“Military Withdrawal: Studying War No More”

2022 Lenten Compact for Peacemaking and Reconciliation

People from many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the Lord’s teaching will go out from Zion; his word will go out from Jerusalem. The Lord will mediate between nations and will settle international disputes. They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore.

Isaiah 2:3-4 (NLT)

Lent is usually a personal time to give up some food or beverage, focus ourselves on God, and reflect on the idols that we have been told we cannot live without. At KANSA, we invite our congregation to participate in a communal fast that focuses us not only on our relationship to God, but also on an aspect of our relationship to our communities, our nation and our world. We are calling our members and friends to a true fast – one that is not just the act of denying oneself of something – but a fast that creates justice and reconciliation, by breaking the yokes that bind us and the yokes that bind our neighbors. (see Isaiah 58:6-7)

This year, we seek to disconnect ourselves from our nation’s reliance upon and worship of the weapons of war and violence as the solution to conflict and a means of peace. Instead, as followers of the “Prince of Peace,” we will “seek peace and pursue it” through acts of justice and mercy.

Through this year’s Compact we will consider how our call to spiritual conversion demands an alternative to militarism on the national, state and local levels, and we will reclaim our role as peacemakers and living into God’s alternative vision for the world–a world where disputes are settled without violence. While we acknowledge that God’s vision of a world without war and violence has yet to fully arrive, we affirm our commitment to the vision of peace and our resolve to withdraw—pull back and disconnect—from militarism that delivers death and destruction wherever it is found.