Hush

I.        Vows of Affirmation

“We devote our daily life to God, and to serving our neighbors as images of God”

4. I will live, speak and act with courtesy, respect, and honesty toward friend and enemy, neighbor and stranger.

("A World without Words" by Christian V. via Flickr)

We live in a world of many words. More words flying around than at any time in history. Twitter, blogs, 24-hour news, billboards, morning radio shows, sermons, email marketing campaigns, newspaper editorials. Words are cheap, words are abundant, words have to out-shout the others to even be heard and “go viral.” Many of our words end up unheard, ignored, misunderstood, simply drowned out. Or they bring undo fear, pain, division, hatred. Or worse, they distract us, deafen us, numb us and cause us to miss God’s voice. 
 

Long Christian history (and other spiritual traditions) offers a forgotten spiritual discipline that is a key to following Jesus as peacemakers: Silence. When we are truly silent (including our own interior chatter) we are left to pay attention to God. To overcome the violence, misunderstandings, and anxiety in the world God calls us to listen carefully to God’s own words rather than ours. In attentive silence we listen for God speaking, telling us how to carry out the peaceable actions of today’s vow: “I will live, speak and act with courtesy, respect, and honesty toward friend and enemy, neighbor and stranger.” 

Not by Myself

I.        Vow of Affirmation 
“We devote our daily life to God, and to serving our neighbors as images of God”

3. I will live, speak and act with truth, compassion, kindness, gentleness, mercy, patience, generosity, and expectant hope that others will respond in kind.

When faced with lists of to-dos or to-bes, I can get slogged down in the hard demand of doing and becoming something better.  In my stubborn independence and "do-it-yourself" response, I miss something important about the discipleship life.  Yes, God’s calling demands sacrifice and perseverant hard work on our part, but only as a response to and an outgrowth of what God has already begun in us by God's Holy Spirit. In the end it begins with God’s faithful work and not simply ours.

("the shift" by Cornellia Kopp via Flickr)

After the tragic shooting at the West Nickel Mines school house, the Amish community persevered in the painfully compassionate work of forgiving Charlie Roberts. In Forgiveness, John Ruth notes that this Christian act was “not a strategy or skill, but the fruit of a radical reorientation.” Yes, it certainly took a stalwart moral commitment on the part of the Amish in Lancaster County to live, speak and act with kindness and mercy, but it was only made possible by the work that Christ had already begun long before in them as a tight-knit church community. Paul calls this preliminary initiating work New Creation. He likens it to fruit grown in us by the Holy Spirit, or new clothes washed and put on us by Christ. 

Loving What God Loves

I.        Vows of Affirmation

“We devote our daily life to God, and to serving our neighbors as images of God”

2. I will seek the image of God in each and every person; I will treat them as fully worthy of the good I desire for myself.

("Holy Trinity" Andrej Rublev via Wikimedia Commons)

The foundation for loving our neighbor (not to mention our enemy) is the conviction that they bear the very image of God and even have a calling from this God who loves them unceasingly. Trappist monk Thomas Merton writes clearly, “[A person] cannot be at peace with himself or with God unless he is trying to love others with a love that is not merely his but God’s own love.” Merton offers great insight into today’s vow in the following two paragraphs from, No Man Is an Island:

 “It is clear, then, that to love others well we must first love the truth. And since love is a matter of practical and concrete human relations, the truth we must love when we love our [sisters and] brothers is not mere abstract speculation: it is the moral truth that is to be embodied and given life in our own destiny and theirs. This truth is more than the cold perception of an obligation, flowing from moral precepts. The truth we must love in loving our brothers is the concrete destiny and sanctity that are willed for them by the love of God. One who really loves another is not merely moved by the desire to see him contented and healthy and prosperous in this world. Love cannot be satisfied with anything so incomplete. If I am to love my [sister], I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God’s love for [her]. I must be moved not only by human sympathy but by that divine sympathy that is revealed to us in Jesus and which enriches our own lives by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.”

In Christ Alone

I.        Vows of Affirmation

“We devote our daily life to God, and to serving our neighbors as images of God” 

   
1. I will daily offer my life to God with reverence and a living faith; I will daily pray to be used as a servant by God for the good of my neighbors near and far. 

("Agnus Dei" by Trish Steel, CC)

Making—and keeping—a discipleship covenant is no easy thing, especially one with twenty different vows! But this Covenant of Christian Peacemaking  is not mostly about individual moral heroics and rigid perfectionism. We will follow it incompletely (the Covenant itself is incomplete), we will miss the mark. Yet the main focus is not simply on our getting it exactly right, but in serving God and neighbor with as much of our being as possible. Love of God and neighbor is at the true center of our peacemaking, not some outside ethical principle of pacifism.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer says much the same in the following paragraph from The Cost of Discipleship:

Life Together

IV.    Vows of Voluntary Sacrifice

“We freely offer up our appetites, wealth, and pride to relieve the suffering of the world,

for the sake of our neighbors and God’s joy.”

12. I will seek out and yield to the counsel and direction of my sisters and brothers for growing into the Spirit and likeness of Jesus Christ; I will regularly seek the aid and instruction of my brothers and sisters for growing in faithfulness. 

Leader Ervin Stutzman receiving counsel from Church Youth

There is one unavoidable piece that hasn’t yet been mentioned in these twenty Covenant vows: the  necessity of participating in Christian faith community. If our nonviolent discipleship to Jesus is to cover every aspect of our life and have the strength to last through the ups and downs of our entire lives, it will have to be formed in Christ’s own body, the church. Granted, it’s true we can all think of folks we know who better exemplify bits and pieces of these peacemaking vows who aren’t consistently, deeply networked into a Christian faith community—they may not even consider themselves to be Christian. It may even be you trying to live Jesus’ cross-bearing life on your own! But there is something about Jesus’ call that is not possible outside of his community of people.

You've Got to Serve Somebody

IV.    Vows of Voluntary Sacrifice

“We freely offer up our appetites, wealth, and pride to relieve the suffering of the world, for the sake of our neighbors and God’s joy.”

 

12. I will discipline my appetite for possessions through limiting acquisition of things to my true needs; through treating all my possessions and wealth as a trust from God for extending God’s blessings to the suffering in the world; through sharing generously with my neighbors; and by consuming conscientiously and simply so that I do not deprive others of the means to live.

("Money Chain" by Nina Helmer via Flickr)

Without looking very hard I can find evidence that our stuff can easily own us, control us, rob life from us. What’s a bit more difficult to see is that when I am distracted by, anxious about, pursuing after and consuming all the stuff that has been marketed to entice me, I am less able to live a life of compassion and reconciliation with my neighbor as well. My inward focus on my desires and needs, the anxiety about whether there will be enough, my drive to protect what I do have from others (or have someone ensure its protection), or the energy expended in the acquisition of the next thing (and paying off the last one)—all this takes great time and energy in our lives; time we can’t use to pursue God and serve our neighbor.  Jesus must have been on to something when he said we can’t serve two masters, God or mammon!

Slow Food and Fast (ing)

IV.    Vows of Voluntary Sacrifice

“We freely offer up our appetites, wealth, and pride to relieve the suffering of the world, for the sake of our neighbors and God’s joy.”

12. I will discipline my appetite for food through conscientious diet and periodic fasting, especially from foods that impose exceptional burdens on God’s creation or my neighbors, and by refraining from intoxicants.

Some may wonder what eating habits have to do with living in line with God’s shalom. But food movements and cookbooks like More With Less and Simply in Season, alongside growing attention to "local, fresh, in-season, heirloom, organic, fair trade, hormone free, grass-fed, free-range, whole grain" (and so on), have drawn much clearer ethical lines between the things we grow, water, weed or purchase, transport, slice, cook, and ultimately put in our mouths. The interconnections of our overburdened ecosystems are increasingly apparent. There are links between our food sources, and the health, well-being and peace of ourselves and our neighbors.