The Peacemaker's Tool Kit - Part 3

The third tool of peacemaking is community. Peacemaking refers to the way we treat everyone - inside and outside of our community. No othering allowed. I think when we avoid othering we expand our community, opening it up, including others. Yesterday, I read a FOX article on Twitter about the burning of a mosque in Texas and one woman kept tweeting, "Not my neighbor!" That slams the door to the church community and Christians huddle behind locked doors, allowing no one to enter. 

Back to the sermon, the first story is how Christians helped during a great plague at their own risk. Although many Christians died, they saved many. They didn't flee out, they fled in. I think it was Mr. Rogers said helpers are the people who run toward danger. The heart of compassion is courage. 

Sociologist of religion Rodney Stark (I read, used, agreed, and disagreed with his work) said it was the Christian community that made this sort of thing possible. Pagan religions of the time were more individualistic. The Church began to explode in numbers after this event. I remember a quote from the time remarking on the love Christians showed to one another. 

Jesus's first move after baptism was to call disciples and thus start the community of believers. 

Israel is created as a people of promise. God and Israel make promises to one another - the covenant that Israel breaks through idolatry - but, after Babylon, the Jews no longer commit idolatry. But they made the mistake of placing all the blame on foreigners. Jesus pointed out the God loves foreigners too and the people in Galilee wanted to stone him. It wasn't Jesus proclaiming prophecy had been fulfilled in Him that upset everyone, it was Jesus's inclusiveness that provokes ire. We want to other, we want to shut our door to the stranger, we want to be safe. But, Aslan isn't safe, he's good. 

Christ created Christian community by turning the idea of home and community inside out, throwing open the doors and letting others in. 

The Holy Spirit lives in the Church. The Holy Spirit lives in us. It is a communal thing rather than an individual thing. When we come together, something special happens. 

The local church - living within a community - working things out, worshipping together - allows the Holy Spirit to work in us. The next step is to take that spirit and go out into the world. True Christian witness is the opposite of othering. Love others as Christ loves us, welcome others as Christ welcomes us, and always remember that love trumps fear.