The Things That Make for Peace: Bread, Trust, and Hope in a Time of Storms
As the United Nations begins its eighty-first year, this eighth edition of The Present Tense reflects on a historic Methodist connection to the UN and the enduring relevance of its aspirations. Through the lenses of bread, storms, trust, and hope, it explores the things that still make for peace.
In my work as the General Board of Church and Society’s representative to the United Nations, October invariably turns my attention to the UN. After all, October 24 is United Nations Day.
Unlike the festive UN Day celebrations of my Philippine elementary school days, when students dressed as UN member countries, today’s observance passes with little fanfare. Yet for Methodists and Wesleyans, October is more than a date. It is an invitation to remember.
In January 1946, the UN’s first General Assembly met at London’s Methodist Central Hall, turning a place of worship into a gathering place for nations. Amid war’s aftermath, delegates envisioned a different future. In 1963, Methodists opened the Church Center for the United Nations across from its New York headquarters, reflecting their belief that public and personal life alike require reconciliation, moral purpose, and hope.
Over the past several months, that conviction has accompanied me in different places and conversations.
During a side event at the 2026 High-Level Political Forum, I reflected on hope. Not as optimism, nor as a destination beyond the horizon, but as moral resolve. Hope as the floor beneath our feet rather than the ceiling above our heads. Hope as the courage to keep building what is fragile and to remain together through the storms that threaten it.
At the Church Center for the United Nations, I spoke about trust during an interfaith service commemorating the 2026 International Day of Peace and the start of the eighty-first UN General Assembly. In a world marked by conflict, polarization, and suspicion, trust has become one of the scarcest public goods. Without it, institutions weaken. Without it, cooperation frays.
During a Geneva meditation at the joint Monday morning praise service for World Council of Churches staff and General Board of Church and Society directors, I spoke of bread, storms, and communities of hope. Bread reminds us that God cares about our daily, material needs—and that care is shared. Storms show that uncertainty and upheaval persist throughout human history. Hope comes not from denying storms, but from staying together through them.
Bread. Storms. Trust. Hope.
Increasingly, I see these not as separate reflections but as parts of the same story.
The United Nations was established upon aspirations that remain profoundly relevant: human dignity, peace and security, sustainable development, social progress, and relations among nations governed by law, not domination. These are global aspirations and local necessities.
Peace, human rights, and sustainable development are local.
Communities flourish or fail in neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and congregations long before those realities appear in international reports. Local and global realities arrive together.
This is why, despite the many criticisms of the United Nations and the multilateral system, I resist the temptation to be cynical. We live in a season when international law is challenged, multilateral institutions are weakened, and powerful states prioritize immediate interests over shared responsibilities. Yet the answer is not abandonment. The answer is renewal.
Storms reveal what holds and what fails. The disciples learned this on the Sea of Galilee; each generation learns it anew. They also show why covenants matter: despite their flaws, the United Nations and other institutions uphold international law and cooperation. When commitments fray, the vulnerable suffer most; without cooperation, power eclipses principle and human dignity.
As the United Nations begins its eighty-first year and searches for its next Secretary-General, this too is an occasion for discernment. The question before us is larger than personalities or geopolitics. It concerns the moral imagination these times require. What leadership can renew confidence in our shared responsibilities and summon nations back to the Charter’s unfinished promises?
Perhaps that is why United Nations Day matters. It is not a celebration of institutional perfection. It is a reminder that humanity still needs common tables around which to gather, common commitments that transcend national boundaries, and common hopes capable of carrying us through the storms of our age.
That insight applies to the church as well.
The recent United Methodist Leadership Gathering in Calgary called the church to face the future with hope, imagination, and shared responsibility. The United Nations fosters cooperation among nations, while the United Methodist Church nurtures connections across cultures and regions. Both depend on relationships across differences and remind us that isolation hinders flourishing. Through its public witness, the church advances peace, justice, and the common good, demonstrating that unity can embrace diversity without uniformity.
And so I find myself returning once more to the things that make for peace.
Bread, because there must be enough for everyone.
Trust, because no common future can be built without it.
Hope, because despair has never healed a wound, reconciled a people, or transformed the world.
These are not only the aspirations of the United Nations but also signs of the kind of community to which faith continually calls us: one in which dignity is protected, peace is pursued, creation is cherished, and every person has a place at the table.
In such a community, perhaps we rediscover that the work of the United Nations and the vocation of public discipleship are no strangers to one another. Both begin with the conviction that our futures are bound together, and both endure because hope remains stronger than fear.
