Making peace in a sometimes hostile world

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” This seventh beatitude carries with it a great promise. The peacemakers are embraced as a part of the family of God and the kin of Jesus himself.

For the follower of Jesus, there is no higher status.

Two things must be noted up front. The blessing does not come to the peaceful, but to the peacemaker. Next, we need to be reminded that peace is a translation of the Hebrew word shalom. Shalom is experienced when everything is the way it ought to be.

The most eloquent picture of shalom in the entire Bible is found in the poetry of chapter 11 of the book of Isaiah.

The spirit of God will reign supreme. Wisdom and understanding will prevail. The counsel of God will be embraced.

The poor will find justice, and the meek will be treated with equity. And then the prophet paints a series of pictures: Wolves relax with lambs, leopards are at home with the kid, the calf and the lion eat together, the cow and the bear graze together and a small child is content among them all.

Often Jesus is recorded as acknowledging his disciples with the simple greeting “shalom.” Every letter the Apostle Paul wrote to other Christians began with some form of shalom greeting. Jesus and early Christians took peacemaking very seriously.

The history of Christian churches is filled with aggressive violence. How can this be? How can Christians justify the use of violence in any form?

Christians have found one Bible way to escape the Jesus demand for peacemaking by taking a short passage found in the Matthew gospel and twisting it to create a way out of the demands of peacemaking.

In chapter 10 of the Matthew gospel Jesus is quoted as saying, “You think that I am bringing peace to the world.

I have not come to bring peace to the world, but a sword.” During the past 20 centuries most Christians have taken this to mean that in some circumstances it is OK to be violent. When put into context, there is no way these words can be used to justify violence by followers of Jesus; however, Christians have used this passage to justify every level of violence from personal defense to full-fledged war. Christians have used this passage to trump all the peace teachings of Jesus.

We seem to forget that Jesus told Peter, “Put up your sword.”

What was Jesus’ intent when he made reference to the sword? First, he was recognizing that peacemaking often does not evoke peaceful responses. Peacemaking is threatening to those who hold the power of the sword. Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King are prime examples. Over and over again peacemakers are killed, not with a sword in their own hands, but by the sword in someone else’s hand.

It is incredible to see how many swords are drawn in the name of peacemaking.

Peacemaking is not a passive exercise. Peacemaking is aggressively active. Peacemakers are peace activists. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his “Cost of Discipleship” wrote that followers of Jesus “renounce all violence and tumult. Disciples keep peace by choosing to endure suffering rather than inflict it on others. In so doing they overcome evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate.”

According to Bonhoeffer, true followers, in the process of suffering, become partners with Jesus in his work of reconciliation.

I have great admiration for the peaceful Christians of history; however, I also have a criticism. The Amish, the Mennonites and almost all the pacifist Christian groups have lived their peace-filled lives by withdrawing from mainstream life. They have typically set up colonies and have withdrawn rather than fully engaging the violent powers that are the rulers of this world.

The peacemakers in the teachings of Jesus do not find peace in withdrawing, but by actively engaging.

Jesus taught that “those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” This is my greatest fear and concern for our beloved America. Our America has lived its entire history by the sword.

We have always found a way to justify our wars. Not one of our explanations address the standards set down by Jesus from Nazareth in the seventh beatitude.

When will we ever learn?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

The Rev. Howard Bess is the pastor of Church of the Covenant, an American Baptist church in Palmer. His e-mail address is hadbss@mtaonline.net.