We are nearing the end of the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5. After looking at the poor in spirit, the mourning and meek, the merciful and pure in heart, we come to the line that says blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Peace can have many meanings. We can have a peaceful day or
a peaceful view. We yearn for peace that is an end to war and division. As the
image notes, we can offer peace to someone else by our caring. We want to have
peace of mind and pray for the peace of God.
Jesus says that peacemakers will be called children of God. I am reminded of the old hymn They Cast their Nets in Galilee* by William Alexander Percy. The hymn notes that the “peace of God…filled their hearts brimful, and broke them too.” It ends by reminding us “The peace of God, it is no peace, But strife closed in the sod. Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing—The marvelous peace of God.”
Peacemaking requires action. It requires casting nets and
sometimes leaving them for a new way of living. Peacemaking is heartbreaking
work because it can require all our heart in order to make a different way. Peacemaking
can be exhausting when there seems to be no peace to be found. In a world of pandemic,
division, injustice, and threats; peacemaking isn’t easy. The good news is we
aren’t alone.
Laurie Gudim in the February 7 edition of Episcopal Café notes, “We’re staring at empty nets after a long night of
fruitless fishing. This Pandemic is really taking it out of us. We are weeping
for lost loved ones. We are struggling against uncertainty and confusion,
helpless to figure out what to do next…”
She continues, “into the middle of our exhaustion and our
gloom, here comes that guy, that Christ – that uncomfortable splinter of holy
perspective we have never been able to dig out of our hearts. “Do it again,” he
says. “This time go out into the deep water. Cast your nets there…Do what you
are good at, what calls you. Yes, cast out your nets. Again.”
Peacemaking means never giving up, continuing to cast our nets. Gudim states “he is calling us, and so we go…We just go because he has said to go, and we throw our nets into the sea one more time.” Perhaps this time the nets will find a harvest of peace, of understanding, of hope, of love. In fact, Gudim promises, “We are not alone, we are not lost, and we are overwhelmed with abundance….He has a job for us. There is no getting around it.”
Peacemakers cast their nets to encompass the good and holy
dream where the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with
the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child
will lead them (Isaiah 11:6). That often means confronting whatever
it is that is preventing peace. Peacemakers, like prophets, name the evil and
work to cure it. Only in the hard work of striving for peace and justice can we
bring about "The dream of God is that all creation will live together in
peace and harmony and fulfillment. All parts of creation.” (Verna Dozier)
Br. Woodrum, in the January 2021 meditation referenced last
week, reminds us, “Jesus' gospel
message was that we were all created in the image of God, with the capacity to
mirror the same loving-kindness that is God’s essence, that is chesed. We
show this by following his example: by being merciful, engaging each other with
compassion, listening to each other intently, and when necesssary asking God for
the courage to speak truth to power.
Shane Claiborne in Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary
Radicals says this: “Peace is not just about the absence of conflict; it’s
also about the presence of justice…true peace does not exist until there is justice,
restoration, forgiveness. Peacemaking doesn’t mean passivity. It is the act of
interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil
without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither
fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice.
It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed
and the oppressors free.”
We are called to move forward as bearers of peace and justice to bring the Kingdom of God more fully present each day.
Can you ‘hand someone a bit of peace’ and ‘mirror’ God’s chesed’
today?
What part of the work of the Dream of God are you called to
participate in?
Are you ready to join the ‘revolution of love’ Claiborne talks about?
