“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9
During seminary, I endured a sweltering Texas summer as a faith-based community organizer. I worked with Communities of Shalom, whose mission was to help neighborhoods thrive by connecting with residents and learning their hopes, dreams, and visions for their communities.
I loved that this organization bore the name “Shalom” – a Hebrew word that means peace. Peace is one of those things that can mean so many things to different people. For some, it means the absence of conflict or war. For others, it’s the idea of serenity in the mind and heart. But I think Jesus was thinking beyond just the absence of conflict. I think he was talking about the bigger ideas between “Shalom” peace – wholeness, health, and safety. This type of Shalom wasn’t something you had once in a while; it was something that was to be permanent in the Kingdom of God.
When Jesus teaches in the Beatitudes, saying, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God,” he is calling us to actively pursue true peace—wholeness, health, and safety—in our communities.
But being a peacemaker can be so tricky. Peace isn’t something that we can simply say that we want with our lips or silently wish for in our hearts. It has to be something that we pursue. It has to be something that we pray for.
I was recently in a Bible Study, and as we were talking about what to pray for, one of the women said, “Peace.” Then she asked a really powerful question, “What would happen if we truly prayed, as Christians, for peace?”
What could happen if we prayed for Jesus’ peace to reign among us? How might the world—and we ourselves—change?
Because I think we also need to be people who embody what it looks like to work towards making peace with the way we live. And a big way we can do that is by being in relationships with other people. Practicing what we want for the world as a whole in the way that we treat other people.
That summer in Texas, I spent my time getting to know people, hearing their stories, and learning what broke their hearts and gave them hope. That’s how we move beyond knowing about people to truly knowing them—by listening with care and reminding them of their value.
When we treat people like they have value, it’s about that person right there with us in the moment. It’s not about what they can possibly do for us in the future. It’s about being in a relationship with them, because they are loved by God.
We are to be the peacemakers in the world as the Church, for it is not us, then who? We are the people who should be working to restore relationships among ourselves and between humanity and God. But the truth is, sometimes we don’t even have peace with one another.
There are times when we don’t understand peace. We think it’s an absence of conflict, but that’s not really it, is it? Because we aren’t always in agreement, even on the big things, like what our goals are. Instead, peace is talking about how to live with one another, even if we don’t agree. Paul had something to say about that in Romans: Those who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak. We should strive to put our neighbor above ourselves, so that we can build them up. It looks like living in harmony, even when we don’t always agree, so that our outward witness will glorify God.
That’s what peace is about. Magnifying God’s glory. Making known God’s kingdom. Many of you have commented from time to time about the stoles I wear on Sunday morning. Stoles are pieces of cloth that folks who are ordained wear to remind them that they are first and foremost yoked to Christ. Every so often, there is a woman I approach to make me a new stole based on a scripture passage that is really speaking to me during that time. In the past year, I had one created based on the words of Isaiah 2:4, “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more, words that are said as part of one of the communion liturgies about the Kingdom of God. Wearing that stole, a woman kept looking at it and asking me what it meant. When I told her about this scripture, she said, “I didn’t even know that was in scripture.”
How often is that true in our lives as well? We don’t know what the scriptures say about peace, or we don’t know how to actively try to live as people of peace. But for those who do take on the challenge of being peace makers, what does Jesus say about them? Those folks will be called children of God. Our whole identity shifts when we realize that we are children of God.
But a funny thing happens when we identify as a child of God – we start to see other people with the eyes of God. We start to see them as someone whom God deeply cares about, and as a result, we want to seek peace with them and for them. We want them to be healthy and whole, and we raise our lives and voices to remove any obstacles to such peace. We begin to embody Shalom. It’s quite a tall order in our society, but that’s part of what it looks like to be a peacemaker. Let us be the peacemakers.
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