Peacemaker, Not Peacekeeper
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Scriptures: Matthew 5:9-10; 38-45
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Summary: In the fourth sermon of our series, Grounded, Jeremy explores what it means to be a peacemaker, drawing from Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. First, he reflects on the Beatitudes, emphasizing that God's kingdom is already near to those on the margins. Jeremy shares how peace is not the absence of conflict but something that must be intentionally created. He then addresses Jesus’ sayings: turn the other cheek, give your cloak, go the extra mile. Each of Jesus’ sayings call for nonviolent resistance that exposes injustice. Jeremy finishes by urging us to engage conflict thoughtfully, both personally and systemically, as a way of participating in God’s dream for peace on earth.
Marriage Stories: Jeremy shares a story from his marriage: conflict is inevitable, but peace requires intentional engagement. He introduces us to three conflict styles (toward, away, against). Recognizing our default conflict styles helps us choose healthier responses. Naming what's happening creates space for transformation.Cheeks: Jeremy starts with Jesus’ words from the beatitudes. He highlights how turning the other cheek is not submission but reclaiming dignity without violence. He explains how these turning the other cheek challenges power without replicating harm.
Cloaks: Jeremy explores Jesus’ exaggerated example of a someone so caught by greed that they legally demand everything that’s yours—down to your undergarments. He highlights how greed can masquerade as justice and how peacemaking sometimes means disrupting what’s “normal.”
Miles: Going a second mile is about reclaiming agency under oppression. Instead of reacting, we respond with deliberate grace. We choose how to walk in the world, even when power tries to decide for us. Rather than simply submission, each of these actions are about exposing what’s broken while maintaining your dignity.
Making Peace: Jeremy argues that true peace doesn’t come from avoiding conflict, but from engaging it with courage and compassion. Whether in relationships, politics, or global crises, our actions can begin to dream with God and imagine a different world. Peacemaking is the hard, hopeful work of revealing God’s kingdom in our lives and communities.
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Community is shaped by the conversations we share. These questions and reflections are a tool to help you meaningfully engage with the themes of this week's teaching.
Connect: What are your thoughts about these different “styles of conflict.” Jeremy shared about his marriage and three different styles of conflict that he learned about in therapy:
Toward: is about choosing the other person over your interests, or sometimes giving in.
Away: is about stepping back form conflict to process, or in some cases to avoid
Against: is when you lean in and stand up for yourself, or you are always ready for a fight.Jeremy made it clear that, at times, each of these can be good and healthy, at other times, they can be unhealthy. He mentioned that we tend to favour one primary mode and one secondary mode.
Q: If you feel like sharing, what mode of engaging in conflict do you suppose you tend to default to? What mode would you say is secondary?
Share: Share about what tension you might see between the idea of “an eye for an eye” and “turn the other cheek.” Consider Jeremy’s words:
“The kingdom of God will not come because you look away when someone slaps you, but when you turn back toward them—make eye contact—and let them know their violence has no power to take you off the path of Christ.”
Q: In what way has Jeremy’s explanation of Jesus’ “turn the other cheek” changed your understanding of power and protest? How does this compare to the principle of “an eye for an eye?”
Reflect: Reflect on the idea of “going the extra mile,” and Jesus’ other words in Matthew 5, as an act of revealing what’s broken while maintaining dignity.
Q: Can you think of a time when a nonviolent or creative response revealed something broken in a situation you were part of?
Engage: Engage with the idea of creating peace in different areas of your life. Turning the other cheek is one example on a interpersonal level. Think through what turning the other cheek looks like in your communities or perhaps in systemic settings.
Q: What might “creating peace,” based on the sermon, look like in your interpersonal relationships, your relationships with your community, or your relationship to something bigger, like your country?
Take away: What is your takeaway from the message or today’s conversation?
Prayer from the sermon:
Gracious God,
as we gather in this place,
we open ourselves to your presence with us.
Plant our feet firmly in your love,
steady our hearts in your peace,
guide our minds toward your path in the world.Where we are perhaps tired from a long week,
give us rest and recovery.
Where we are restless from an anxious week,
give us courage and calm.
Where we are divided—perhaps within ourselves—or maybe across some artificial lines;
draw us together in Christ.Might our worship today shape not only our words
but importantly our lives,
so that we might become the peacemakers our world longs for without understanding.
In the strong name of the risen christ, we pray
amen. -
CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 108
MUSIC Curated by Rebecca S.
Firm Foundation
My Hallelujah
Desert Song
Always Good
A PRAYER FOR TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
Written by Yelena Pakhomova and adapted by Alexandra ChubachiCreator God, who cares for how we live together.
Today, we remember that our stories are inseparable from the stories of the land we’ve come to call home.
We are planted here, in this country we call Canada.
Its past guides us, we live in its present, and together, we are shaping its future.So today, we remember not only the hospitality of this land but also the wounds inflicted on it, especially on the people who called this land home long before us.
May we continue to listen to our Indigenous siblings and gently hold the truth of their stories, until we all heal.
Jesus who wept, today, we remember the weeping of families whose children never returned home.
We acknowledge the colonial legacy of the residential schools.
We confess the complicity of the Christian church in the unimaginable harm done to the Indigenous people.
And, we grieve the extent of the trauma that our Indigenous siblings still carry in their bodies and their communities.
May we embrace the truth of those failures as part of our collective story, so that we can heal the damage together.
Spirit of peace, who promised to lead us into truth. As we remember the lives cut short and honour the survivors, would you help us once again to commit to living in the way of Christ:
To seek justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God, knowing that our God walks with those who are hurting.
May we seek reconciliation as our mutual goal and the way of life,until we all heal together.
In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.
SERIES BUMPER
Grounded
