Blessed Are the Peacemakers
by James Lincoln on Sunday, April 30, 2006
Peace is hard to come by and costly. That's true whether it's the pursuit of peace between nations, neighbors, churches, religions and even members of the same family or church family. Never has something been so desired and yet so difficult to obtain. The Durants in their book The Lessons of History write that in the last 3,421 years of recorded history only 268 have been without a record of war. After spending years of research on this they said,
"States will unite in basic cooperation only when they are in common attack from without. Perhaps...we may make contact with species on other planets. Soon thereafter there will be interplanetary war. Then and only then, will we of this earth be one."
What can be done? Well, we could make war illegal. Of course it would take a war to do it. The Romans achieved a measure of this. But would it resolve war between husbands and wives? Perhaps we could persuade people of the irrationality and unprofitable outcome of fighting. Is the problem with war that we just don't know that peace is rational or sensible? Does anyone think that the rational argument would be enough to establish peace among spouses, parents and children or nations?
Maybe war is a skill problem. We just don't know how to communicate our desires in constructive ways. So, what we need to do is to get Israel and Hamas together and teach them some communication techniques. What do you think? We could teach Israel empathetic listening skills. We could teach the Palestinians how to communicate their feelings in less destructive ways. Will this solve the core problem of war or could it be that the problem of fighting and war runs deeper.
When Jesus spoke of peacemaking was he saying
"The problem with the world is that we don't have enough people committed to the rationale and the techniques of peace? So, go out there and get people together and get them to talk through their problems and just start making some peace in the world. 'Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together and try to love one another right now!'?"
There's nothing wrong with exhortations to live in peace. That was the hope of the peace movement in the sixties. But did the exhortation produce any more peace? It certainly didn't help peace among spouses. The divorce rate jumped significantly following the sixties.
Peace is hard to come by and it's always expensive. It will cost you more than making an exhortation. Those who go into the human services or helping vocations routinely get burned out because their expectations connected with helping people find some peace is met by the brutal and harsh realities of how hard peace is to come by either within a person or among people.
The Beatitudes: A Scaffold
Now, to lay a hold of what Jesus is saying here about peacemaking. Notice that Jesus has been building a kind of momentum in these beatitudes. They build on top of one another, showing us what God's saving grace actually looks like. And before anything else, God's saving grace puts us all on the receiving end of God's blessing. Each beatitude begins with the word "Blessed". This is what a blessed person looks like.
So, when Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers..." he's not merely giving a grand exhortation to go out into a war torn world and start making some peace. Becoming a peacemaker has to do with being poor in spirit, mourning for your own sin and the sin of others (not griping about them but mourning), hungering and thirsting for righteousness, receiving mercy and being merciful and receiving the gift of a pure heart and living in purity.
This is what it means to believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior! Peacemaking, severed from the saving grace of God that converts our hearts and moves us to recognize how needy we are for His grace...peace that is severed from grace that reveals and how grievously we and others have sinned against God...peace that is severed from the grace of God that has shown us mercy, made us to hunger and thirst for righteousness and purified our hearts will fall dead to the ground and at best will only produce a truce. And a truce is not the same as peace.
Peace is not merely the absence of conflict or war. Often the absence of war is just a truce before hostilities resume. We back away from the intensity of our personal conflict and we begin rebuilding our supplies and arguments. Once we've got our supplies rebuilt we're ready to launch back out and prove that we were right all along. And you know that I'm not talking only about Iraq or Iran and Israel. I'm talking about us. You see, war can be exciting. You can acquire a taste for it and get addicted to it just as you can to alcohol or any drug. Conflict, anger and fighting can be a theme or way of life. For many the fighting is what holds them together. If you take away the conflict they will simply not know how to function.
Jesus said that He brings a peace that the world cannot give. God said in Jeremiah 6, "Many say 'Peace Peace' when there is no peace. And they heal the wounds of the people lightly." But Jesus doesn't. Peace is expensive. And severed from Jesus' death on the cross that restores our peace with God the best we can hope for is a truce of sorts. Jesus is our peace and it's only in Jesus that we can truly and ultimately be reconciled with God and each other. So, to be a peacemaker (which is where Jesus wants us to arrive) we must first of all receive the gift of peace with God along with the gift of mercy, purity and receive a new appetite for the things of God all by His grace and through faith. You can't be a peace maker until you receive the gift of God's peace in Jesus.
The Crowd on the Hillside:
Now, let's go back to that crowd on the hillside listening to Jesus preach. There were exciting rumors that Jesus, this man who healed the sick, turned water into wine and cast out demons might be the Messiah. And the Jews expected the Messiah to evict the Roman occupiers and make Israel first rank among the nations. Although it's true that Rome accomplished much good in the world. They did manage hundreds of years of peace from invaders (Pax Romana). They built roads and aqueducts that enhanced trade and prosperity (at least to the upper classes). Rome refined and valued a judicial system that was based on fairness and evidence. These were good things. However, in Israel poverty was still the norm and Roman and Greek paganism controlled every major institution in Israel's homeland. She was heavily taxed against her will. Insurrection and resistance movements were common occurrences. The Jews expected the Messiah to kick the Romans out and flush Greek paganism out of Israel and they fully expected the Messiah to restore Israel to its former glory days to a place of national prominence. Jerusalem would enjoy a glory far greater than that of Rome or Athens.
How did Jesus' words, "Blessed are the peacemakers..." go down with them? Nebuchadnezzar's dream that Rome would be destroyed was popular. Like us they could count to sixty-nine weeks. Calls for insurrection were gaining strength. Rome oppressed the Jews, overtaxed them, and had taken over everything. When Herod stole money from the Temple treasury the Jews protested. On one Passover day he slaughtered 3,000 Jews. Roman soldiers could conscript any Jew to carry their luggage at will. Tax collectors routinely overcharged people and used the power of the Roman military to enforce their will. How did this idea of making peace sit with this crowd? I don't imagine it did so very well. Israel was looking for a Messiah that would be a conquering king not someone who talked about making peace.
Would Military Victory Bring Peace?
But if Jesus would have come to make peace as a conquering king instead of the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world ...this would have been healing the wounds of the people lightly. At best it would have only achieved a truce. A military victory would not have dealt with the fundamental reasons for wars and fighting. Jesus won't let Israel remain content with a shallow reading of Scripture that uses it merely to bolster her own national security and prominence. There's a deeper meaning in the sacred Scriptures than what 1st. c Israel had grasped. Joining the resistance movement would not advance the kingdom of God at all. There are deeper and more fundamental causes of war. Sin is at the heart of that. Real peace is hard to come by and more expensive than a military victory. The peace that achieves and guarantees peace between us and God and each other cost the Son of God His life on the cross.
Matthew
Now, remember Matthew is writing all of this. If anyone wasn't at peace with his fellow man it was Matthew. Matthew was a tax collector. Matthew sold his soul to the enemy and cooperated with the Romans. Tax collectors routinely overcharged people for their taxes and then with the power of the Roman military they could force you to pay. Matthew was despised by his fellow Jews. They hated tax collectors and barred them from temple worship. They were called sinners and seen as outside the pale of grace. I wonder what Matthew, who had now allied himself with Jesus, wanted Jesus to do about the Romans. Don't you think he wanted Jesus to force the Romans out? If the Messiah (whom Matthew now served as one of Jesus' inner circle) got rid of the Romans wouldn't that remove Matthew's own shame? He would then be allied to the one who forced the Romans out! He could be vindicated as a man of honor and nobility in the eyes of a nation he had before betrayed. In some place in his heart was Matthew hoping for a circumstantial cleansing rather than the kind of cleansing that is necessary? The kind of cleansing that cuts to the heart and makes the heart bleed with sorrow for sin our sin and calls us to repentance and faith in Jesus? When he wrote these words did his hands tremble and heart weep as he looked back at the death and resurrection of Jesus and as he began to sense again what was the real price of peace was? What does it cost to make peace? Peace is an exceedingly expensive commodity.
Now Paul explains this most fundamental peace that we need so that we can truly become peacemakers in our homes and churches and in a culture that is rife with discord and war in Eph. 2:13-18
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, thereby killing their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit."
Beloved, this is the one healing and uniting reality under which we must come under and yield to. Jesus is our peace! Listen. Jesus has destroyed the hostility between us and God and between us and our brothers and sisters. He has taken away our sins and forgiven us and offers us peace with God as a gift to be received by faith. Paul says in Romans 5:1 "Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God." We may not always feel it. But by grace through faith it is ours. When Debby and I were married almost thirty-five years ago, we were young and naive. However, we knew in our hearts about peace with God through Jesus. We both believed that in Jesus God has forgiven our offences. So, that meant that we had no right to hold on to offences Christ had forgiven. We knew that would translate into peace in our marriage...that is if we both would yield to His mind and will. When we take our eyes off the central reality of Christ (which is far too often) we can fuss and quarrel about all manner of things. But when we come together to worship our God we come together in Christ who is our peace. To be a peace maker, which is where God wants us to arrive, we must first receive the gift of peace with God. And it's a gift and unearned. None of us can earn peace with God. Nobody's good enough. But we recognize that to be at peace with God through Christ necessitates that I am at peace with others. Because whatever offense exists between my brother and sister in Christ is nothing compared to the offence that existed between me and God. What ever offense anyone has ever committed against you - in reality - pales compared to your offence against God which Jesus forgave. So, beloved, it's also true that whatever offence exists between me and others cannot compare to the peace I have with God through Christ. Look, in sin I have offended God, the Creator of the universe who sustains all things by His word. In Christ, God has forgiven me for this horrible act of rebellion. How could your sin against me ever compare? It can't! In Christ, God has forgiven us. Until you get that screwed down into your soul you're going to have a hard time forgiving others and becoming a peace maker. It's when I understand and accept the freely given gift of peace with God through Christ that I have the spiritual capacity to be at peace with others. But how can I say that I'm at peace with God when I am hopping mad at my brother, spouse, neighbor, or my child so that I don't speak to them and harbor ill will against them or right them off? You can't and you know it doesn't compute.
Peace is hard to come by and it is expensive. It cost Jesus and it will cost you and me. We will have to swallow a lot of pride to achieve it. And we will have to lay down our swords and lose the appetite for war over a thousand things that are not worth fighting for to be peacemakers. Beloved, our divisions in our homes and in our churches will discredit our message of reconciliation in a world that knows little peace. Don't misunderstand me there are things to fight over but most of the fights I have witnessed are not about those things. Our lack of peace with others can reveal that we are not at peace with God.
Peace is hard to come by and it's expensive.
Have we drawn near enough to God to hear His word of peace? Have you? Have you ever struggled forgiving yourself for your own past sins? For any person who is clinging to the shame of old sin the question is, "Are you listening to God? Are you hearing Him?" He's saying into your heart - if you believe in His Son Jesus, "Child it is well. I have established peace." If you aren't willing to release old offences and remain under the shadow of a self imposed guilt ...what you're really saying to God is, "That's fine God but not now. I would rather fuse, fume, infuriate and agitate myself than let go of my self gratifying guilt and anger and accept the gift of peace that you have given to me."
Think about that. It's God's intention that we be at peace. Eph. 6:15 calls the gospel the gospel of peace echoing Isa. 52:7-8 which are among the most beautiful words of the Bible. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them who brings good news and publishes peace and brings good news of happiness and publishes good news of salvation and who says to Zion your God reigns." Is this peace in your heart? Through faith in Christ it can be. Being justified by faith we have peace with God. That is the unassailable and irrevocable promise of the gospel. Believe it, beloved, believe it.
James 4
Now, God calls us to be at peace with Him and others and especially within ourselves. For it's from within ourselves that spring up the fountains of war and conflict. Anger and violence can be triggered by spilt milk, an unmade bed or unpaid bills. It doesn't require launching a grenade into my house for anger to explode. It doesn't require that I be engaged in hand to hand combat on some foreign field for the brutalizing of emotion for the destroying of human souls. Peace is first of all a matter of the heart. That's why it comes after being poor in spirit or after mourning for sin (my own and others'), why it comes after learning how to be gentle and meek and after the passionate longing for what I right and after learning the ways of mercy and purity of heart. Listen, peace is not the imposition of my will or my argument to silence the objections of others. Peace is in the hands that reach out to touch, forgive, caress, reason, and draw.
Also, peace making is not always peace achieving. Paul says to be at peace with all men as far as it depends on you. So, you can't always achieve peace. But there is much work we can do about our own hearts that may need to be done. James speaks to the realities that are at the core of our conflicts. James 4:1-4
"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you. You desire and do not have so you murder you covet and you cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and you don't receive because you ask wrongly to spend on your passions. You adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God."
Wow!! Can you imagine your preacher saying that? Calling the church adulterers and murderers? James says that before we can become peace makers at home, at church or at work...there is a lot of work (house cleaning) most of us have to do on our own hearts.
Today, the word passion is being used a synonym for strong or deep conviction. It works... but James shows us that it's dangerous. James uses it twice. Some translate it as pleasures or lusts. The original, zeloo, means to have warmth of feeling (passion) for or against something. But passion can be a form of emotional violence. Strong emotion or passion can give the appearance of necessity for things otherwise unacceptable. In a moment of passion we do things that in our better moments we would have never done. Isn't that true of you? In the passion of asserting my rights and position I can shoot words at others that devastate them. Passion is the foundation for all kinds of abuse.
Passion can give the appearance of necessity to things otherwise not acceptable. How is it in your house? But it goes beyond that. Passion doesn't invite or encourage good judgment. That's the problem. When James speaks of the misdirection of our prayer lives he refers to passions at war within us. When our passions and good judgment are mixed our desires distort our convictions. And then instead of our convictions being the foundation of our obedience and submission to Jesus... our passions become the instruments of a will that can hurt and destroy others.
When Paul cites the fruit of the Spirit he said, Love, joy and peace, patience kindness and goodness, faithfulness gentleness and self control. Notice that Paul says nothing there of passion. Passion can blur the line between our desires and our convictions.
I think what James is talking about is that when we attach strong emotions to selfish desires we can become argumentative, irritable and angry when we can't have our own way. I think that's what he's driving at here. When he talks about the war of passions in our hearts he's not talking about some grand nobility of spirit that wants to go off on some marvelous crusade and accomplish great things. He's talking about the hold of selfish desires that control the well springs of the heart and set us at odds with any who would cross our path. That's why he said that you ask and you don't get because you want to spend it wrongly to satisfy your passions. Church. Be careful! Be careful. We can easily be led by those who have great passion who can easily confuse passion for good judgment. Passion can be very attractive and can be used to justify what is otherwise unacceptable.
Have you received the gift of God's peace in Jesus? At the cross Jesus destroyed the barrier (the sin that kept us from God's peace). Have you trusted Jesus' love and sacrifice for you and received His peace? There is nothing like knowing that you are at peace with God through Jesus. Are we at peace with others? Are you using passion to justify what would otherwise be unacceptable behavior?
Beloved, the cross is the full measure of the violence of sin and therefore it's also the true measure of the cost of peace. If we want to follow the Lord Jesus we must perform the violence of self crucifixion letting the Spirit of God put to death the selfish desires of the flesh within us that we might be those who are peacemakers in a world of violence.
"Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God."