Message Series: Continuing the Work of Jesus – Part 1 – “Peacefully”

Sermon Series:  Continuing the Work of Jesus – Part 1

 Message Aim:   To teach about the Brethren’s core value on Peace

 Sermon Title:     “Peacefully”    

 Scripture:    Matthew 5:38-48

³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’³⁹ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. ⁴¹ If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. ⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Synopsis:

Today we are beginning a new sermon series about who are the Brethren.  And the way we are going to approach this series is by looking at the Brethren identity through its motto or tag line. The Brethren tag line is this, “Continuing the work of Jesus: peacefully, simply, and together.”

But before we begin this morning looking at the first part of our series about peace, I want to point out the importance of the phrase, “Continuing the work of Jesus.”  One of the things that sets our Brethren traditional apart is that we are relentlessly focused on Jesus. A core part of our tradition is that Jesus is the window through which we view all parts of our life and our faith: from how we worship, how we read the Bible, to who we welcome, to how we understand the world around us, to the work that we do on a daily basis, to how we treat each other, all of it goes through the understanding of Jesus first. Therefore, it’s really important to actually know what Jesus taught, to know what exactly the work of Jesus was, and to have a close relationship with Him.

(Now let’s turn to the first part of our series about Peace).

Did you know that the Church of the Brethren is considered one of the three historic peace churches? The other two churches in that tradition are the Quakers and Mennonites. Now this phrase “historic peace church” is kind of an interesting phrase. It points to our very long roots and a very long history of saying that for us to follow Jesus means to reject violence and to follow the way of peace. “What exactly does it mean to follow Jesus’s way of peace?”  I think it actually does help if we understand a little bit of our history and where we have been and how we have gotten to where we are at today. The first hundred and seventy-five years or so of our tradition, that’s from 1708 (way back in the beginning) up to the mid-1880s, our tradition of the dunkers or the Brethren was that they were explicitly and unabashedly pacifist without question.

So basically what that meant is that if somebody attacks us within we’re not going to resist, we’re not going to defend ourselves because that’s what Jesus did when he was attacked.  We’ll not voluntarily participate in wars but other than that we’re just going to keep yourself over here in the corner. Pacifism of those hundred and seventy-five years or so was rooted in the idea that when you join the church you’re essentially leaving the world. You’re joining a different Kingdom, the kingdom of God. It’s a division between the world and the church.

Now here’s the thing. All this eventually started to change, pretty rapidly in the 1880s to the early 1900s. There was a big shift that happened. There were two major shifts that happened that changed the way the Brethren thought about peace. The first of which is that the church became much more involved and engaged with the world around it. The other thing that happened was that there was a shift in the way the brethren thought about community, and the authority of the community. There is a shift away from the community or the church having the ultimate authority and towards individual conscience. This view made the case that individual conscience trumps whatever the church says with the authority of the whole church community.

And this was a big deal because in the area of peace, at least, it weaken the ability of the church to enforce uniformity. It made it so that the church really couldn’t say you have to be this or this in order to be a part of church. Now there’s a whole bunch of other things that happened in the early 1900s but these two shifts really had the biggest impact.  Working to make peace involves a lot more than simply being against war or against violence.

When you read scripture and start with Jesus what you see is that we are called to reject the use of violence, but we’re also called to actively work for peace and for justice in every area of our lives. I believe a significant part of following Jesus is to reclaim a bold peace witness. We are called to be people of God’s peace actively working for God’s justice in a broken world. With humility and repentance and the grace of God I believe that is where God is calling.