Peacemakers

Of all the beatitudes, this one keeps coming back to me lately.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.”

— Matthew 5:9

Now at this point, I could go off on a rant about the war and suffering inflicted on people over the centuries in Jesus’ Name. I’ll spare you that — except to say that, given the fact that so many people reject Christ, 2,000 years on, maybe we need to accept that war is not the way to advance the Kingdom: just sayin’. Rather, let’s talk about peace and that blessing, in particular.

Do you notice that none of the beatitudes mentions people who gain a physical or worldly advantage over others? They all refer to things people can choose to do or be. It takes a particular type of person to make war: a military leader, a warrior, someone who measures success in dead bodies and land taken. Not everyone can do that. Not everyone can be a Samson or a Joshua.

But anyone can choose to calm down a situation, turn to Jesus, and bring peace. And when they do, they are called the sons of God.

Jesus was talking about Himself, of course, being the Prince of Peace and the Son of God, but just as He said that those who do His Father’s will are His brothers and sisters, so are those who choose peace over strife.

When it comes to war, some would say that that was the only way to stop the likes of Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Moammar Gaddafi, Osama bin Laden or any of the factions of IS, the Taliban, Boko Haram, and on and on. People rejoiced over the deployment of MOAB — the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb — that wiped out a suspected IS stronghold: “someone had to defend those civilians [who had been massacred previously],” they said. But if you reverse-engineer that situation and other points in history, if God’s peace had been brought to bear earlier, the populist waves that allowed those people to take power would not have gotten traction and (in the case of the MOAB bombing) the civilians would still be alive, along with a lot of others who were massacred.

And in the final analysis, the evil that the war was supposed to stop has continued — only the names have been changed.

Peace is not just about avoiding war, but about bringing God’s will over any situation. War involves one side winning and the other side losing. In peace, everybody wins, which is what God wants. Finding peace, therefore, means calling on God to take control, asking for His wisdom, and following through.

Being a peacemaker means knowing how to argue with people who disagree with you — especially in matters of faith. God gives us the wisdom to know when someone’s spiritual door is open to the idea of Jesus and when it’s shut tight; also to know when to press a point and when to “kick the dust off your feet” and move on. Being a peacemaker means not looking for the decisive “mike drop” that will “win”. As Bishop Noel Jones has said, “You could win an argument, but lose a soul”.

When you declare peace on a situation, you are breaking that vicious circle. War breeds war, as each side tries to get that last kick and avoid being the one to holler “uncle!” Peace also breeds peace, but in the fury of war (substitute any kind of worldly strife), it takes a super-human effort to say, “enough!”, and change the entire direction.

That’s probably why Jesus says those who aim for peace get to be called sons of God.