Blessed Are The Peacemakers

Prior to sermon we watched an excellent video clip by Poppy Scotland in which veterans reflect on their experiences in the forces and in war. The opening quotation picks up on the last line of the video.


“I wish to God somebody would just sit down and say “let’s stop this carry on”.

I first saw that clip a couple of years ago and it’s stayed with me ever since. Not only is it beautifully made, it sums up a great deal of what needs to be said on Remembrance Sunday.

It reminds us of the courage and camaraderie of the men and women who served, and serve, in our armed forces. It gives us some idea of the burdens they carry – the heavy responsibilities and terrible memories that they have to live with. And it reminds us of the sheer waste of war and the awful consequences for our world when nations or governments or neighbours decide they have no better option than to fight one another.

“Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain” says the Psalmist.

Why indeed?

It strikes me there are only a handful of reasons why wars are ever fought: greed for land or natural resources; enmity for people of a different race or religion; or fear of the consequences of not taking military action.

Very rarely, wars are fought to restore justice or protect the innocent, but by and large, most wars start because of greed, enmity or fear. And if you wanted, you could distil that down even further into one good-old fashioned Biblical word – the word ‘sin’, which is shorthand for leaving God out of it and going our own sweet way.

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?

Because of sin. The basic problem of the human heart. A problem that sets us against God, against one another and even against ourselves: bringing division and robbing us of peace. And it has always been so.

In the Genesis story, we’re told that in the beginning, Adam and Eve were at peace, walking with God in the cool of the day. But then comes the famous incident with the apple. The newly created humans go their own sweet way. And what happens? Division. God blames Adam. Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent, innocence is lost and harmony evaporates.

And the sins of the fathers are visited on the children.

Eve has two sons, Cain and Abel. Abel offers an acceptable sacrifice to God, Cain doesn’t. Cain gets jealous and decides to murder Abel. And God says “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!”.

And it still cries out to this very day; from the gutters of Baghdad, the hills of Helmand Province, the back streets of Belfast, the ovens of Auschwitz, the beaches and fields of Northern France, the grassy plains of Africa; from every place where blood has ever been shed in anger.

And with a remarkable unanimity, those who’ve fought in and survived these wars find themselves echoing the last soldier’s words in the video we’ve just watched.

“I wish to God somebody would just sit down and say “let’s stop this carry on”.

Well somebody did sit down; 2000 years ago on a hillside in Galilee; with a group of folk around him as divided and diverse as they could possibly be.

Orthodox Jews, pagan Gentiles, city dwellers, country folk, rich and poor, righteous and unrighteous.

And on seeing that crowd, rife with cultural, religious and social tensions, Jesus spoke these words: “Blessed are the peacemakers. For they shall be called children of God.”

We’ve been speaking about the Kingdom of God these past few weeks, and part of what the Kingdom’s about, is you and I learning to heal the divisions that opened up in Eden. Learning to choose the way that leads to peace, even when that way is immeasurably tough.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

I wonder what you think of when you hear the word ‘peacemaker’? Perhaps like me you’re thinking of some worthy individual in khaki fatigues sitting down in a tent somewhere, trying to get two warring sides to agree.

Or someone in a suit, patrolling the halls of the United Nations building, whispering urgently into the ears of the politicians and generals who hold the balance of power in the worlds’ conflict zones.

Whatever truth there is in those images, I don’t think that’s what Jesus means us to take from these words.

It’s much more down-to-earth than that. It’s about how you and I are in daily life. Are we the kind of folk who divide and polarise, or the kind of folk who draw people together and bring unity? Are we troublemakers or are we peacemakers? Willie Barclay puts it this way – “Blessed are those who work for right relationships – for they are about God’s work”.

You see, the way of the world since Eden, is to reduce things to the comfortable falsehood of back-and-white certainties. We’re right, they’re wrong. We’re good, they’re bad. We’re chosen, they’re not chosen. God loves us; God hates them.

We’re expected to take sides, because that’s how things work in a fallen world. You have to choose sides, they say. Are you with us or are you with them? Black and white.

But here’s the thing – if God has met me, in all my ambiguity, in all my mixed motives and incompleteness, and if God has spoken into all of that, and declared his love for me despite all that I am, how can I deny God the right to speak into others lives in the same way, even if I think of them as my enemy?

When you really get a hold of the grace of God – or better still, when the grace of God really gets a hold on you – suddenly the world doesn’t seem as black and white as it once did. You’re less ready to pigeonhole; to give up on people; to assume the worst. Because God hasn’t pigeonholed, or given up on, or assumed the worst of, you.

The more you begin to see others from God’s perspective, the more reluctant you are to judge them or condemn them. It sounds terribly wishy-washy and liberal doesn’t it?

But it sounded that way on Jesus’ lips too. Later on in this same chapter of Matthew’s gospel he says: “You have heard that it was said, “Love your friends and hate your enemies”. But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil”.

“But God – don’t send your rain and sunshine on those people! You know what they’re like. Don’t bless them. Bless us! We’re your children”.

“And they too are my children, though as yet they may not realise it. And if you come at them in my name with hatred and venom and fear, is it any wonder they get confused about what my love is like?”

How do you come at people? How do you view and respond to them?

Troublemakers can’t see beyond the differences and divisions between folk, and they deal with people accordingly. Greed, enmity, fear, argument, progroms and war follow.

Peacemakers see further, because they see the other with the eyes of God – a God who wants nobody to perish and everyone to come to repentance and faith. Healing, reconciliation and true peace – shalom – follow.

Want to know which you are this morning? Troublemaker or Peacemaker? Look behind you. If there’s a trail of argument, fall-outs and grudges littering your past, maybe that’s your answer. And maybe today’s word is a word for you. It’s not too late to change, but you’ll need God’s help to do it.

But let me finish with one more observation. Jesus says blessed are the peacemakers. He doesn’t say “Blessed are the peace-lovers”.

We all love peace, but in a world like ours it has to be made. Peace will not fall into our laps. It has to be worked for.

And the temptation is always to sit back and not deal with things, supposedly in the interests of peace, when what’s really needed is that we take the bull by the horns and deal with situations instead of avoiding them.

There’s a high cost in that. Because sometimes, in working for peace, you ruffle feathers that need to be ruffled. You expose things that others would rather sweep under the carpet because you know that real peace isn’t possible until everyone faces up to reality.

As I was thinking about today, it struck me with renewed force just how ironic it is that one of Jesus’ titles, according to the prophet Isaiah, is the Prince of Peace.

When you take a look at his life and ministry, it strikes me that it was anything but peaceful. The ongoing battles with spiritual evil, the very public spats with the Pharisees, the plotting and scheming that went on among his enemies, the controversy that followed him almost everywhere he went. And then, at last, of course, his arrest and scourging and crucifixion.

That’s what the world does to peacemakers.

But right ‘til the end, what’s he doing? He’s doing what peacemakers do. He’s trying to reconcile people with one another and with God.

He looks down and sees his mother, weeping: standing beside the beloved disciple, John. And feeling her loss, he says – “Take this man to be your son. John, take this woman to be your mother”.

To the thief, dying beside him and finally admitting his guilt, he promises reconciliation with God – “Today you will be with me in paradise”.

And in a black-and-white world where we’re taught to hate our enemies, he prays that those who nailed him to the cross might be reconciled with God: He says “Father, forgive them. For they don’t know what they’re doing”.

Blessed are the peacemakers, said the Ultimate peacemaker. For they shall be called children of God.

Where in your little corner of life, is there a need for a peacemaker?

At home, maybe? Or at work? In the clubhouse, or in the boardroom?

Someone who can be strong enough not to take sides, and risk falling foul of everyone because you refuse to caricature people. Someone who refuses to write people off. Someone who can say what needs to be said in the right spirit, rather than shooting from the hip and aiming for maximum damage.

It’s a costly way to live. But it’s the Kingdom way. And it leads both to blessing, and to peace.