Thoughts & Homilies

Some Words From Your Pastor About the War with Iraq

March 21, 2003

What can we say of this war?

There are some things that people of faith can all agree on:
we want the war over,
we want a minimum of human suffering and death,
we want comfort for those who mourn,
we want more good to come out of this conflict than evil.
we want any weapons of mass destruction to be discovered and destroyed,
and we want this event to lead to less terrorism - not more.

Only time will tell whether these objectives will be attained. In the meantime, we want hope.

There will come a time when this war will be over. How soon that will occur depends to a great extent on us, God's people. Will we influence our political leaders to build bridges to the Moslem world, for example, or will the rhetoric of hatred pick up once more? Literally, it's in our hands. If we genuinely reach out to people of other faiths with the love of Christ, we can help solve many of the world's problems. The best way to comfort and heal our world is for us to follow the way of Christ - the way of love, the way of justice rendered with a healthy dose of compassion and forgiveness.

In our prayer for peace let us remember all who are affected by war: the people involved in combat and their families, civilians in war zones, our leaders and decision makers, and all who are working for peace anywhere in the world.

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