Blessed are the Peacemakers…

…for they shall be called the children of God.

MHA: The seventh Beatitude, unlike the ones preceding it, speaks not so much of an inner quality of a person as it does of his conduct.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, by D. Martin Lloyd-Jones

Jesus Christ: His Life and Teaching, Vol.2 - The Sermon on the Mount, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev

Once again, we are reminded of just how different the Christian man is from the men of this world; the outworking of the Christian life is totally different than anything that can be known by one who is not a Christian.  The natural man cannot adopt these Beatitudes with success, and such efforts often only worsen man’s condition.

Lloyd-Jones offers what the Jews expected of their Messiah – a new, earthly king, delivering the Jews from Rome.  Jesus’s disciples were born into this environment, and in my view their many confusions as depicted in the Gospels suddenly do not appear as confusions if looked at through this lens. 

For example, what of Peter, in between the time he said he would not deny Jesus and when he denied Jesus?  He pulled out his sword; he was ready to fight for Jesus – just what you would expect for disciples of an earthly Messiah.  This makes perfect sense if one is convinced that the task is revolution against Rome.  But not for the purpose of this promised Messiah; His mission was not of this world, not in the way Peter seems to have understood at that moment.

Returning to the study, Lloyd-Jones examines the war and strife in this world, despite the numerous man-made institutions designed to diffuse and even eliminate such troubles.  He points, as an example, to ‘the Kellogg pact,” or the Kellogg–Briand Pact:

…a 1928 international agreement on peace in which signatory states promised not to use war to resolve "disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them". The pact was signed by Germany, France, and the United States on 27 August 1928, and by most other states soon after.

…including Japan and the Soviet Union.

Why didn’t it work?  Why didn’t it hold?  Lloyd-Jones offers that it is because of man’s sin, because of the condition of his heart; there can be no peace unless there is a change in man from this natural condition to the one described in all of the preceding Beatitudes. 

DMLJ: There is the essential trouble; none of these things can possibly work while man remains what he is.

Men, it seems, continue to believe that success can come using the Tower of Babel strategy – raise themselves in the place of God.

DMLJ: …there is nothing I know of in Scripture which so utterly condemns humanism and idealism as this Sermon on the Mount, which has always apparently been the humanists’ favourite passage of Scripture.  Clearly they have never understood it.

They, like many today, value the ideals of the Sermon, but are unwilling to place themselves in submission to the one who delivered the Sermon.  Such efforts will always lead to failure, and, as has often been the case, only made things worse. 

So, what of this peacemaker?  What are his characteristics?  Metropolitan Alfeyev offers first that the Old Testament Biblical idea of peace can be understood as an antonym of war, enmity and hate.  Lloyd-Jones also begins with what this peacemaker is not: he is not easy going, he is not after peace at any price.  He does not say ‘anything to avoid trouble.’ 

DMLJ: These easygoing, peace-at-any-price people are often lacking in a sense of justice and righteousness; they do not stand where they should stand; they are flabby.

They appear to be nice, but there is no possibility of peace with or brought forward by such people. 

DMLJ: The mere avoidance of war does not make peace, it does not solve the problem.

So, what are his positive characteristics?  What is he?

DMLJ: Passively we can say that he is peaceable, for a quarrelsome person cannot be a peacemaker.  Then, actively, this person must be pacific, he must be one who makes peace actively. …he does all he can to produce peace and maintain it.

MHA: Peacemakers are not simply peaceable people: they are the ones who “make peace,” that is, they actively work to bring peace to people.

So, the peacemaker does not make trouble, yet at the same time he goes out of way to produce peace.  As with the other Beatitudes, this requires a new outlook, a new and pure heart. 

DMLJ: …one must have an entirely new view of self… one really must be entirely delivered from self, from self-interest, from self-concern … as long as you are thinking about yourself, and shielding yourself, you cannot be doing the work properly…. You must not be sensitive, you must not be touchy, you must not be on the defensive.

This really took some contemplation on my part.  It struck me; a parallel thought: as we (and I) often overly concern myself with things over which I have no control, over national and international issues, over corruption in institutions, etc., we (and I) ignore the concerns that are right in the house, the neighborhood, the town.

So, what of this peacemaker?  It is difficult to apply the words of Lloyd-Jones if I am only thinking of the international stage.  Yet this is the fruit of the same folly noted above.  Applying a similar thought: this is how one seeks peace at home, with family, with neighbors.  It takes characteristics such as these to attempt to bring about peace.

MHA: …this Beatitude is about making peace – first and foremost in the relationships between a concrete person and the people around him or her.

We often get so hung up on who is right and who is wrong.  Yes, this is an important question.  But it isn’t the only question.  Going back to an earlier Lloyd-Jones comment, in addition to justice, the peacemaker must also have a sense of righteousness.  Allowing peace or justice or righteousness to come to the fore at the expense of any of the other two will not result in a meaningful or lasting peace.

Yet this question of right and wrong is a difficult one for many of us, myself included, to get beyond.  Which brings us back to this idea that the Beatitudes build one on the other; Jesus did not place these in a random order.  To be a peacemaker – to include ridding one’s self of a sole focus on right and wrong – one must understand and live as one poor in spirit; one must mourn due to the blackness in one’s heart; one must hunger and thirst after righteousness.  You get the idea.

This turn, from a broader view to one very personal, is reflected in the change brought by Jesus’s teaching on this matter:

MHA: Herein lies one of the differences between Jesus’ moral program and the moral law laid out in the law of Moses.

The law of Moses was aimed at a people; Jesus’s teaching was aimed at the individual, an individual expected to live according to laws different than those on which our fallen communal life is built.

MHA: Taking into account the overall context of the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount as a whole, the original meaning of Jesus’s Beatitude about making peace concerns the personal sphere, and not societal morality.

The difficulty – even impossibility – one finds in realizing the characteristics necessary to be a peacemaker only reflects the difficulty of understanding and living the earlier Beatitudes.  It can be summed up or advanced by considering that the peacemaker is after one thing and one thing only: promoting the glory of God. 

This glory of God has been detracted due to the lack of peace: in the world, in the nation, in the town, at our work, in the house.  Peace shows the glory of God.  Keeping only the glory of God in view, self is completely washed away; self is of no concern.

Metropolitan Alfeyev does not leave aside the broader societal implications of the Beatitude:

MHA: Nevertheless, in the broad sense, the seventh Beatitude can also be applied to political activity as well as the role of the Church as a mediator between opposing sides in military, political, and civil conflicts.

Citing the Moscow Patriarchate, from The Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church:

MHA: In particular, the Church “opposes the propaganda of war and violence, as well as various manifestations of hatred capable of provoking fratricidal clashes.”

We see the Church doing just the opposite of this today, too many times to note.

Lloyd-Jones paints a picture of this peacemaker, his characteristics, his actions, his focus:

DMLJ: First and foremost, it means that you learn not to speak.  If only we could all control our tongues there would be much less discord in the world; …next…we should always view any and every situation in the light of the gospel; …third…You must now become positive and go out of your way to look for means and methods of making peace; …last…we should be endeavouring to diffuse peace wherever we are.  We do this by being selfless, by being lovable, by being approachable, and by not standing on our dignity.

Reading this, it is easy to understand how none of this is possible for anyone other than the human transformed by God’s grace. 

We have an example of one who has met such a demand: Jesus did not stand on His dignity; He did not demand on focusing only on the right and wrong, but also on righteousness and peace.  He suffered tremendously, ultimately becoming the greatest peacemaker in history.

DMLJ: He did not clutch at His rights; He did not hold on to the prerogative of deity and of eternity.  He humbled Himself; He came in the likeness of man, He humbled Himself even to death on the cross.  Why?  He was not thinking of Himself at all.

Conclusion

And now we come to the promise: they shall be called the children of God.  The peacemakers will be owned by God as His children. 

MHA: the expression “sons/children of God” in Jesus’ usage refers to the adoption by God that takes place through the fulfillment of his commandments.

The apostle Paul expands on this promise throughout his letters.  The peacemaker will be a child of God and he will be like his Father. 

DMLJ: God give us grace to see this blessed, glorious truth, and make us reflections, reproducers of the Prince of Peace, and truly children of ‘the God of peace.’

Can there be anything more fulfilling than this?