Title: Let's Be Peacemakers
Contents
Let us be peacemakers
Matthew 5:1-9 / Isaiah 11:6-9
In general, when we think of peace, we think of it as the opposite of war. It is a common understanding of peace to think of the opposition to war, the abolition of nuclear weapons, and the struggle against dictatorship as peace movements. But the peace spoken of in the seventh beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount is not so limited.
This blissful peace is 'shalom' in Hebrew. The meaning of this word is completeness, wholeness, and healthiness. Supplementally, it means all the requirements for a happy life and a healthy society.
As social requirements for a happy life and a healthy society, there should be no war, disease, hunger, and violence, and personally, it means experiencing joy, hope, love, and the meaning of life. Peace has the positive meaning of enjoying all good things, not freedom from all kinds of human suffering.
In this concept of peace, 'peacemakers' are not the peace-lovers, but peace-makers. There is a fundamental difference between a peace lover and a peace maker. A peace lover can be an escapist, or a political dictator, living in a world of suffering. The slogan of the successive dictators who appeared on the stage of human history is the peace of mankind. They trampled on other people's territories, violated human rights, and killed many innocent lives in the name of 'for the sake of human peace'.
Peacemakers are not peacemakers. They are dedicated to making the world a better place for everyone to live. Those who do not avoid hardship or threat for such work, but face it head-on, walk through its midst, and create peace. They do not see it in terms of economic value or ideology, but accept it as a noble being with life.
Fugitives and dictators do not first see their neighbors as brothers and sisters, but as enemies. And there is no harmony with themselves. They have alienation, anxiety, fear, and hostility. The peace they cry for is only for their own benefit or the achievement of their own purpose.
To become a peacemaker, the seventh bliss of the Sermon on the Mount, one must transcend self-centeredness, self-interest. You cannot achieve peace by clinging to your own interests or being self-centered. The motive must be pure. You cannot work for peace with complex political motives.
Only those who are properly tamed by God can create peace. You cannot work for peace if you are accustomed to money, fame, power, or vengeance. Only those who live toward the noble purpose of living for the sake of peace for mankind can become a peacemaker. Only a compassionate person who can love even his enemies can work for peace.
The opposite of peacemakers are the trouble-makers. They break peace and create divisions everywhere. Such people are children of the devil because they are doing things like the devil.
The peacemaker has a religious rather than a political meaning. The reason is that human beings cannot work for peace without being healthy. When I'm talking about health, I don't just mean physical health. Throughout human history, physically handicapped or weak people have done more for peace than physically healthy people.
The health associated with peace is spiritual. A person is not healthy when he or she lives in anger, despair, fear, or hatred. Being spiritually healthy means living a life of right fellowship with the Triune God and neighbors. In such a life of communion there is assurance, freedom, and compassion. The Bible calls such a spiritual condition 'healthy.'
We humans do not have the capacity to create a world of perfect peace. Only God can create a world of perfect peace. Peace is a divine attribute, not a human attribute. This holy attribute of God is intrinsic, but also has an objective and historical meaning.
The prophet Isaiah speaks of the peace that God's children seek and await.
“Then the wolves will dwell with the Lamb,
A leopard lying down with a young goat
The calf and the young lion and the fattened beast
Attracted by little children...
A suckling child frolicking in a viper's hole
A weaned child will put his hand into the den of vipers" (Isaiah 11:6, 8).
The reality of peace described in this text is not a fantasy world that can only be seen through subjective experience. It is the future of the kingdom of God that has already begun but has not yet been fulfilled. This reality of peace began with the coming of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, and will be consummated in history with his coming again.
It is said that peace has already begun with the coming of Jesus Christ as the Prince of Peace, but what appears in reality is discord rather than peace. As Jesus said, because of Jesus, not only conflicts between fathers and daughters, mothers and daughters-in-law, husbands and wives occur frequently, but also wars occur between nations and nations, and between nations and nations. Among those who have decided to live with Jesus as their Lord, there are those who give up their religious life because they cannot endure the conflict and suffering of this strife.
Discord arises because of Jesus, not because Jesus is the protagonist of the discord, not the king of peace. With the coming of the Prince of Peace, Jesus, the false peace and the disguised peace are broken by the challenges of the hostile forces who hate peace.
Those who create discord because they hate true peace always hate reconciliation with God. And I hate reconciliation with neighbors. We try not to share the meaning of life with each other. You always try to monopolize the good on your own. Instead of peace, we try to identify ourselves in division, anger, and hostility. So those who work for peace will be persecuted in this world.
God's children who work for peace are well aware of their inability to create peace on their own. We also know that their sacrifice will not change the course of history. However, they rejoice and rejoice as they faithfully participate in their Father's work as Heavenly Father's children.
In our day, there is a politician who died after living as a peacemaker. He is the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammashult. He died on September 20, 1961 in a plane crash in Central Africa. The only book he had on his way to Congo was The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Akempis.
After he passed away, several notebooks were found in his apartment in New York. The notebook was a spiritual diary from 1920 to the days before his death, about his most intimate thoughts and about God, life, duty, solitude, hope and anxiety, humility, and more.
After his death, the American Stevenson recalled him, saying, "No one has more advanced the quest for a world in which men solve their problems, not by force, but by peaceful means."
For those who are obsessed with old human rituals and conventions such as struggle, savagery, force, fighting and heroism, a way of life like Mother Teresa or Hammashult is a way of life that is more of a militant and militant human being tamed for their struggle goals You might think that this is a path that makes you weak. But those who live that way have their own special reasons. It's never because of money or fame or praise. They don't expect anything human in return for what they do. Because they have the essential value of life that other people do not have as their value, the joy and meaning of life for such people is different.
There are characteristics of peacemakers.
They are not so conscious of the gaze of others.
They live their lives with only working for peace as the purpose of their lives.
They value their participation in such a life.
They have a clear self-identity that they are people working for peace.
Looking back on the past history, there are many people who have devoted their lives to peace. Their devotion and sacrifice did not significantly change history or annihilate mankind's enemies such as war, disease, and hunger. But today's bliss of the Sermon on the Mount has a surprising declaratory provision for them.
These are the declarations of blessing that they will become 'children of God'. They did not receive the price of living that way to become children of God. They lived that way because they are God's children.
Jesus says:
"Blessed are the peacemakers
for they shall be called children of God.
God's children
Living in this world, doing things like God
Because they resemble God."
Dear brothers and sisters, we became children of God not only for our own happiness and peace. We were saved to serve the world beyond our personal level. We have been sent to this world as ambassadors of peace in the kingdom of God. It is meaningless if the salvation of God's grace stays only on the individual level. Such salvation is easily destroyed.
If we Christians have the purpose of being trained, it is not just a means of survival to see the world as evil and to survive in such an evil world. It's more than that. It is more positive for a life lived for peace.
Dear brothers and sisters, even if we do not go directly to conflict zones and participate in any work for peace, we can work for peace in the realities of our daily lives. God will require such a thing from us. Such work is not the amount of work. Such things are closely related to the value of life, meaning and purpose.
In the reality of the society we live in, all things are not resolved peacefully due to political and economic interests, and everyone is twisted and entangled. We need God's children who work for peace in these times. There is no hope unless we learn to live a life that creates peace. Peace is a matter of life in general. We are waiting for the kingdom of God. We wait for the kingdom of God because that kingdom is peace itself.
Finally, I will close my sermon by introducing the prayer of St. Francis.
Lord,
Use me as your instrument,
Where there is hate, love
Forgiveness where there is strife,
Unity where there is division,
Faith where there is doubt,
truth where there is wrong,
Hope where there is despair,
light in darkness,
joy where there is sorrow
Let me be the bringer.
Consoling rather than being comforted,
to understand rather than to be understood,
to love rather than to be loved
Please do.
We receive by giving,
being forgiven by forgiving,
by giving up and dying
Because you get eternal life.