(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Passage:  Matthew 5: 9

9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

So, this post may be a little different, a little off our beaten path…because life happens.  I mean, what a time to write about peace!  We pray for it, we yearn for it, we talk about it and, yet, it continues to elude us.  I was like everyone else that woke up on Saturday morning to the news that the United States (along with Israel) had attacked Iran.  I know, I know…you can say we needed regime change there (we do); you can say that we were worried that Iran would attack us (yeah, they have at times…although I’m not sure they’re in a strategic posture to have done that effectively); you can say that the world needs this (really?  Is this what the world needs?).  You can come up with lots of reasons for attacking someone but I’m not sure any of them really account for what was done.

9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

We understand the casualties of war.  We know them well.  We understand the loss of life (which has already happened—U.S. soldiers, a girl’s elementary school, normal people just trying to live their normal lives).  We understand the economic and financial strain that a drawn-out war puts on everyone.  We understand the loss of property, some of it historic and irreplaceable (we in our young 250-yr old country don’t fully appreciate this but Iran is at least 2600 years old!  (Look up Persia)).  But we make excuses and we go forward.  We let our greed or our fears or our need for power and influence outweigh the casualties.  We convince ourselves that it is for the best, that somehow the future will thank us.

9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

So, we pray for peace.  We struggle for peace.  Well, here’s the deal…peace is not the absence of war.  The absence of war is nothing but a temporary vacuum that is all too easily filled with greed and fears and our need for power and influence.  Peace is not a vacuum.  Peace is hard.  Peace is work.  Peace is not something that is obtained and checked off of some sort of geographic list of the most tenuous places on this earth.  Peace is never “obtained”, never “locked in” because, frankly, the earth has all these pesky humans trying to live together.  Peacemaking is ongoing work.  And it is so, so important.  And it is so, so hard, so, so fragile, so, so misunderstood.  Peacemaking is the work of faith—regardless of which faith you espouse.

9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

So, do we want peace?  No, I’m serious.  Do we really, really, really want peace?  Or do we just want everyone else to come over to our side?  We have seemed to become sadly comfortable with war.  We have seemed to accept it as a necessary evil.  It has somehow gravitated into some sort of sport, as if a mere pep rally would rally us up on our team and support what I think is pure idiocy.  No, we have to WANT peace, really, really, really want peace.  We have to want peace so badly that we will become peacemakers.  And becoming peacemakers mean that we begin to accept not the casualties of war as “necessary evils” but rather the casualties of peace as necessary for life.  What are the casualties of peace?  Peace is good.  It has no casualties.  No, there are things that you have to surrender to be a peacemaker.  You must surrender greed, the need to obtain what is not yours, to somehow profit from a perceived “zero sum” mentality of the world’s resources.  You must surrender fear—fear of the other, fear that your life will change, fear that you will no longer be able to control the world.  And you must surrender power and influence.  You must give up needing to have everyone on your team, everyone on your side.  You must give up the comfort of having everyone in the world think like you and worship like you and believe like you and govern like you and be like you.  Yes, there ARE casualties of peace.  And they are so, so necessary on this day.   

9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

So, breathe out all this stuff.  Breathe out greed and fear.  Breathe out the need for power, the need to be right, the need to be comfortable.  And breathe out the misconception that peace can be achieved by one side “winning” over another.  Instead, breathe in peacemaking.  Breathe in listening; breathe in loving; breathe in looking at the world in a different way, a peaceful way.  Breathe in finding a way to live together in our diversity rather than expect us all to follow the winners of the sport of war.  Breathe in peace.  Being a peacemaker is not easy; being a peacemaker is what it means to be a person of faith.  Be a peacemaker.  Ask questions.  Work hard.  Listen…

9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

¹¹May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace! (Psalm 29:11)

Oh Lord, lead us from the unreal to the real; from darkness to light; from death to immortality.
May there be peace in celestial regions.
May there be peace on earth. (from a Hindu Peace Prayer)

There is no peace; Peace is the Way. (Mahatma Ghandi)

And Allah is all-hearing, all-knowing, and the servants of the Beneficent Allah are they who walk on the earth in humbleness, and when the ignorant address them, they say: peace. (Quran 25:63)

9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Peace does not come rolling in on the wheels of inevitability.  We can’t just wish for peace.  We have to will it, fight for it, suffer for it, demand it from our governments as if peace were God’s most cherished hope for humanity, as indeed it is.  (William Sloane Coffin)

Shalom,

Shelli