“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
Matthew 5:9
So far we have been the fruit of Jesus Christ—the Peacemaker. He has brought peace between God and us, and he has taught us to live in peace with one another by loving one another. However, at this stage, we are no longer satisfied with our own peace with God and others; we want to become peacemakers—to bring peace between people and God, and among people, just as Christ did it for us. In other words, we want to reproduce and bear fruit.
There is a popular term floating around the self-development community called “significant life.” In the past half a century, a lot of Americans have found their way to a successful life, but they found out that success doesn’t bring them ultimate satisfaction. So they started to look for something beyond success and they called it a “significant life,” a life that gives them true satisfaction that their money, status, possessions, and prosperity can not give.
Many leadership gurus have tried to define “significant life.” John Maxwell said that a successful life is when you develop yourself to become a leader, and a significant life is when you help other people to become leaders. In other words, success is when you improve yourself to become successful and significance is when you help others to become successful. Rick Warren, on the other hand, defines significant life as the purpose-driven life.
However, I believe if Jesus were here with us today, he would have defined significant life as a “fruitful life” because throughout his teaching, he repeatedly asked us to bear fruit. Even his last word on earth, known as the Great Commission, talked about reproduction, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” (Mat. 28:19-20)
To make disciples is to be a peacemaker because it involves two peacemaking activities. The first is to help people make peace with God because Jesus asked us to baptize them, which is to bring them to reconciliation with God. The second is to help them make peace with one another by teaching them what Christ has commanded us. What did he command us? We have talked about it in the previous blessing. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) Therefore, it is about peacemaking among people.
Ultimately, it is all about relationships, to help people build a healthy relationship with God and with one another. In fact, we are challenged by Jesus to bring the entire world, “all nations,” in to healthy relationships. That’s what Jesus meant by fruitfulness.
Since Jesus is the Son of God and he is the Peacemaker, when we become peacemakers, we are living the life of Christ, and therefore we are called God’s children. God is no longer a religious God, but our Parent. That’s the ultimate relationship!
1 – Make Peace a Pure Heart
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” 2 Corinthians 5:18
A friend of mine told me how he used to be a social justice activist. Social justice is a form of peacemaking; it begins with the love for the poor and oppressed, liberating them, and striving for a society that loving one another becomes a reality. One day he woke up from his dream realizing that while his intentions were good, his motives were flawed. He had been fighting for justice with much anger in his heart and ended up “fighting for justice with injustice.”
So my friend left his social justice movement and sought to develop his spiritual life. Now he is teaching spiritual formation, and warning people not to enter social justice movement without a fully developed spiritual maturity. To be a peacemaker is to be in the life-changing business. We can’t change lives unless our lives are changed.
When we fight for justice with an impure heart, we would end up in a ‘revolution.’ ‘Revolution’ means revolving or rotating, even though it also means social change. As a result, instead of changing the society for better, we end up rotating seats for a different round of oppression. Communist movements in many countries started out as a revolution for social justice and they are good instances of rotating seats for a different form of oppression.
In the context of the above scripture, Paul said, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” The term “in Christ” is of the same concept as in the blessing of “the pure in heart,” and Jesus’ calls us into this kind of relationship by inviting us to “abide in” him.
The result of being “in Christ” is that we become a new creature and everything around us becomes new. We no longer see people around us with judgmental thoughts; we see them as potential followers of Christ and potential peacemakers. We don’t fight for social justice with anger and vengeance, but we seek social justice for reconciliation of the world. As peacemakers, our call is to reconcile, not to judge the perpetrators on behalf of the victims because, as we mentioned earlier, the perpetrators are many a time victims at some point of their lives.
Just turn on the TV or look around us, we see many vengeful social activists and politicians. None of them are effective because of their unhealthy motives and “unjust justice.” On the other hand, the actions of the true peacemakers are blessed by God because they seek reconciliation.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech is a great example, “...I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together...” That is a peacemaker!
2 - Make peace as an Ambassador for Christ
“So we are ambassadors for Christ ... in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:20-21
In our fourth blessing, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” we discussed what righteousness means, particularly God’s righteousness, as in “Strive first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” (Matthew 6:33) In brief, God’s righteousness is not about following religious rules and rituals, but living a healthy relationship with God and others. The cross, with its vertical and horizontal bars, is a great visual symbol of righteousness.
Now, Paul says, “in him” we might become the righteousness of God. He is not talking about that we become righteous, but he said that we become “the righteousness.” This means we are not only justified by the love of God through Christ, but we begin to embody God’s righteousness and become “ambassadors for Christ” transforming the world by peacemaking between human beings with God and with one another.
It is important to know that we are embodying Christ because peacemaking is a tough job. Peacekeeping within ourselves is already tough enough; peacemaking in a world where there is no peace is extremely difficult, even though it might sound impressive. Remember Jesus—the Peacemaker—gave his life making peace. To become a fruitful follower might mean a rough road ahead. That’s why Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
But there is a surprise on the road, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25) The life we find by losing it for the sake of God’s righteousness is a real and abundant life.
The key is not to lose sight of how we are to be peacemakers. We can’t be effective peacemakers by ourselves because only “in Christ” we are peacemakers, ambassadors, and embodiment of righteousness. As Jesus described it in John 15, we are just branches and we can do nothing without attaching to the vine. By ourselves, we can spend all our energy trying to squeeze out fruits and ultimately it will still be fruitless. When we are attached to the vine fruit bearing becomes natural.
Paul said, “For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” (Ephesians 2:14) Notice it says that Jesus is our peace. If we are making peace without him we will only get anxiety attacks because we are not God, yet we try to play god.
There is a difference between playing god and being God’s children. Playing god is to be in business on our own. Being God’s children is to be in the family business. Our Father is a peacemaker, our Elder Brother is a peacemaker, and we are blessed when we join the family business and become peacemakers, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God!” Matthew 5:9
3 - Make Peace through God’s Creation
“Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” Genesis 1:26
Today is the earth day! I would like to mention about God’s creation.
Years ago, my son and I adopted a kitten with respiratory infection and went to a veterinarian for treatment. Realizing that I was a minister, the vet said that he would treat the cat for free if I promised to preach a sermon on behalf of the animals. I said, “Deal!” and ever since then I have been preaching a sermon on animal, or a least mentioning them, once a year. I am not an animal activist, but I see in the suffering of animals, the signs of human sins.
Since the righteousness of God has to do with the relationships between human beings with God and with one another, we emphasize “social” justice in our peacemaking efforts. Where do animal justice, environmental justice, etc. fit into our fruitful life? These concerns usually fall under the topic of stewardship since animals and nature are what God has entrusted us to take care of. Because of this belief, Jews and Christians are most active in the scientific research to understand God’s creation so that we would know how to take care of them.
In fact our stewardship of God’s creation has to do with our peace with God. We all are familiar with St. Bernard’s expression, “Quo me amat, amat et canem meam,” meaning “Love me, love my dog.” If you love anyone, you will like all that belongs to that person. In this sense, our seeking of justice for the animals and environment can be a result of our peace with God and love for God. The Parable of the Talents, in Matthew 25:14-30, tells the story of the servant that does not have peace with his boss buried the resource that he was entrusted to take care of.
The story of the Beauty and the Beast is told in many cultures in many versions. It makes me wonder if it came from the innate human perception of the salvation story. I particularly like the Disney’s version in which everything in the castle becomes corrupt because of the corruption of the prince. According to human logic, only the prince should suffer from his own sins and turn into a beast. However, the innocent maid turns into a broom, the servants become teacups, and the gatekeeper becomes a stone animal.
All human beings are like the Beasts because we are all fallen prince and princesses. The sad story is the entire environment is corrupt because of our corruption. Animals suffer because of our corruption, and the rain forests depletes because of it. Jesus came to us like the Beauty and kissed us with his blood on the cross and restored us back to prince and princess. In the story of the Beauty and the Beast, everything in the castle was restored when the prince was restored.
There will come a time, “in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.” (2 Peter 3:13) But for now we have peacemaking jobs to do to reconcile the world so that the new heaven and new earth will become a reality and God righteousness is at home here on earth.
