v9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
"If you were my husband, I’d put poison in your coffee."
-- Lady Astor
"If you were my wife, I’d drink it."
-- Winston Churchill
Conflict we all recognise it is a fact of life and try to avoid it, yet none the less always seem to be involved in it.
This week we moved a stage closer to war with Iraq. Both Tony Blair and George Bush are saying that war is all but inevitable. Yet as the prospect of war grows ever closer, the support for the war seems to be in decline. People in this country seemed to be more and more opposed to a war. So what does Jesus teaching “Blessed are the peacemakers” have to say to us who are thinking of going to war.
The beatitudes are one of the most common passages in the Bible. I’m sure you’ve heard of them before. However, what often escapes our notice is that the beatitudes were written in a context. While we often regard them as timeless principles they were also written to a particular context although this does not mean that we can;t get timeless truths from it. So what was the context. Jesus was the Messiah come to the Jewish people. But again this did not happen in a vacuum. There were certain expectations for the Messiah. To most people of the time, the Messiah was supposed to be the one who would come and bring the people freedom from the Romans and a Jewish state. It is in this context, where the people were expecting a warrior leader to lead them against Rome that Jesus comes and says blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God. In a context where zealots and rebels were everywhere and while not every Jew did take up arms against Rome, almost all supported an armed uprising. Indeed this is precisely what happed between 30 and 40 years after Jesus death and resurrection. And into this context Jesus comes and says blessed are the peacemakers. It wasn’t what the people wanted to hear.
But what about the reward, they will be called sons of God. While we now may view this as a new relationship we have with God, where we can call God Father and we are adopted into Christ’s relationship with the Father, this is probably not what is primarily meant here. That’s not to deny that this relationship exists for Christians, it does but rather to suggest that there is another meaning to the phrase “son of”. At the time of Christ it could mean more than just a biological relationship but it was used as a common metaphor, to mean like. For example James and John were called the sons of thunder, to mean they were like thunder. Or to put it another way, they lacked a way to turn a noun into an adjective, you can tell I have a girlfriend who’s a linguist can’t you, unless of course your an English teacher in which case you can probably tell me the correct term for what I’ve just described. Thus to be a son of God was to be like God, we would say godly. What is ironic here is that the zealots and the others who were for active rebellion against Rome, might refer to themselves as the “sons of God” for being the godly zealous ones who were willing to risk their lives for what they thought was a godly cause. Yet Jesus comes along and says blessed are the peacemakers. They are the truly godly ones. They are the ones who are really like God.
So who exactly was Jesus referring to when he talks about peacemakers?
Just about everybody prefers peace. All other things being equal we would rather live in peace than at war, I don’t think anybody would disagree with that, except perhaps some arms and military equipment manufacturers. Growing up in a stable country where people don’t need to fear for their properties or lives. We would all love world peace. For their to be an end to terrorism, an end to the need for terrorism. At present the news is filled with talk of weapons of mass destruction. We would all no doubt rather live in world without them. You get the picture. Peace is a good thing, especially in a society which faces the prospect of its armies being used to fight in a war and faces the threat of terrorism. We love peace. But Jesus did not say not say blessed are the peace-lovers.
There are others in our society, how do their best to live at peace with everyone. They don’t use violence to achieve their goals. They try to do everything possible to avoid fights. They try to get on with everyone. Then there are those who go further and reject violence. No matter what the provocation they will not retaliate with violence. They live their lives without restoring to violence for any reason. When faced with aggression or opposition they do not resist even to their own hurt and detriment. But Jesus did not say blessed are the peaceful.
Then there are those who actively try to keep the peace. When they see tension rising between two people they will do their best to keep them from coming to blows. Troops are sent to foreign countries like Bosnia and Kosovo to make sure that troops from either side of the argument do not once again start up the war. But Jesus did not say blessed are the peace-keepers.
Not but Jesus did say blessed are the peacemakers. What does it mean to be a peacemaker? I don’t know if any of you have seen it but there was a movie that come out in 1997 called The Peacemaker, those movie experts out there will know that it was in fact the first movie released by the Dreamworks studio and that it starred George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. However, what interests us this morning is that it was rated 15, mostly for violence. Further it was George Clooney’s character, the Peacemaker from the title, who was responsible for a good deal of the violence. How can this be or is this just another case of a badly titled Hollywood movie. I know that if we took a poll of people here about what would take up the most time for a peacemaker they probably wouldn’t say it was running around shooting people. However, the movie makers did at least hint at one thing. In the movie, George Clooney plays an army colonel who has to track down a stolen Russian nuclear weapon before it used by terrorists. Here it is the goal to keep in mind. The job is not to love peace, nor even to be peaceful, nor even to keep the peace but to bring peace were there is none.
That is the essence of what Jesus was saying. It is not merely that we love peace, nor even that we act peacefully ourselves, it is not even enough to try and keep the peace where it exists already, but rather it is to bring peace to where it has not been before. And this is often costly.
Telemachus was a monk who lived in the 5th century. He felt God saying to him, "Go to Rome." He was in a cloistered monastery. He put his possessions in a sack and set out for Rome. When he arrived in the city, people were thronging in the streets. He asked why all the excitement and was told that this was the day that the gladiators would be fighting and killing each other in the coliseum, the day of the games, the circus. He thought to himself, "Four centuries after Christ and they are still killing each other, for enjoyment?" He ran to the coliseum and heard the gladiators saying, "Hail to Caesar, we die for Caesar" and he thought, "this isn’t right." He jumped over the railing and went out into the middle of the field, got between two gladiators, held up his hands and said "In the name of Christ, forbear." The crowd protested and began to shout and the gladiators faced off again. However Telemachus again stepped between the two warring gladiators and attempting to separate them, he said, "In the name of Christ, forbear." Furious that they were being denied their entertainment the crowd picked up stones and stoned him to death. One last time he gasped out, "In the name of Christ forbear." When the emperor heard what had happened he had Telemachus listed as one of the victorious martyrs and he ordered gladiatorial contests ended. It was the last known gladiatorial contest in the history of Rome.
That’s what it means to be a peacemaker. To come upon a situation where there was no peace and to achieve or effect peace in that situation. But our concept of peace is somewhat deficient when we compare it with a Jewish understanding of peace. While it is true that the new testament was written in Greek, the Hebrew word translated peace, shalom would have been behind the Greek word for peace used. And this goes beyond just the cessation of violence or an absence of war. The shalom in Scripture takes in the idea of harmony, fulfillment, and of wholeness, "an ideal state where security, prosperity, righteousness pervade and where right relationships exist."It is a state of well being, when everything as it is supposed to be, everyone and everything is in a right relationship with God, others and the environment. Perhaps in our language it can be describes as the difference between peace and a cease fire or truce. Some guy called John MacArthur, who I’m afraid I have no idea who he was but he did say “A truce just says you don’t shoot for awhile. Peace comes when the truth is known, the issue is settled, & the parties embrace each other.” Peace. The universe as it is supposed to be.
Telemachus was not the only one to give their lives in the cause of this peace. Jesus himself came with the purpose in mind of giving his life that shalom might be brought about. We are going to remember the death of Christ later in our communion service. Jesus paid the ultimate price to reconcile us to God. To bring about right relationships with God and between humans, and if we are to be like him, to be christlike, godly or sons of God then we too must seek to be peacemakers.
So how can we bring about such a condition? How can we bring shalom to places and people which currently do not have shalom? How can we be a peacemaker?
Well the first thing we need to do is to achieve this shalom ourselves. It is impossible to bring peace, shalom to otheres if we ourselves do not possess it. So perhaps the first question is how do we achieve peace with God? We achieve shalom by coming to Christ, by becoming a Christian. By repenting of the sins we have committed, asking God for forgiveness and seeking to follow his way. That makes our relationship with God right but Shalom is also our relationships with others.
Here we must ask God to help us live at peace with others. Romans 12:18 says “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” As we were looking at for the Bible study on Wednesday, it is our responsibility to do our best with God’s help to live at peace with everyone. However, contrary to the popular phrase it does not take two to start a fight. One person is quite capable of being an aggressor no matter how reluctant the other person is. We are called to do nothing (if it is not our Christianity) to cause a break in a relationship and if there is a break everything we can to restore the relationship. Sometimes it can’t be mended by just our effort but we should make the effort with Gods help. This is actually really difficult to do and when people have hurt us it is not easy to forgive them. But God says we must, he has forgiven us and we must forgive others. We should live at peace with all.
And then as an extension of this we should do everything possible to bring shalom to all. Not just in the sense of being at peace with us, but in the sense of being at peace with God and everyone else. To be a peacemaker, is to bring God’s peace to all, not counting the cost. Jesus gave his life to bring about peace, what price do we put on bringing peace, what price is too high to pay to bring the peace that Christ gave all to bring about.
So to summarise we become peacemakers by
1)be at peace with God
2)do all you can to be at peace with others
3)do all you can to bring God’s peace to others
Then you truly will be a son of God
So what does this mean for war with Iraq. As I said in the beginning it is easy to strip Jesus words of their context and use a verse like Matthew 5:9 to say that we should not make war for any reason but always seek peace and therefore war with Iraq, or anyone else for that matter is wrong, whether Sadam possesses weapons of mass destruction or not. Or we can argue that Jesus was addressing the situation that his listeners were facing and that he was only saying that a war with Rome was doomed to failure at that time. Or we could distort the idea of shalom and say it is all about our relationship with God and has nothing to do with a war against Iraq. As you can probably guess from the way I presented these options I do not believe that any of them are the way we should tackle this. It is true that I believe that Jesus comments were made in the context of a possible Jewish rebellion against Rome, the expectations of a military messiah but they were also made with the context of the Jewish shalom. That is our goal to bring everyone into a right relationship with God, others and the environment. We should not be seeking to set ourselves above all others especially with violence. However, we also have to recognise that God and his people often made war. If you read the Bible or even just the new testament and believe that war is never justified then you must have read an abridged version. You missed out all the times God told his people to go to war, the times God aided his people in war as they resisted a foreign oppressor and that at the end of time Christ himself will come to make war on those who have rejected him. On a slightly more pragmatic approach I do not think that anyone who knows what the Nazis did can think that the second world war should not have been fought, horrific and costly though it was. I don’t have time here to justify a just war theology. Instead I will merely concentrate on the the beatitude we are looking at today. This talks about creating a world where everyone lives in harmony with God and man. Are the actions we take going to further this goal or jepordise it. Are we seeking a world with shalom or a world we put our own desires and needs above everything else including the rights of others. You know me I don’t like to give answers to these types of questions, unless its were we consider all the evidence and all the scriptures. We haven’t done that but I hope I have given you something to think about on the issue.
But what is more important this morning is how we seek to be peacemakers in our lives. We do have a vote and we can influence parliament and you may wish to do things to express your view on the war issue. But more importantly what are you doing about bring to Shalom to the place where you live, to your community, to your circle of friends, to your work place. Are you someone who can look at this beatitude and be like God, who gave his life to bring shalom.
