Misunderstood are the Peacemakers
“Everyone loves the idea of peace. We all desire it. No one wakes up in the morning looking for a fight. We don’t like resistance and want smooth sailing and harmony. So why doesn’t that love of peace produce peace?
Primarily because, as much as we want peace, we want our way even more. We can’t give up our desire for both, so we dream of a peace where we get our way, and everyone else is good with it. The peace we love doesn’t cost us anything and comes at the expense of others, which is not a true peace.
This is especially perplexing and vexing in church where we follow the Prince of Peace yet fight among ourselves. We love to quote Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount,
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Mt. 5:9).
Any time tension surfaces, we quickly quote the apostle Paul,
“Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).
But are we willing to put forth the effort required to keep unity and have a real bond of peace? If peace-work gets hard, makes us sweat, and raises our heart rates, we often check out.
In church, those who ask hard questions or speak up for those overlooked are branded as Disturbers of the Peace - even if they speak with humility, honor, and love. For some reason, we assume that a virtuous person never makes others uncomfortable, never says hard things, and never holds bad actors accountable. We prefer to smooth things over to make conflicts disappear. We practice appeasement and call it peace. But conflict avoided just goes to ground, adapts, and returns with greater strength.
Part of our problem is vocabulary. In Hebrew, the conceptual language of the Bible, “peace” is the English translation of shalom. Shalom does not mean an absence of conflict, but rather ‘wholeness’ or ‘all things set right.’ If there is injustice present, there is no shalom, even if no one is fighting. Shalom is only present when God reigns, and justice and righteousness are present. All other claims to peace are temporary illusions. That is why false prophets were routinely condemned in scripture for proclaiming peace when there was none. (cf. Jer. 6:13-15). False peace enables evil to continue harming people without accountability.
There is a big difference between being a peacemaker and a peacekeeper. Peacemakers create paths to understanding, reconciliation, and unity where false ideas, hatred, and division are present (even when below the surface). Peacemakers move into dangerous settings and risk getting caught in the crossfire. Peacemakers sound like they are on the side of the enemy - to both sides!
Peacekeepers have a much smaller goal: they just want to stop conflicts. Simply stopping a conflict often results in ignoring the objections of people who are being mistreated and empowering their abusers. Peacekeeping strategies easily minimize or justify wrong and intimidate those who are in need of justice. As followers of Jesus, we are called to something greater than peacekeeping.
Acts 6 gives us a good model of true peacemaking. There was ethnic tension in the Jerusalem church between two different cultural groups with long-standing contempt for each other. Hebraic Jews saw Hellenistic Jews as cultural sellouts and traitors. Hellenists saw the Hebraic community as repressive control freaks who were living in nostalgic denial. The tensions between the two groups were deeply emotional, long-standing, and politically explosive. Coming to Christ did not make them disappear. Now that they were all in the same church, how could they possibly make peace with each other?
The Apostles handled this first big church fight brilliantly. Rather than tell those overlooked by the systemic bias against Hellenists to stop whining and be grateful they were included in the majority Hebraic church, the Apostles welcomed their voices of concern. They recognized a pattern of injustice and acknowledged the harm it was doing to the whole body. Then they addressed it by recognizing leaders from the Hellenistic disciples who represented the overlooked members in the church and could serve their needs. They shared power and honor and saw that in God’s economy their power and honor only multiplied as a result. This wasn’t popular with the Hebraic majority in the church, but it moved them closer to shalom. Eventually tension resurfaced when gentiles wanted in, and the Apostles had to do more peacemaking – which is always part of leadership in God’s kingdom.
This kind of peacemaking took humility, time, discomfort, and risk. It meant that the church involved itself in the larger cultural and political battles in Israel. But it was the way of Jesus. Blessed are those who do the same today.
If you really want to make peace, be prepared to experience conflict. Remember: The Prince of Peace was arrested, beaten, and lynched under the charge of sedition. Why?
Because he called into question a false peace that served the wrong ends.
Because he said “they” were going to be included in the Kingdom of God with “us.”
Because he hung out with the wrong crowd and ate with them.
Because he told stories about gentiles receiving prophets when Israel rejected them.
Because he refused to hate even bad people.
Because he touched the unclean.
Because he called into question systems empowering abusers.
Because he named corruption and exploitation by religious leaders.
Reflecting on Jesus’ life, it seems more accurate to say, “Cursed are the peacemakers, because they will get themselves killed.”
How is Jesus the Prince of Peace when he was the source of such conflict?
Because he refused to use violence or to dehumanize.
Because he treated everyone with honor, no matter their caste.
Because those who followed him found themselves in loving community with former enemies.
Nothing else like this had ever existed! This is the only path to shalom.
Refusing to say uncomfortable things under the guise of peace maintains the status quo with its present injustices and divisions. Real peace begins with telling the truth in love. That is why nations like Rwanda and South Africa who have made huge strides in overcoming systemic injustice had to create “truth and reconciliation” processes. Working for peace will surface painful divisions and create tremendous pushback before producing unity, harmony, and love. This is why Jesus said,
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household’” (Mt. 10:34-36).
So, is Jesus the Prince of Peace or a source of conflict? Yes. Peacemakers must raise difficult issues to establish new opportunities for reconciliation between estranged people and groups. Where shalom exists, we must nurture it. But where there is no peace, pretending there is and telling people to be quiet will only guarantee that God’s shalom never comes.