BEING PEACEMAKERS

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. This element of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount speaks to the core nature of what it means to be living in the world as the family of God. But Jesus wasn’t the only one to understand the importance of this core virtue in humanity. All great spiritual leaders speak of values that promote peace through compassion, love, and service to others and how that brings us closer to one another and to God, however you understand God.   

But achieving peace is hard work. It takes more than just praying and hoping, or even writing about it. It comes about as a certain way of living that encourages us to live these spiritual principles by, as it has been said, “not only with our lips, but with our lives,” and it’s not always easy. It takes much deep self-reflection and personal healing before we are truly ready to be a peaceful presence. It takes more that just wearing a mask that presents ourselves as calm on the outside when inside we are troubled and triggered by the swirling violence around us. To be peacemakers we must first cultivate peace within ourselves. We cannot give away what we do not possess.

There are those who feel that violence is inevitable and necessary. But this is an illusion. It is not the path to peace. Further, the inconsistency of seeing violence as a horrific act in some contexts but a virtue in others should be deeply disturbing to us. Violence seems to be our default assumption and those who deny that assumption are too often seen as unrealistic dreamers. So it’s clear to see how peacemaking in the face of violence is counter-cultural.

The call to a peaceful response in the face of violence is the narrow gate that leads to life. When those in the world want to take the way of aggression that leads to suffering, we can make the conscious choice to be a peacemaker and point people to the way of peace. Clearly, God never calls us to violence, and Jesus certainly modeled non-violence. This is not some Utopian dream; it is the living dream of God.

I have often heard it said that there is no peace without justice, and that may be true to a degree, but it is incomplete. It is missing the essential element of truth. The road to peace begins with speaking truth. So, I would say it this way: There is no peace with justice, and there is no justice without truth. Because a life built on a foundation of anything other than the truth is shaky at best. But if we can arrive at, and embrace the truth about who we are, then we can make a good start in bringing about change in ourselves and in the world around us that can lead to peace. It is hard work for sure, but undoubtably worth it.

As peacemakers, we need to point people to the narrow way that leads to life. It is clear that Jesus knew this would never be easy. This way of peace under every condition and in all circumstances is the only way to real life. But because of our own finite attachments to ego, our own unresolved wounding, and the need for the tragic folly of a false sense of control and revenge, we all too often choose the illusion that leads to trouble.

Jesus once said that we cannot pour new wine into old wineskins. The idea of revenge and violence as the first and only effective reaction to violence is ingrained and embedded in our culture. This old, rigid and ineffective way of thinking is the old wineskin. The consideration of peace as the first and only response to violence is a new idea for some, but not for all, and it is the new wine for a world that is aching and longing for peace. But we must welcome this new wine of peace with new wineskins – new ways of seeing things, new ways of responding. We must be vessels that are pliable and open to the way of peace, especially in the face of atrocities that tempt us to something lower.

But peace is not a Pollyanna notion that all is ok with the world and that if we just live with blinders on and pretend that the atrocities of the world don’t affect us, then we will be at peace. That is not peace. That is denial. And even worse, this denial can lead to blatant indifference toward our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted and the violence being brought upon them. We then become partners with that same violence and oppression. To be real peacemakers means that, as instruments of peace, we stand facing the worse of these atrocities knowing that there may be a price to be paid. But there is much to be gained. In fact, the entire kingdom of heaven at stake. And Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is not just around us, but within us. Our peace must originate from within us. So, we must first cultivate a peaceful heart and then follow that heart into the world. As the great Sufi poet Hafiz once said: “Make peace within yourself and both heaven and earth will make peace with you.”

Brother Dennis