justice on Peacemaking

Peacemaking doesn’t mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that ...

Almighty God, we settle for false peace. We see no need to rock the boat, so we allow injustice to rule and reign. God, give us the conviction to take on the work of peacemaking. Give us the courage, ...

How good is your unity, O Lord How rich, how abundant, how merciful Flowing down over our heads as blessing and balm, wholeness and hope Flowing down over our faces eyes, ears, lips anointed for...

Peace is not the absence of war but the presence of justice.

I did some of my Clinical Pastoral Education Units in Gastonia. One of the units that I served was the Emergency Department. If there was an incident that was suspected to be gang related, they would ...

Based on Isaiah 59:8,  NRSV The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths.  Their roads they have made crooked; no one who walks in them knows peace. You You are t...

Break our hearts Jesus so we may weep as You weep Love as You love Break our hearts Jesus and raise our voices so we may speak and act so all may be safe so all may have opportunity so all may know...

Mighty One In your justice In your mercy bring equity to your world raise up all who suffer from discrimination  break the rod of oppression and prejudice free us from our addiction to violence and d...

The time is now, for you have called, O God The place is now, for you have spoken Yes, it is a wilderness, a desert even So dry, so rough, so uneven Yes, the gap is so very wide between the high and ...

Jesus: You gave us Your love at a high price – Your own death on the cross in our place! By Your grace you give us eternal life and entrust to us Your creation. Thank You, Lord! We come today as Y...

In the Christian faith, we frequently take for granted how radically Jesus evens the playing field. No matter your wealth, your position, let alone your race or gender, all of us are equal in God’s ey...

The good folks at  The Center for Action & Contemplation  and  Mile High Ministries  in Denver, Colorado, have written a beautiful prayer adapted from Walter Brueggemann’s  Prayers for a...

O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual...

Almighty God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the world into the way of justice and truth, and establish among them that peace which is the fruit of righteousness, that they may become the ki...

Shalom envisions the full prosperity of a people of God living under the covenant of God’s demanding care and compassionate rule. In the prophetic vision, peace such as this comes hand in hand with ju...

After the fall of apartheid in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu led his country in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC rejected the two extremes normally implemented after such...

In shalom, each person enjoys justice, enjoys his or her rights. There is no shalom without justice. But shalom goes beyond justice. Shalom is the human being dwelling at peace in all his or her relat...

As we depart,  Both individually and collectively  Be who you are called to be. In any and in all the ways you can Seek justice.  Resist evil.  Stand strong against Death.  And all Death’s works and w...

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart [and especially the hearts of the people of this land], that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappea...

There is no peace in Southern Africa. There is no peace because there is no justice. There can be no real peace and security until there be first justice enjoyed by all the inhabitants of that beautif...

What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.

After several years of engagement in justice work Warren says in reflection on the story of the Good Samaritan, “I realized it’s not okay to have a road that perpetuates the beating, robbing, and pote...

Jesus offers a new sort of justice, a creative, healing, restorative justice. The old justice found in the Bible was designed to prevent revenge running away with itself. Better an eye for an eye and ...

What is God’s essence? God’s primary motivation, desire, and purpose? What is God’s heart? God’s heart is a heart of peace. God could have chosen to stay distant – holy yet detached or absent. Inste...

Break our hearts, Jesus That we may weep as You weep Love as You love Break our hearts Jesus and raise our voices that we may speak and act so all may be safe so all may have opportunity so all may k...

preaching commentary What is God’s essence? God’s primary motivation, desire, and purpose? What is God’s heart? God’s heart is a heart of peace. God could have chosen to stay distant – holy yet de...

When God wants to sort out the world, as the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount make clear, he doesn’t send in the tanks. He sends in the meek, the broken, the justice hungry, the peacemakers, the ...

Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and ob...

Deacon or other leader Let us pray for the Church and for the world. Grant, Almighty God, that all who confess your Name may be united in your truth, live together in your love, and reveal your glo...

One of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites, polar opposites, so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and powe...