Blessed are the Peacemakers

The language "child of God" is thrown around a lot these days. Everyone's a child of God, it seems.

You might expect that I'll question this. You might be right.

I am not doing it out of ill-intent, to be sure. It is probably good to take stock and question some of the words and phrases that become popular, to question even the most dearly held and from all appearances genuinely good ideas. These things can take over and before you know it, we're married to ideas or ways of saying things that we probably should not have even been dating in the first place. (Side note: here's a link to a survey about such things from Relevant Magazine.)

I understand why the language of child of God is popular. It is reassuring. It is comforting. It makes us feel better about ourselves and about where we stand with God. Yes, it's in the Bible. It's in this Beatitude we're focusing on today.

The thing is, most of the time the language "child of God" shows up in the Bible, it's not unqualified. There's almost always a reason or an identifier to specify who are the children of God, and how they are children of God. And it may rub us the wrong way in our "everyone's accepted" culture, but not everyone is a child of God. Everyone is made in the image of God, yes. But not everyone is a child of God.

While image of God suggests a likeness to God, child of God suggests an intimacy. In a patriarchal society, children were the ones who carried on the father's identity and heritage. They were the ones who reflected the nature of the father. Now, this is a lot like "image" of God. But, still, not all people are children of God in a post-Genesis 3 world. We live in a world where the image of God in humanity has been lost or forgotten. And this means that we no longer live as children of God in our natural ways. As Paul puts it in Galatians and Romans, we have lost our original home and have been found orphans and slaves under a different roof, serving sin and death. We were made to be children of God, but we have forgotten. Our lives do not any longer reflect "child of God."

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Not all is hopeless. This is what Jesus has come to restore. And the Beatitudes help define and remind us of what that likeness to God is all about and what being a child of God looks like.

So, who are the ones who share an intimacy with God and who carry on the will of the father according to this Beatitude? The ones who make peace.

The flipside: when we're not ones who make peace, we're not children of God; we're still living as those who have forgotten or lost our identity, or simply, we're acting as if we're children of something else.

Now, in our culture, we have a common idea of a "peacemaker" who is really just someone who takes neutral ground in matters. They are the one caught in the middle and try to "keep the peace." This idea of "peacemaker" is, I think, a little too subdued for what might have resonated with Jesus' audience.

We should probably think more in terms of "performing peace." A peacemaker is someone who actively performs peace in all circumstances. New Testament scholar Scot McKnight puts it like this:

Peacemaking is neither being "nice" (as defined today), nor is it "tolerant" (again as defined today); rather, it is an active entrance into the middle of warring parties for the purpuse of creating reconciliation and peace (Sermon on the Mount, 47).

Scot goes on to point out that this peacemaking does not mean ignoring differences or dancing around them. It means recognizing differences between people and creating reconciliation even though differences remain. Jesus does not ask us to make our enemies see things our way; he does not ask that our enemies join our side. He says to reconcile with our enemies and love them--in other words to seek relationship with them. Jesus makes the point again in Matthew 5:45: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you might be children of your father in heaven."

Peacemaking. Like father, like child.
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Christ's peace is not the way of the world (duh!). Peacemakers seek restored human relationship rather than taking a stance. It's not that peacemakers don't have a position or stance in the midst of strife; it's just that the stance of peacemakers is that of God and God's kingdom (i.e. the ways of the Beatitudes). This has significant traction right now in our world with all of the political jousting going on, or amid the tensions that seem to be growing with those of the Islamic faith. Being a peacemaker is to find our core identity in the reconciliation of Christ and to be people of that reconciliation, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21. We no longer see through the lens of the flesh, but the eyes of Christ who brings a "third way"--the way of the father in heaven.

I think of the famous "Christmas Truce" of 1914 during WWI. Around Christmas Day, 1914, it's reported that German and British soldiers actually put down their arms and crossed lines. They exchanged conversation, even gifts, and sang songs. It was all unofficial, and sadly, higher ranking leaders on both sides demanded that this activity stop. By 1916 such action was no longer to be found among soldiers, and the war got worse.

The peacemakers of God are the ones who dare to continue to seek such reconciliation, such peace, in the midst of a life and a world full of tension, animosity, and violence--no matter the orders from the world around us, no matter that life is chaos around us. We don't just seek it, we make it our lifestyle. It's about our identity more than it is something we do when the situation arises. Peacemaking is dangerous business. We are those who dare model another way--the way of the father in heaven, and in so doing show ourselves to be children of God.
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Think, Talk, Apply

Being a peacemaker really takes time and is an identity thing more than it is an occasional act. How might your life and the life of your home be one of peace?

Reflect on how God has brought peace between you and God through Jesus. This is the ultimate model of peacemaking. Paul says that "while we were still enemies" God reconciled us to himself. If you are a child of this God who acts in this way, how might that affect your daily habits and ways of relating to others?

How do you model this sort of peacemaking in the presence of your family or kids in your daily life. There are many, many opportunities for peacemaking to be our way of being in dailly home life. What is your tendency? How can practicing this in your home be good for you and everyone?