Matthew 5:9 "Blessed are the Peacemakers"

                “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”  When I read these words my mind immediately goes to two places.  The first is the old single action Colt .45 revolver (commonly called the peacemaker), but that’s not what this text is about obviously.  The second (and more applicable) place that my mind goes is, what does it mean to be a peacemaker?  Now, what is unique about this particular word that is translated almost universally in all English versions of Scripture as peacemaker is that this is the only usage of this word as it exists in the entire New Testament.  It has as its root, the word for peace (which is used much more frequently).  But this word peacemaker literally means one who makes or extends peace; one who declares God’s terms for someone becoming whole.  To be whole is to be at peace, but we’ll flush that out a little more in just a second.  Now, so often we think of peace as simply being the absence of strife.  Y’all we had a long week this past week at our house.  Amy and I both had a fair amount of hectic scheduling and work to get done and all we wanted at times was peace, the absence of strife.  If one child wanted something then we just wanted the others to roll over and give it to them.  Basically we wanted a lack of conflict.  Well, the biblical definition of peace (shalom in the Old Testament and eirene in the New Testament) is something much more active.  It’s something much more complex than simply the absence of strife or disagreement.  Maybe thinking of that single-action revolver is getting more at the definition than I thought it was.

                Shalom, a word that we’ve probably all heard before, doesn’t just mean that there is no present conflict.  Shalom is more than just simply peace; it is a complete peace.  It is a feeling of contentment, completeness, wholeness, well-being, and harmony.  It is a peace that doesn’t sit back and wait, but a peace that is proactive and reaching out to someone to draw them in to a state of completeness or wholeness.  “Greatly filled or greatly contented by God are those who seek the wholeness of others, for they shall be called children of God.”  Those who fit this term peacemakers are not just those who are content themselves but those who are actively seeking peace, contentment for others.  They are actively seeking out those whom they can help with reconciling their relationships with God and other people.  These are the people who will be called sons of God, or children of God as some manuscripts have it.

                You don’t even have to turn the page of your Bibles for many of you.  I want you to glance over at Matthew 5:43-48.  Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons [children] of your Father who is in heaven.  For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?  Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?  Do not even the Gentiles do the same?  You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Now, I know that a lot of you when you read this text tend to get hung up on the word perfect, but I want you to set that aside for now.  This is a call that Jesus makes in his expounding upon the Beatitudes to love our enemies just as much as we love our friends.  However, this isn’t the type of love that has us feeling warm and fuzzy for them, this is a different type of love.  This is a love that calls us to pray for them, to want their well-being, and to hope for them to be blessed.  It’s that sense that we may never really like someone, but we would never wish evil on them, or would we?  Dr. R.C. Sproul says of Christian love that it “is a principle of action rather than of emotion.  It is a matter of doing things for people out of compassion for them.  It is by their active love to one another that [followers of Jesus] can be recognized.”  Are you getting it?  Loving our neighbors, being peacemakers, can’t be something that is passive, it must be active.

                You see, we all want for ourselves to prosper and for our enemies to suffer or perish.  Some of you are sitting there say, “Look, I don’t know who you think I am, but I don’t have enemies.”  Well, let me put it this way.  I was running in my neighborhood one afternoon and almost got hit by a bus; not my car but my person.  The bus came around the corner so fast that it jumped the curb and came about 2 feet from running over me.  I was so mad that after my run I called the TPSD transportation office and reported the bus and demanded that they start putting police in my neighborhood while the buses were running.  Now, not too long before that I was upset at the police presence in my neighborhood because I got caught running a stop sign.  You see, I wanted the police there to catch someone else, but I didn’t want them there to catch me.

                You know it’s funny when we speak about the call for Christians to be peacemakers.  You see, to much of the outside world we are anything but the promoters of peace.  “You Christians are so divisive.  We were all getting along just fine until you guys showed up.  We could all agree to disagree until y’all showed up with your ‘Jesus is the only way’ stuff.”  You see, the world doesn’t view peace as we view it.  The world views peace the way that I mentioned earlier, by simply viewing it as the absence of conflict.  The world views love (as in loving our enemies) as complete acceptance without any expectations or disagreements.  However, that’s neither what biblical peace nor biblical love looks like at all.  In fact, that’s sort of what destruction looks like.  The Irish-born Edmund Burke famously said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  Now, Burke had no theological assertions in mind when he made this statement, but I think it fits in with the world’s view of peace and love.  You know, the view that seeks to just not rock the boat and keep the peace; i.e. no strife.  There are times when, contrary to what we may think, love means having to be honest and open with someone even when we know they don’t want to hear it.  Sometimes we have to say some harsh and hurtful things to be peacemakers, to extend peace and declare God’s terms for becoming whole and complete.  Sometimes we have to tell someone that they have a problem.  Sometimes we have to tell them that they’re hurting other people, drinking way too often, or that they’re going down a dark path.

                I want to take some time and ask some questions that for some of you will hurt.  Others among you will get angry at me for even asking or suggesting what I’m going to.  Think about you enemies.  Ok, you won’t admit that you have enemies, let me phrase it another way.  Think about those people in your life that you want to suffer.  Think about that person who you feel has done you wrong who you can’t stand.   Think about that person that when you see them and think about them you just think to yourself, “If the rest of the world could see you the way that I see you then they would despise you just like I do.”  Do we all have at least one person mind now?  If you’re like me, then you’ve got a couple in mind.  Now let me ask you this:  have you prayed for that person lately.  Have you spoken to God and said, “Lord, meet them where they are and bless them, reconcile them to yourself, give them this peace, this shalom that makes them complete.  Lord if I can be of service to you in redeeming this person please use me as you will.”  Notice that I’m not saying that we pray for them to have everything they want but everything that they need in order to be filled by God.  All of the people whom I consider my enemies are people who are actively seeking the destruction of the gospel, many of whom I don’t even know.  Of course I don’t want them to get everything they want, but I want God to give them what they need.  I want him to open up their eyes and reconcile them to himself.

                Now, that’s my enemies.  What about yours?  Maybe yours is like mine, or maybe it’s someone much more personal.  Maybe it’s that friend that said something behind your back.  Maybe it’s that family member who you feel has wronged you?  Maybe it’s that spouse that just doesn’t seem to measure up to what you want?  Maybe it’s even a child that just won’t stop causing you problems at home.  Whoever it may be, have you prayed for that person?  Have you earnestly sought that person’s well-being?  Have you honestly sought for them to experience this contentment, this completeness, this shalom, this deep and all-encompassing peace?  Look, I can hear it now.  “Tommy, there is no way I could ever pray for this person even if I wanted to, and it’s just not going to happen.”  I get the sentiment, I really do.  I get something or someone being so awful from where we sit that we shudder to think of helping them at all, much less being active in their restoration.  However, I also thank God that he didn’t take a similar view when it came to us.

                I can promise you that there isn’t a person alive that any of us have more reasons to dislike than God has to be disappointed with every single one of us.  You think what that person did to you was bad?  Try being God and watching how you stray from him so much that you don’t even do it consciously.  You think that relative isn’t even worth your time?  Think about how much more awful we would be if God took the same view.  Friends, I know it’s hard to pray for someone that you don’t like.  Every day that I read something on the internet about ISIS it’s hard for me to pray for restoration and not retaliation.  When I see that the Freedom from Religion Foundation has stirred up some new mess it’s hard for me to ask God to redeem them and not wreck them.  You see, it’s a tough thing to seek peace actively.  It’s a tough thing to love all of our neighbors and pray for our enemies.  Anyone can do nothing and like their friends and those similar to them.  However, that’s not what Jesus is calling us to do.

                This entire series that we’ve been studying is about how to live the blessed life.  It’s about how to live a life that is greatly filled by God.  It’s about how to live a life that is so complete and so wholly and holy.  They way that we do that is by following Christ.  The way that we do that is by placing our own selves aside and seeking the righteousness of Christ first and foremost.  Is it tough?  Absolutely!  Is it impossible?  Well, on our own it is.  Even if we have a group that is committed to going at this together it’s impossible.  If this entire church committed to living out these Beatitudes and we all agreed to keep each other accountable, we would still fail in our endeavor.  However, with Christ, there is a chance.  With Christ and through Christ, there is no limit to what can be done.  The elements on this table before us represent that very promise.  These elements represent the means by which the righteousness and suffering of Christ become our reality.  In just a few moments we will partake of these elements that sit before us.  The bread and the cup represent Jesus’ being a peacemaker for us.  They represent his redeeming us, reconciling us to God, and his making us whole.  As we partake of them in just a moment, I want us to realize just how thankful each of us ought to be that Jesus didn’t just stop at the absence of conflict, but that he sought actively to restore us before the Father in heaven.