[amc] a note from the pastor

  • From: "garland robertson" <pastor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "Austin Mennonite Church" <amc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 10:43:48 -0600

Members and Friends of Austin Mennonite Church

 

I pray you are fulfilled as you continue your journey of faith.

 

The common mandate to 'make peace' provokes a wide variety, even
contradictory set of images in the mind of contemporary Christians in
American.  Perhaps the predominant concept of what it means to make peace
consist of using power to force some preconceived notion of relational
behavior upon another party who is responsible for the absence of peaceful
conditions.  Indeed, one component of our military forces used the slogan,
'Peace is our profession' to describe their motivation for delivering
weapons upon deviants in order to persuade them to adopt an alternative
lifestyle for their greater good.  At the other end of the spectrum the call
to make peace requires non-violent passivity, a response that claims to
honor the divine initiative by submission to the prior determination for how
the universe is intended to unfold.  Many Christians are somewhere in
between these extremes.  Does peace happen by force or by concession?  Maybe
what we really need is an example of peace so we will know how to recognize
peace when does happen.  If we could agree on the picture of peace, then
perhaps we would be closer to each other in our efforts to make peace.  How
do we get ready for peace?  These thoughts will compose the sermon for this
next Sunday, 'On your mark; .get set; .go.'

 

May it go well with you.  Sincerely,

Garland Robertson 

 

 

 

...always hold firmly to the thought that each one of us can do something to
bring some portion of misery to an end

 

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