building the peace of christ in our divided and broken world

Building the peace of Christ in our divided

and broken world

What is broken?

Genesis 1 & 2

Genesis 3.8Exodus 3.6Isaiah 6.5

Genesis 3.16, 4.3-8Genesis 27.1-42Genesis 37.3-35

2 Samuel 112 Samuel 13.23-34

Genesis 3.17-19

‘I do not do the good I want to do

but the evil I do not want

to’ Romans 8.19

.

What God created at peace was broken:

every aspect of human experience

tainted by the degeneration of difference into

division.

What would it look like if it

wasn’t broken?

Isaiah 2.3-4 Micah 4.2-3

Sālôm: ‘fullness of life and wholeness in all

areas of life: material, familial, societal and

religion’ Timothy Ashley

‘The Book of Numbers’ p153

Revelation 22.4Revelation 21.2Isaiah 62.5 .

Revelation 7.9-10

Ezekiel 47.7-12Revelation 22.2

Isaiah 26Ezekiel 36.26

What has been done about it?

The Christian faith ‘absolutely depends on an unimaginable crossing of

frontiers, the barriers between God and

despairing, Godless men and women’

Rowan Williams ‘The Truce of God’ p31

Matthew 5.9John 4.4-26

Luke 19.1-10

Ephesians 22 Corinthians

5.19Matthew 27.45

Christ’s full embrace of the human condition, including its separation from God, is paradoxically what brings

reconciliation. His self-giving love in action created a

bridge across all that divides us and God.

Ephesians 22 Corinthians

5.19Matthew 27.45

1 Corinthians 15

“God’s own future … has burst into the

present” NT Wright, ‘Paul:

Fresh Perspectives’ p135

What are we, the

church, to do?

‘Believers in that future given by God are able to

sing and to dance, to heal and to forgive’

Walter Brueggemann‘The Prophetic Imagination’ p112-113

Church should act as ‘Sign, foretaste and instrument’ of the kingdom of God

Lesslie Newbigginin ‘As the Father has sent me, I am

sending you’

We have caught the vision splendidOf a world which is to be,When the pardoning love of JesusFreely flows from sea to sea,When all men from strife and anger,Greed and selfishness are free,When the nations live togetherIn sweet peace and harmony.

Doris RendellThe Salvation Army Songbook 833

We would help to build the cityOf our God, so wondrous fair;Give our time, bring all our talents,And each gift of beauty rare,Powers of mind, and strength of purpose,Days of labour, nights of strain,That God's will may be accomplished,O'er the kingdoms he shall reign.

 Doris Rendell .

The Salvation Army Songbook 833 .

Building the peace of Christ in our divided

and broken world