Peace Sunday 2018 - A Renewed Peace Church Welcomes the Stranger (French, Spanish, and German included)

Throughout the biblical narrative we encounter a God who reminds his people to show hospitality to others, especially those who are the most vulnerable in society – the widow, the orphan, and the (or stranger). God reminds his people that they too were once vulnerable – strangers in a distant land, enslaved and oppressed. And yet, through a generous act of hospitality itself, God saves them from these conditions and reminds his people to likewise be hospitable toward others who might be foreigners, vulnerable, enslaved or oppressed.

This message is apt in today’s world of rising nationalisms, self-interest and self-preservation, all of which fly in the face of God’s reminder to be open to and welcome the stranger.

If our desire is to be a Renewed Peace Church (as we build on the Renewal 2027 process on which MWC has embarked), how, therefore, do we faithfully witness to this in our context?