“Jesus and Me”
A Sermon on John 14:22-31

I am thankful for this time to talk with you about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Peace. I have been speaking with you about a central, controversial and often neglected element in the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke: “Love your enemies and do good for those who hate you.” Jesus both taught and did that.

The problem is that it is often discouraging, this social action business, because peace is still a hope, not a fully present reality (though the rates of violence have steadily declined over the last 2000 years).

I think the Gospel of John was a response to that problem. In John, there is nothing about loving your enemies or doing good for them. There are no Gentiles, no demons, and exorcisms. It is about the love of God in Jesus Christ. So today I want to talk with you about Jesus’ love for us as individuals: “Jesus and me.”

Tom Boomershine preached this sermon at Grace United Methodist Church on November 26, 2017. Click here for a PDF of the full sermon.

Mission statement of Petco on back of clerk’s shirt: “We believe in the power of love to save lives and transform communities.” Those who follow Jesus’ way of peace believe that, too.

From Silence to Salaam
A Reflection on Contemplative Peacebuilding

by Weldon D. Nisly

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest. Isaiah 62:1

Jesus came near and saw the city, he wept over it saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes.” Luke 19:41f.

The heart of peace, as I have come to know it, is a contemplative heart. Contemplation, from the Latin contemplatio and templum, is deep devotional looking upon something with our hearts and minds to see the sacred and to seek salaam. It is to see God’s love for the world and to see the face of Christ in the other. Contemplatives know that we must be silent and listen with the heart as much as the head and that we see and speak from the heart as much as the head. A gift of the contemplative heart is to have a disciplined sense for when to be silent and when to break silence in solidarity with suffering people seeking salaam.

Download the PDF to read the whole article.

Weldon Nisly is a Mennonite pastor, peace activist, contemplative, and biblical storyteller. Inspired by the story of “Jesus and the Syro-phoenician Woman” from Mark, Weldon led a trip to the Soviet Union with the Network of Biblical Storytellers in the late ’80’s. He has also witnessed to peace in Iraq with the Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT). Most recently, he spent September and October in Palestine with

CPT. Weldon wrote “From Silence to Salaam” at the end of five months in the Benedictine community at the Collegeville Institute of Saint John’s Abbey in Minnesota.

The Year of Mark

In December we begin a new liturgical year. This year those who follow the lectionary will focus on the good news according to Mark. For serious students of the Bible, this would be a good year to get Tom’s book, The Messiah of Peace: A performance Criticism Commentary on Mark’s Passion-Resurrection Narratives.

There is no time better than the season of Advent, when we anticipate the coming of the Messiah of Peace, for deep learning about Jesus. And there has never been a time more needful of such a leader than the present.

Click here for more detail about The Messiah of Peace and to order your copy