Thoughts on the Beatitudes, Part 9a: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.

In my years as a hipster, I and my long-haired friends were fond of the saying, “Peace is not the destination, peace is the way.” Never mind that we didn’t really have any idea what that meant; we were convinced that chanting such slogans at the many demonstrations we attended was a surefire means of changing the world for the better and forever. We were so cute!

How groovy, then, that this week’s Beatitude brings a word about peace and its profound promise of a unique connection to God as his children. My hippie ears perk up and the hippie heart begins to race. Maybe all our marching and shouting was just another step on the stairway to heaven, and we were simply following in the footsteps of Brother Jesus!?!? The short answer: No. The longer one involves more than public parading, and takes us to questions about where true peace comes from and what it really means to be a blessed peacemaker.

The obvious place to begin is in asking what exactly is peace? Modern common usages would include a variety of ideas. Most broadly, peace is simply the absence of strife or conflict, as in John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.” For my children’s generation, it means being “chill” – not being annoyingly intense. Peace out, man. For many of us, peace is avoiding any personal disturbance and maintaining a controlled, predictable existence, something like the disciples rowing across the lake and being less-than-happy about Jesus rocking the boat. For most of us males of our species, peace means a mutual granting of space: I won’t bug you if you don’t bug me. For many Christians, it means convincing ourselves that a particular plan of action is acceptable to God (I prayed about it and really have peace …).

By contrast, the biblical context reveals a rich and complex way to understand what it means to possess and engender peace. Both the Hebrew (shalom, completeness or soundness) and Greek (eirene, a tying or bringing together) carry the sense of wholeness and a kind of integration in oneself, with God, and with those around us. It is clear that peace does not depend on outward circumstances or on any other person’s attitude or actions toward or against us. It is equally evident that peace arises from faith, from contentment, from trust, and from rest in the Spirit.

When we receive these gifts from God, we find ourselves like the weaned child of Psalms 131, the three young men in the fire of Daniel 3, or Joseph when he forgives his brothers even after they planned his demise. There may be conflict and contention all about; we might hear disquieting news that assails us; we face opposition from human and spiritual forces that mean to do us ill. In any and all of these circumstances, we can genuinely recall and declare that “it is well with our souls.” What we know more than anything is that the Father’s goodness and kindness are greater than anything that would shake our confidence in him. If I lose my acceptance of God’s gracious love, I become like spiritual jello, shaking and spineless.

Peace that arises from faith is good for anytime and any place. I have seen it at work where God was helping me work through thorny relationships; guarding me in situations of frenzied activity that tempted me to anxious toil; protecting me in places of danger; keeping me from reacting badly to accusations, threats, slander, misunderstanding or anger from those who were more interested in doing harm than good.

Whatever the context for these divine peace encounters, it has become clear that there is a logical connection between peace and meekness, its parallel Beatitudinal blessing. Remember the definition of meekness: yielding our lives to the Father in the midst of difficult circumstances that we cannot or should not influence or control, something that is especially challenging when we are either certain that we are right, or could effectively steer events or people by our own strength and will.

The ultimate expression of meekness giving birth to peace comes with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Garden scene is a perfect illustration of meekness. Jesus has told Pilate that the he could summon twelve angelic legions to fight against both Rome and Judea, the subtext being that it would not have been much of a battle. So we know that Jesus could have controlled the situation and accomplished his own ends. We also know by his prayer to the Father that Jesus doesn’t prefer the alternative, which is death by crucifixion.

How does Jesus overcome the temptation to go nuclear on his enemies? How does he come first to meekness and then to peace? Jesus begins with a struggle, with his agonia, with warfare in and against himself. This is a realistic depiction of how we almost always MUST open the way to peace. I am pretty well convinced that when we say, “I prayed about ________, and I have peace about it,” that our certainty arises precisely because we have given in to our preferences, and have refused the necessary encounter with our true desires. We have not struggled.

But Jesus does not remain in the strife; he makes the crucial move toward surrender. “Father, your will be done.”  Once Jesus has given himself to God in faith and trust, and not to himself, he walks from the Garden in peace and under the grace to obey. Of course, when we read the Gospels even cursorily, it becomes clear that Jesus engages the habit of surrender to the divine sovereignty and purpose, so much so that he can say such things as “I always do what pleases the Father.” The same trajectory – struggle, trusting surrender, peace, obedience – is ours as those called to discipleship. No promises of ease, but the assurance of a blessing greater than we can imagine, one that passes all understanding.

All this is well and good, but I haven’t even begun to touch the heart of the matter, which is Jesus himself as the one who creates and pronounces peace. Nor have we taken on the question of what it means to be a peacemaker.

Until next week, then, peace, love, and happiness.