BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS

I shared the other day about the heart of Judas and the expectations of the Jews on how their Messiah should come. Dr. Joel Muddamalle who I referenced my musings on expounded on this in ways I could never be so thoughtful or insightful with, but it spoke of what our desires and preconceived notions on what we want the kingdom of God to be.

I have found myself as of late, reading and re-reading the beatitudes. These are eight blessings given while Christ taught the Sermon on the Mount. The accompanying clip of Jesus speaking with a group of children on being peacemakers caught my thought…“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God.” - Matthew 5:9

What He has called blessed and what He has called good is upside down from our own values.We like to quote it but in the hard scrabble of life, we veer from it as impractical.

Peacemaking is not about only making nice, but much of the time requires stepping into conflict. A peacemaker initiates reconciliation when wronged and makes things right when they have wronged others.

We love our memes. We make and share them online and use them as missiles, firing them back at one another in passive aggressive volleys to assert the dominance of our views. Much of the roots of our conflict are political, religious and racially tinged. We use irreverent posts that paint opposing views as foolish and gullible or full of premeditated malice. The danger with these memes is that they are often ladened with false quotes, puffed up claims and conflated stereotypes in attempts to prove what we believe to be the truth to be legitimate. But they often are deliberately misinformed and delve into falsehood.

All the important things such as humility and love and equity, these things erode where truth has been cast out. The very essence of peacemaking requires one to put aside all preconceived notions (and it is never, ever easy mind you), and opinions and to seek out truth and to speak it. It requires one to seek out relationship with one another. Relationship beyond a keyboard venturing into the real world. Meaningful relationships that are valuable and much needed.

Granted, it’s difficult and it’s not always possible to find reconciliation with others and it doesn’t always work out. But nevertheless, we are called to be about this. Paul in the book of Romans, chapter 12, verse 18 says: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

If you are one that finds your hope in Christ then you are called to nothing less my friend.