...are the Peacemakers... [7]- Neil Ryan

Date: October 22, 2006
Passage: Matthew 5:9
Message: Blessed are the Peacemakers
Series: The Be-Attitudes [7]

…..blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God [Matthew 5:9]

Peace is an abstraction and as such is not easy to talk about.
We are all in love with the notion of peace, but it’s only when you put flesh on it that it becomes difficult!

It’s like we all want peace until it costs me something and then peace takes on a different meaning!

The truth is we live in a world of un-peace.
[Created word: un = absence]
Every time we hear something on peace there is another message that screams at us deep within
….some things never change!

This is one of those things.
Our struggle this morning is with futility.
Does all this talk of peace ever make any difference?
Un-peace is the colour of our world.

U Thant, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, speaking in 1965, about the requirements for world peace:
"What element is lacking so that with all our skill and all our knowledge we still find ourselves in the dark valley of discord and enmity?
What is it that inhibits us from going forward together to enjoy the fruits of human endeavor and to reap the harvest of human experience? Why is it that, for all our professed ideals, our hopes, our skills, peace on earth is still a distant objective seen only dimly through the storms and turmoils of our present difficulties?"
Why is it that when it comes to this infuriating abstract called peace that some things never change?
Not just a global thing – it’s personal.

I noticed in the advertiser on Thursday that there was an altercation at an under 7’s football match in USA.
One man didn’t think his son was getting enough game time so at half time this father pulled out a .357 magnum pistol and threatened the coach!

But we don’t have to look at the United Nations or read the papers – we know it in our own world.
Conflict, disagreement, un-peace invades everything from our families, our work place, our political arena, the way we drive our car, our relationships with others.
This reminds me of the famous conversation between Lady Astor and Winston Churchill. Lady Astor said to him,
“If I were your wife, I’d put poison in your coffee!” And Churchill responded,
“If I were your husband, I’d drink it!"

Well, even our laughter about this shows that deep down we are pre-disposed to conflict. I mean, be honest, how many of you thought, “Great comeback! If only I could be as quick as that with my put downs!

Our frustration is more often that we were not quick enough on the retaliation rather than we were not able to be a peace-maker!

Before we can be peacemakers we have to have some understanding of the cause of the problem.

Albert Einstein, he won the Nobel peace price for physics in 1921. In one of his lectures in 1948 he commented on the threat of nuclear warfare: 'It is not a physical problem, but an ethical one. What terrifies us is not the explosive force of the atomic bomb, but the power of the wickedness of the human heart - its explosive power for evil'!

James 4:1-2
1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.

The heart of the peace issue is the heart itself.
Any attempt to be a peace-maker that does not begin with the human heart will at best just produce a temporary result.

Psalm 85
….love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other

Peace is not an abstract wish.
It cannot be divorced from righteousness.
It cannot sweep away or ignore the devastating implications of our un-righteousness!

That’s what Paul spoke about in Ephesians 2.
He tells us that our brokenness and sinfulness put us out of sync with God and with man.
We had no peace with God and we have constant enmity between Jew and Gentile.
Jew and gentile are just synonymous with the whole range of human conflict between people!

….but now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
For he himself is our peace….he has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility…..his purpose to create one new man….thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross.

…..blessed are the peacemakers
At its very heart Jesus is calling us to a life that constantly seeks to reorientate one another to the heart of God!
That is, we be one in Christ.

……blessed are the peacemakers

How does this statement penetrate much deeper than the dreamy words of the old Beatles song to –
Give peace a chance

On the surface it must have frustrated his congregation of the mountain side who longed for the day when their messiah would rise up like King David of old and smite the military might of Rome.

These words seem so innocuous.
In fact on the surface they have been the Achilles heel of the Church.
The world has this image of the Church that we should be peaceable, Quakersish type folks who are seen and not heard.

That we should be people who avoid all controversy and conflict because it goes against our mandate as people of peace!

But look closely.
Jesus does not say,
Blessed are the peace-lovers, or blessed are the peace-full…
He says,
Blessed are the peace-makers.

They are not the same thing.
There are many people who are peaceful, or peace loving but they are not peacemakers!
Many times people think that just being passive is enough, but being a peace-maker is a much more risky business than that!!

Eg.
When in Darwin we had one our leaders in a defacto relationship with a man. I didn’t feel that was appropriate and told the leaders I would speak to her.

I was strongly advised not to.
They said she is a very volatile woman and I most likely would get a fry pan over the head for my troubles!
This was an issue that came under the category of ‘let sleeping dogs lie’
I started to wonder whether her anger problem was a bigger hindrance to her leadership than her relationship issue!

Anyhow I told them I would put on a suit of armor and visit this lady.
I went to the house and when she came to the door she took one look at me and said
‘I know why you are here!’

I looked to see if she had the fry pan behind her back.
Then she said,
I have been expecting it for 3 years, come in!

We talked. I asked to talk to partner who was about as blokey as you could get. Mechanic who’d lived in Darwin all his life!

She was surprised. He’d never talk about Christianity.
I went there every Thursday for 6 weeks and one day I just looked at this crusty old mechanic.
“Allan, why aren’t you a Christian?’
“Not sure”
That day he invited Jesus to be his Saviour.

Month later he and his fiery little lady were married as part of our Sunday morning worship service and the Church threw them a reception straight after!

The peace that Jesus talks about is Shalom
It is much more than the absence of conflict
It is the presence of wholeness.
It is the knowing that in deepest sense of things that all is well.
It is the assurance that we have all that God intended us to have.

Eg.
Visited the Catholic centre just near Tukrajhar recently.
Father and Assistant really evangelical – doing great job.
They spent hour with us and then showed us around complex.
Met sisters and they gave us more tea and biscuits.

Then one of the sisters told me they had a little surprise
We were taken towards this big building.
As I walked in, the lights came on and there were about 80 children jumping screaming, waving to welcome me.

Then they sang a song – which I could not understand.
Pradip translated it for me
What can we give you?
We haven’t got anything to give but we give you our love
What can we say to you?
We haven’t got sweet voices but we sing to you with love

That is shalom
….blessed are the peacemakers

Peacemaking is more than just loving peace or being peaceful.
It is more than just brokering a truce!

Problem with a truce is that the problem still remains.
The issues are not dealt with.
There is a simmering conflict but an uneasy agreement not to act!

Eg.
Couple of weeks ago I was at a little place way up on Bhutan border in India called Dagari.
I was told that a few years ago this was the place where militants gathered up 21 people and killed them to make a point.

I said,
Are those militants still around the place?
“They’re everywhere. None of them have ever been held accountable. It’s too politically sensitive!’
‘What are we doing here?’
There’s a truce between Govt soldiers and Militants and it seems to be holding!
‘Hope it holds for at least another few hours!’

The peace that God brought to our sinful world did not avoid the problem.
God did not sweep sin under the carpet in offering us peace.
Righteousness and peace kissed at the cross!

Being a peacemaker is sometimes a difficult thing.
It may involve speaking a truth that shatters the illusion of peace.
It may mean disturbing the peace before genuine peace can be found.

What gets peacemakers in trouble is that they see things differently.
They see a larger picture than others want to see, except in hindsight.
They see things from God’s point of view, ahead of time.

We pray in the Lord’s Prayer
…..your kingdom come, your will be done…
Peacemakers see God’s Kingdom now, not just as a wishful world for another day and time.

Fred Buechner recalls that in Ken Burns’ “Civil War” there was some grainy footage shot at the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913 when hundreds of old men from both sides returned to the battlefield to reenact Pickett’s Charge.

The Yankees, took their places on Seminary Ridge, the Johnny Rebs took their places below. After a while the men in gray started to move across the field where 50 years earlier so many of them had been slaughtered. As they advanced toward the ridge, an eyewitness said, "We could not see rifles and bayonets, but canes and crutches.”

As they approached the Union line, they broke into a long, rebel yell. …….

The Yankees burst from behind the stone wall and flung themselves upon their former enemies. Only this time, unlike 50 years earlier, they did not try to kill them. They threw their arms around them. Some in blue and some in gray, old men embraced and wept.

Buechner comments, "If only the old men had seen in 1863 what, for a moment, they glimpsed in 1913."

…..blessed are the peacemakers
If only we could see God’s Kingdom now.
If only we could see God’s heart for one another now.
If only we could give up our selfish, death like hold on me and mine and seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness now.

Some things never change!!
Will we?
Those who do are called son’s of God

There is nothing more Christ-like!
…..I have told you these things so that in me you might have peace. In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world. [John 16:33]