Healing Rays of Righteousness

I do not like confrontations of any kind and seek to avoid situations of disagreements and conflicts. I admit to placing a high value on maintaining good relationships with others and tend to be extremely careful not to do or say anything that would dampen or strain those relationships. However, I must also admit to frequently silencing my own understandings, perspectives, and convictions, rather than attempting to be a peacemaker like Jesus.

That is why the words in Psalm 34:12-14, “Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it” prick and challenge me every time I read them.

Furthermore, Jesus surely affirms the psalmist admonition to “seek peace and pursue it” by saying in Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

At the conclusion of his Sermon on the Mount Beatitudes, Jesus clearly stated to his disciples that his intentions for them is to be “peacemakers” involved in God’s kingdom activity of bringing reconciliation and peace into the world for all of humanity. He wanted them to understand that just as he taught and modeled a lifestyle of peacemaking while he was with them, he intended that they would do the same after he left them.

These two texts tell me that the “joy of life” as it was meant to be experienced was to be found in peacemaking involvements at the center of trouble. I love life and seek its joy and these two texts challenge my tendency to avoid getting involved as a peacemaker in conflictual situations. I am hearing from Jesus that Christian peacemakers belong in the middle of explosive situations to diffuse and to heal.

Let me clarify what I think Jesus meant by the word “peacemakers.” It has been suggested that since the Hebrew word “shalom” means everything which makes for a person’s highest good, this beatitude could be read as “Blessed are those who make this world a better place for all people to live in.”

Abraham Lincoln stated this as his desire, “Die when I may, I would like it to be said of me, that I always pulled up a weed and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.”

There are those who interpret this beatitude only in a spiritual sense, and read it to say, “Blessed is the man who makes peace in his own heart and in his own soul.” I agree that there is an inner conflict between good and evil in all of us, and happy is the person who has given his whole heart and life to God and has received God’s peace in their inner self.

But the Jewish rabbis taught that the highest task which a man can perform is to establish right relationships between man and man. I am convinced that this is the deeper and more complete meaning Jesus intended in his use of the word “peacemaker.”

There will always be “troublemakers” in the world. They are found in almost every grouping of people, and they are doing the devil’s work of dividing and destroying. In contrast to these persons, “peacemakers” are people doing God’s work of uniting and giving life to all persons.

For this reason, Jesus called and challenged his disciples and us to be “peacemakers” by getting involved in situations of conflict and work to build bridges of understanding and heal the hurts of broken relationships.

It is especially important to note that Jesus said God’s happiness is given to the maker of peace, not to the lover of peace, nor the keeper of peace. In other words, what this beatitude demands is not the passive acceptance of things as they are to keep peace, but rather the active stepping into situations of disagreement, divide, and conflict to bring reconciliation and healing of relationships. Peacemakers are persons who stand in the gap between the opposing sides.

Today, the political, racial, and religious divides are being deliberately and aggressively magnified, and peacemakers are urgently needed to listen, clarify, mediate, and open communication between the conflicting parties.

Of course, this is often risky and dangerous activity, and that’s why Jesus continued with another beatitude in verse 10, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Even so, I am being challenged to ask myself sincerely and compassionately, what may be the specific things God wants me to say and do as a peacemaker. How can I be a “healing ray of righteousness” in bringing clarification, empathy, and love to our communities and nation?
Shalom to you!

“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – June 17, 2020
http://www.geigler13.wordpress.com
Ray M. Geigley