wfn.org | ELCA Women's Triennial News

[George Conklin <gconklin@igc.apc.org>]

July 12, 1996

WORSHIP OPENS WOMEN OF THE ELCA CONVENTION
96-WO-08-AH

     MINNEAPOLIS (ELCA)  -- The Rev. April Ulring Larson told the
convention of Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that
it is dangerous to follow Jesus and proclaim peace.  The third triennial
convention opened Thursday, July 11 under the theme
"Proclaim God's Peace," with 5,700 participants registered.  Larson,
bishop of the ELCA's LaCrosse Area Synod, preached for the event's
opening service of Holy Communion at the Minneapolis Convention
Center.
     "To be a follower of Christ is dangerous," Larson said.  "To proclaim
God's peace is to show up suffering and pain, hatred and death -- by
acts of healing to testify to the suffering in that place," she said.  "It will
be troubling.  When you name what's going on, it's troubling.  Jesus tells
us,  Do not be afraid.'"
     Larson talked about a peacemaker from her own family, a cousin who
was killed by a firing squad in Chechnya.  "The people that shot
Fred did not know he was a man of peace.  They did not know about
peace or trust.  They hadn't heard that Christ is our peace, that
Christ has broken down the dividing walls of hostility."
     Larson said, "Fred worked with refugees.  He was a minister of
healing, a man of peace.  The firing squad did not know he brought
healing to a suffering people; to them he was simply the enemy, so he
was killed.  They did not remember or had never heard of God's peace.
     "Fred knew the risk and cost of being a peacemaker," Larson said.
"Peacemakers stir things up.  Look at Jesus, he stirred up controversy
wherever he went."  She said, "If you speak of peace people will call
you names, even take your life."
     Larson said, "To be a proclaimer of peace in daily life is to speak
against injustice, to be a pest, to call the church ... and the world to what
is right."  She said, "The CEOs, the Pentagon, the mafia, the generals, the
drug dealers do not run this world.  When you proclaim God's peace you
will make a differences in this world and in our church."
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