to active participation in the cross-formed reign of the Prince of Peace. It also provides a list of resources to assist you, your congregation, your circle of friends, and your family to discuss violence and to do something about it. 

Kathryn Lohre, ELCA Director for Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations and President of the National Council of Churches (NCC) also suggests these helpful resources:

•  2010 NCC Resolution, “Ending Gun Violence: A Resolution and Call to Action by the National Council of Churches of Christ, USA” 

• World Council of Churches Decade to Overcome Violence 

Through the prophet Jeremiah God once said, “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” [Jeremiah 29:7]. As we seek our world’s peaceful welfare together through repentance, prayer, and action, we walk in the promise sung by that old prophet, Zechariah, ages ago and echoed every time we sing the Gospel Canticle of Morning Prayer [Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 303]:

In the tender compassion of our God

     the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

To shine on those who dwell in darkness

     and the shadow of death,

And to guide our feet into the way of peace.