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Last updated on
Nov. 25, 2003
The Peacemakers
Delivered on Peace Sunday, November 9, 2003
by Pastor Werner De Jong
Text: Matthew 5:8-10
Main Idea: Peacemakers are disciples who gladly accept the call of Jesus, and submit to their Lord in everything. Their one desire is to do God's will, and God's will is peace. Peacemakers actively work for peace, and are willing to suffer for it, just like their Lord. Hence they will be called the children of God.
Purpose: To encourage the listeners that they show themselves to be God's own children when they are peacemakers. To challenge the listeners to seek peace actively, and to be willing to suffer, if necessary, as they obey God's will.
Introduction: Today is Peace Sunday, and I've chosen for our text what is probably Jesus' best known pronouncement on the subject, taken from that most famous part of the Sermon on the Mount known as the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God" (Mt. 5:9). There is no greater need in our world than the need for peacemakers, both in our homes, in our communities, and abroad.
Context: As we begin to study this verse, we must put it in context: the Beatitudes pronounce blessings on a particular group of people, on Jesus' disciples, on those who have forsaken everything else to follow him. They are the blessed ones. Each of the beatitudes is not describing a separate set of people; taken together they describe the blessings reserved for those disciples who have wholeheartedly responded to Jesus' call.
It is interesting that of all nine Beatitudes, the one on peacemakers is the only one in which Jesus pronounces a blessing on any particular work or service that disciples may engage in, the work of making peace. The other Beatitudes are all equally vital, but they pronounce blessings, not so much on work or service, but more on inner states of being, on inner longings, on inner character. Listen to the beatitudes which come before the one on peacemaking: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart." One way of looking at these Beatitudes is to suggest that they are the inner traits necessary for peacemaking. Peacemakers are poor in spirit, peacemakers mourn the strife in the world, peacemakers are meek, peacemakers hunger and thirst for righteousness, peacemakers are merciful, peacemakers are pure in heart. The final two Beatitudes, which come after the one on peacemaking, announce that such peacemakers can expect to suffer for their activity, but even in their very suffering they are blessed: "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake...Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all sorts of evil against you on my account."
Given all this, there is probably no better way to summarize the calling and work of Jesus' disciples than to say that we are called to be peacemakers. In the book of Acts, in fact, our Lord's own life story is well summarized in the phrase "the good news of peace." Peter used it when he was speaking with Cornelius:"This is the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all" (10:36). One cannot be a disciple without being a peacemaker, for making peace is what our Master came to do. As Paul writes of Jesus in Ephesians: "He came and preached peace to you who were far away and to you who were near" (4:17). As disciples of Jesus, we are called to follow in our Master's footsteps.
What is Peace: The first thing which earnest disciples of Jesus need to know as we approach this beatitude is what Jesus means by peace. We cannot enter into the happiness pronounced on peacemakers unless we know what kind of peace it is we are to work for.
It is particularly important to look at this question because the word peace is very often used in a different way than Jesus and the Bible used it. Today when people speak of peace what they very often mean is the absence of trouble. Coalition leaders in the Iraqi war often use the word in that way. They speak of "winning the peace" in Iraq. What they mean by that phrase is this: peace will come to Iraq when the enemy is either disarmed, killed, or eliminated in some other way. To be a peacemaker then means to remove one's enemies, or the threat of trouble caused by one's enemies. But the Bible never speaks of peace as the mere absence of trouble, whether on the international scene or in our own lives. It always means, rather, everything which makes for a person's and a people's highest good. Peace comes to people not only when external threats like violence are removed; it comes when all good things that life depends upon are present. To put it again in terms of Iraq, if all violence were to stop in that country at this very moment, we still could not say, biblically speaking, that the people had peace. In order for there to be biblical peace, or "shalom," the hungry would need to have food, the sick would need access to proper health care, the unemployed would need to have meaningful work, broken relationships would need to be healed, and sinners would need to receive and experience God's grace and forgiveness. It is such things, of course, that Jesus' own peacemaking activity consisted of: he fed the hungry, he healed the sick, he lifted up the rejected and the forgotten, he proclaimed the good news of forgiveness, which once accepted, laid the basis for a new relationship with God on which all the other things depend.
In this regard, surely one of the most precious names of God in the Bible is the repeatedly used phrase, "the God of peace." How wonderful it is to have as our God the one who cares about these things, the one whose plan it is to bring wholeness and fullness of healing to all creation, and how wonderful it is to be called by God to join in his peacemaking activity. There is no higher calling, and it is a calling in which all true disciples participate.
Prerequisites for Peacemakers: In order to be effective peacemakers, there are certain prerequisites unconditionally attached to the calling. First of all, and very familiar to us, is the truth that peacemakers must renounce violence as an attempted means to achieve peace. In the cause of Christ nothing is to be gained by such methods. Jesus never hurt a fellow human being, and neither must his followers. Violence only begets more violence. At the very least it causes inner hatred to simmer in the hearts of people. It seems surprising that this simple truth is not more widely acknowledged in today's world.
But then again, Jesus' non-violent approach shocked many of the Jews in his day. They expected the Messiah to be a military one, a national hero who would lead a great war and vanquish the occupying Roman army. This is one of the reasons many Jews did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, even today. How could he be, when rather than conquering the Romans, he was crucified by them? As Paul wrote, such an approach seemed utterly foolish to many people.
But is not the true foolishness the logic of violence? This foolishness is very evident today in the Middle East. In Israel both the Jews and the Palestinians constantly speak of the desire for peace, while at the same time both sides continue to use violent means in an attempt to achieve it. The same is now true in Iraq, where the coalition forces are finding that force is not at all able to "win the peace." It is only resulting in acts of revenge and retaliation. Even among those who do not personally retaliate, hatred for the so called "peacemakers" is beginning to seethe as their country remains occupied by a military force.
As important as non-violence is, there is an even more fundamental prerequisite for peacemakers. It may not be stressed as much as non-violence in some peacemaking circles, but it's even more important, and it cannot be stressed often enough. It's more important because it is the source of our commitment to non-violence. What is this most basic of all prerequisites? At the root of all true Christian peacemaking is this: a voluntary submission to Jesus as Lord of all. The Bible knows no vision of peace that does not centre on the acceptance of God's rule, or God's will. This is why all purely political, or economic, or social attempts to make peace apart from submission to God are ineffective.
The centre of the biblical hope for peace is not a neutral peace in which people, or groups, or nations live peaceably side by side. Rather in the very centre of the biblical hope is God, and the peace that comes when people and groups and nations willingly bow the knee before him. Take the prophecy of Isaiah, for example. He has a wonderfully moving picture of peace in which all the peoples and nations of the world "beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks" (2:4). Imagine how that would look like today in Iraq or Israel or Colombia. What joy it would bring! But how will this come about? Isaiah says it will happen when the nations say to one another: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths" (Is. 2:3). Peace is the result of acknowledging God's reign, of humbly learning from God, and of voluntarily obeying his commands. The psalmist sums it up beautifully: "Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble" (119:165). There can be no true and lasting peace apart from the acceptance of God's rule, or God's kingdom.
In the New Testament peace is just as strongly associated with God.. In fact, Paul displays great spiritual insight when he writes that Jesus, the Son of God, is not only our source of peace, but "he himself is our peace" (Eph. 2:14). Paul is not only speaking here of the peace with God that is the beautiful gift of those who receive Christ, but of the peace that breaks down walls of hostility between groups of people, like Jews and Gentiles. If Jesus is our peace, if he brings peace with God and peace between peoples, how can we be effective peacemakers without daily bowing down before this great Prince of Peace? The absolute, most fundamental prerequisite of Christian peacemaking is for disciples of Jesus to submit to their Lord's will in everything. And only as others also submit to Jesus will true and lasting peace be established.
The Source of Conflict: This becomes clearer if we think about the cause of disputes in our world. What causes people to be in conflict with one another? The best answer to that question is this: when people put their own will above God's will. Another word for this is sin. Ultimately the explanation for trouble in the world is human lust, greed, selfishness and self-centeredness. Disputes arise when one person or people says to another: I want to have my things my way. There is no other way. This only gets worse when two parties say the same thing, for then heated arguments, violence and even wars can break out. But when we all will one thing, when we all submit to God's will, there is no conflict.
The trouble ultimately lies within the human heart, with the stubborn refusal to submit to God's will, and the sinful insistence that it's my way or the highway. Until the heart is changed, you only scratch the surface when it comes to peacemaking. Jesus said: "Out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander" (Mt. 15:19). It seems no coincidence that just before the beatitude on peacemaking is this beatitude: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."
The pure in heart are those whose hearts are free of self-concern, who don't insist on having things their way, and whose only desire is to bring glory to God. This is the essential hallmark of peacemakers. But as long as we think about ourselves, and our rights, we cannot be effective peacemakers, whether in our homes, our communities or on a larger stage. Peacemakers are people who are not always looking at everything in terms of how it will effect them. That spirit is the negation of peacemaking. The peacemaker's one interest in life is not with him- or herself, but with the glory of God. Peacemakers are ready to humble themselves and do anything or everything in order that the glory of God may be promoted. They gladly renounce personal gain, status, money and all other things in order to do God's will. In fact, the only thing they do not renounce is God's will. So once again, the absolute essential prerequisite for peacemaking is submission to Jesus as Lord of all.
How to work for peace: Let's move on. Given these essential prerequisites, we still are left with a very important question. What does peacemaking involve? How do we work for peace? As a matter of much significance, it is clear from the very language Jesus used that peacemaking is something active. Jesus didn't say, "Blessed are those who have peace," but "Blessed are those who make peace."
This is an important distinction. Being a peacemaker is not a matter of natural disposition. Some people by nature are more easy-going than others, they are less likely to get rattled by circumstances, they are less likely to lose their temper. But that does not mean they are peacemakers. Neither are peacemakers conflict avoiders. A peacemaker is not someone who evades difficult issues. A peacemaker, rather, is someone who actively takes the initiative to work for the highest good of others. A peacemaker deals with issues and faces them head on.
Such peacemaking activity must begin at home. Elsewhere in Matthew's gospel Jesus calls us to work hard to restore strained or broken relationships with others, especially with other members of the church. Jesus teaches that if a brother or sister has something against us we must go to them and seek reconciliation before we presume to worship God (Mt. 5:23-24). That is peacemaking, caring enough about our relationships to take the initiative to work through difficult issues.
We can make a principle out of that by saying that peacemakers are people who care enough about others to get involved. They do not remain on the sidelines and watch the world go by. When peacemakers encounter broken relationships, they seek to heal them. When they encounter hunger, they supply food. When they encounter oppression, they stand against it. When they encounter individuals' sin, they call for repentance and announce forgiveness in Jesus' name.
Peacemakers are so committed to cooperating with God in growing his kingdom in these ways that they actively continue in them even in the face of suffering. Perhaps that is the most profound thing we can say about peacemakers, that they are willing to suffer to bring peace to others. They do so because they know that the only way to overcome evil is with good.
Jesus went so far as to say that his disciples can actually expect to suffer. Look again, for example, at the beatitude following the one on peacemaking: "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Mt. 5:10). Why are peacemaking and suffering so interconnected? Doesn't it make more sense that those who work for peace will encounter less trouble than others? This paradox can only be explained if we remember again that peacemaking centres on submission to the will of God. Peacemakers can expect to suffer precisely because they actively confront people and structures which are opposed to the rule of God. If the pure heart of the peacemaker is to do God's will, the heart of the world is to oppose God's will and do its own thing. When peacemakers draw attention to the world's greed, selfishness, lusts and exploitation, many in the world will not hear it kindly. Some will repent and see the Kingdom of God for the good news that it is, but others will only harden their rebellion against God, and strike out at God's peacemakers. But if we are true peacemakers we will endure in our calling, out of love and concern for others, even for our enemies, those who would harm us. When we act like that we show we are willing to obey our Lord who taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
Children of God: We can sum it all up like this: the benediction pronounced on peacemakers is that they will be called "the children of God." That is a wonderful blessing. Why are peacemakers called children of God? Because their Father is the God of peace. That is why he sent his Son. To make peace.
To be a peacemaker is to be like our peace making God, it is to be like the Son of God. Jesus took the initiative by coming from heaven to earth. Jesus actively cared for the needy, announced the possibility of forgiveness, and proclaimed the Kingdom of God. Jesus did not cling to his rights, he did not insist on having his own way. Remember his words in the garden: "Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." Jesus humbled himself in obedience, and suffered, even to the point of death on a cross. Why? Because he was not thinking of himself at all. He was thinking of us. Through his suffering and death Jesus has become the Prince of Peace.
We find the perfect summary of the peacemaker in Philippians 2, and on this note we close: "Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who humbled himself and suffered on the cross to make peace. Therefore God has highly exalted him, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (from Phil. 2:4-11).