The Art of Peacemaking
Text: Matthew 5:1-12
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.”
There is a scene from the Monty Python film The Life of Brian that makes light of this particular line from the Sermon on the Mount. It is satire to be sure, but there is a lot of ironic truth in this scene. Very close to the beginning of the film, we see Jesus standing atop a hill delivering these familiar words of the Sermon on the Mount. The camera pans way back to a group of entirely suburbanite-looking Israelites, straining to hear what Jesus is saying. They can’t hear very well, and while this sermon is going on they begin to argue amongst themselves. One of them stops for a second and asks what Jesus just said:
—I think it was 'Blessed are the cheese-makers'.
—Ah. What's so special about the cheese-makers?
—Well obviously it's not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.[1]
The point that “Blessed are the Peacemakers” is completely lost on this group, as they continue to bicker and argue, drowning out the words of Jesus. While it is intended to be funny, the sharp wit of Monty Python has a serious note aimed at our overall back-pew culture, which places so much distance between ourselves and the message that Jesus calls us to hear. This skit shows us how even personal bickering can get in the way of a message so simple as “Blessed are the Peacemakers.”
Today is a day that we mark the remembrance of those who died in war, where the words from the Sermon on the Mount should live in our lives in a fresh and new way. But, as Monty Python points out in comedy, and as we know from the evening news as tragedy, peace is something that we often reach for and yet seems out of our grasp. As I have learned in my own studies, there is a real art to being able to make peace. Jesus seems so clear on the subject, and yet we seem so loathe to even be able to try to implement something that on the surface seems so simple.
Yet it is not without trying. Remembrance Day is a small light of hope in the midst of that, when we look at our own history as a nation, and remember the price of war. In remembering the price of war, maybe we can look at ways that we can genuinely seek peace. In seeking peace, one of our most valuable resources is history.
While we have already taken time to observe a moment of silence today, this coming Friday marks the eighty-seventh anniversary of the end of the First World War. On November 11th, 1918, at 11am, the guns formally fell silent over the fields of Europe. Nations had paid a terrible price from years and years of beating the drums of war, vaunting the values of King and Country, and proclaiming that somehow God was on their side. In the end of it all, the values of Victorian Europe lay in shambles, along with millions of young lives whose bodies fertilised the now hallowed ground of Flanders Fields.
On November 11th, 1918 what could they celebrate? Not much. Only that the war was over... They had failed to learn the lessons of history, and that our willingness to use military force to settle disputes is a very poor way to conduct diplomacy. There was a cry of “never again!” and the institution of a rite to remember those who had fallen in war. Wear a poppy, pause for silence, remember those who fell, and work together so that this will never happen again.
At very least, I take some consolation that as a society we try to take this ritual seriously, and maybe take some time to learn about what it means to make peace. Yet given that we now call the conflict that ended in 1918 the “First” world war indicates that we have still more to learn. This year marks the 60th Anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Given that this past century saw over one hundred million souls die in war still means there is work to do. Even now the drums of war attempt to drown out the voices of the past, we’ve become a bit fuzzy on the concept of “never again.” Add to this problem is that there are more and more of us who have no living memory of war... or rather what living memory we do have is as an entertainment event on CNN. I don’t think this is the kind of remembrance that those who suffered and died in war ever intended. We live in a time where war has become cleaned, sanitised, and given a “G” rating for the evening news.
There is a familiar saying that has become almost cliché: Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. It’s actually attributed to George Santayana, a Spanish Philosopher who died in 1952. The actual quote is “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” There is a lot of wisdom to this.
The Act of Remembrance on November 11th is an effort to do just that: Remember the past so that we do not make the same mistakes we once did. However, as Christians, we need to do a bit more than that. As Christians we need to be able to look at our own past and our own involvement with war. We have always struggled with it, and over history approximately four different “ethical” stances towards war have developed:
The first type is the Crusade or so-called Holy War. I don’t particularly like it, but this is a stance that the Christian Faith has actively supported in the past. This is the idea that God is indeed on our side, and that it is not only our duty as Christians to fight, but that the conflict and struggle itself is somehow connected to the divine struggle between good and evil. History is full of these examples: the various crusades in the middle-ages that saw an active invasion of the Middle East, the justification of the Inquisition movement that saw thousands tortured and killed in the name of God. Even the drums of conflict that were beating prior to the First World War carried with them the call of crusade.
The trouble is, in light of what Jesus said, this whole idea of conflict being somehow linked to the Divine has become morally bankrupt. In every single case in history, the concept of Holy War was simply to push ahead a political agenda. The voice of Jesus was deliberately drowned out to suit political needs.
Over history, there were many who began to speak out for Christ’s voice in the midst of such conflicts. Jesus never called anyone to war, and that there is no justification for war at any point. Turn the other cheek became the cry of the Pacifists: the second type of ethical stance to war. Radical Pacifism as a movement has been around a very long time but saw a great deal of popular support in the years immediately following the First World War… and certainly in the late 60s as a response to the war in Vietnam; peace at all costs, turn the other cheek, refuse to fight. I must admit, this one works well for me... Yet it does create some problems. In the 20th Century, the name of that problem was Fascism. Radical Pacifism was challenged by nations governed by those who sought to actively dominate the world around them.
The response that this generated was the notion of the Just War, Option number three. This is the idea that in some circumstances nations are indeed called to fight when faced with unchecked aggression. The Second World War was a terrible price to pay, but historians and even theologians grudgingly agree that there was no other alternative but to fight. Even Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a well-known minister and theologian in Germany participated in an attempt to assassinate Hitler. The unfortunate thing about the concept of the Just War is that it can be easily misused and manipulated to put a positive spin on any nation’s use of force. We have seen far too much of that in recent years.
A less-well known stance is the concept of the “Just Peace” as a response to war. It allows one to take the route of a Just War if absolutely necessary, but it takes the pre-emptive approach: prevent war before it happens. The thoughts on this have been around for a tremendously long time, and yet it is a voice that we seldom hear. In some ways the United Nations is founded on the core idea, but the notion of the “Just Peace” goes far beyond conflict negotiation and mediation. Preventing war is taking deliberate steps within our society is to dismantle those circumstances that lead to armed conflict. The Just Peace is ensuring that fairness, equity and justice are done and seen to be done, so that conflict may never get to open warfare.
But this is not a new idea! Greek Philosopher Plato once argued that one cannot have peace without justice. This was nearly four hundred years before Jesus climbed up the Mountain and proclaimed “Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God.” Jesus takes things a step further and ties Justice into the well being of everyone in society.
Even today, this is revolutionary stuff! Jesus ties peacemakers in with the poor, the bereaved, and those who do not have power in society. Jesus ties peacemaking with a sense of justice that those people whom society rejects are the very people that God loves:
Blessed are the poor, yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are those who mourn, because they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth…
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God.
This is where the art of peacemaking lies, not in understanding the grand relationships between nations, but in the very relationships that we have with one another. A just society is a peaceful society, one in which we treat one another with respect and dignity, where no one is deemed to be an outsider. That starts with you and me, right here, right now. As we move into the official Remembrance Day services this week, I would hope that we remember that justice and peace does start with each of us, with an act as simple as a moment of silence… but one that leads to our own action.
Amen.
Notes:
[1] From the Script of Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.
Sermon originally preached at Zion 7th Line and Westminster United Churches, Thamesford, Ontario
Sunday, November 10th, 2002
Revised and preached at Clarkson Road Presbyterian Church, Mississauga, ON
Sunday, November 6th, 2005
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.”
There is a scene from the Monty Python film The Life of Brian that makes light of this particular line from the Sermon on the Mount. It is satire to be sure, but there is a lot of ironic truth in this scene. Very close to the beginning of the film, we see Jesus standing atop a hill delivering these familiar words of the Sermon on the Mount. The camera pans way back to a group of entirely suburbanite-looking Israelites, straining to hear what Jesus is saying. They can’t hear very well, and while this sermon is going on they begin to argue amongst themselves. One of them stops for a second and asks what Jesus just said:
—I think it was 'Blessed are the cheese-makers'.
—Ah. What's so special about the cheese-makers?
—Well obviously it's not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.[1]
The point that “Blessed are the Peacemakers” is completely lost on this group, as they continue to bicker and argue, drowning out the words of Jesus. While it is intended to be funny, the sharp wit of Monty Python has a serious note aimed at our overall back-pew culture, which places so much distance between ourselves and the message that Jesus calls us to hear. This skit shows us how even personal bickering can get in the way of a message so simple as “Blessed are the Peacemakers.”
Today is a day that we mark the remembrance of those who died in war, where the words from the Sermon on the Mount should live in our lives in a fresh and new way. But, as Monty Python points out in comedy, and as we know from the evening news as tragedy, peace is something that we often reach for and yet seems out of our grasp. As I have learned in my own studies, there is a real art to being able to make peace. Jesus seems so clear on the subject, and yet we seem so loathe to even be able to try to implement something that on the surface seems so simple.
Yet it is not without trying. Remembrance Day is a small light of hope in the midst of that, when we look at our own history as a nation, and remember the price of war. In remembering the price of war, maybe we can look at ways that we can genuinely seek peace. In seeking peace, one of our most valuable resources is history.
While we have already taken time to observe a moment of silence today, this coming Friday marks the eighty-seventh anniversary of the end of the First World War. On November 11th, 1918, at 11am, the guns formally fell silent over the fields of Europe. Nations had paid a terrible price from years and years of beating the drums of war, vaunting the values of King and Country, and proclaiming that somehow God was on their side. In the end of it all, the values of Victorian Europe lay in shambles, along with millions of young lives whose bodies fertilised the now hallowed ground of Flanders Fields.
On November 11th, 1918 what could they celebrate? Not much. Only that the war was over... They had failed to learn the lessons of history, and that our willingness to use military force to settle disputes is a very poor way to conduct diplomacy. There was a cry of “never again!” and the institution of a rite to remember those who had fallen in war. Wear a poppy, pause for silence, remember those who fell, and work together so that this will never happen again.
At very least, I take some consolation that as a society we try to take this ritual seriously, and maybe take some time to learn about what it means to make peace. Yet given that we now call the conflict that ended in 1918 the “First” world war indicates that we have still more to learn. This year marks the 60th Anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Given that this past century saw over one hundred million souls die in war still means there is work to do. Even now the drums of war attempt to drown out the voices of the past, we’ve become a bit fuzzy on the concept of “never again.” Add to this problem is that there are more and more of us who have no living memory of war... or rather what living memory we do have is as an entertainment event on CNN. I don’t think this is the kind of remembrance that those who suffered and died in war ever intended. We live in a time where war has become cleaned, sanitised, and given a “G” rating for the evening news.
There is a familiar saying that has become almost cliché: Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. It’s actually attributed to George Santayana, a Spanish Philosopher who died in 1952. The actual quote is “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” There is a lot of wisdom to this.
The Act of Remembrance on November 11th is an effort to do just that: Remember the past so that we do not make the same mistakes we once did. However, as Christians, we need to do a bit more than that. As Christians we need to be able to look at our own past and our own involvement with war. We have always struggled with it, and over history approximately four different “ethical” stances towards war have developed:
The first type is the Crusade or so-called Holy War. I don’t particularly like it, but this is a stance that the Christian Faith has actively supported in the past. This is the idea that God is indeed on our side, and that it is not only our duty as Christians to fight, but that the conflict and struggle itself is somehow connected to the divine struggle between good and evil. History is full of these examples: the various crusades in the middle-ages that saw an active invasion of the Middle East, the justification of the Inquisition movement that saw thousands tortured and killed in the name of God. Even the drums of conflict that were beating prior to the First World War carried with them the call of crusade.
The trouble is, in light of what Jesus said, this whole idea of conflict being somehow linked to the Divine has become morally bankrupt. In every single case in history, the concept of Holy War was simply to push ahead a political agenda. The voice of Jesus was deliberately drowned out to suit political needs.
Over history, there were many who began to speak out for Christ’s voice in the midst of such conflicts. Jesus never called anyone to war, and that there is no justification for war at any point. Turn the other cheek became the cry of the Pacifists: the second type of ethical stance to war. Radical Pacifism as a movement has been around a very long time but saw a great deal of popular support in the years immediately following the First World War… and certainly in the late 60s as a response to the war in Vietnam; peace at all costs, turn the other cheek, refuse to fight. I must admit, this one works well for me... Yet it does create some problems. In the 20th Century, the name of that problem was Fascism. Radical Pacifism was challenged by nations governed by those who sought to actively dominate the world around them.
The response that this generated was the notion of the Just War, Option number three. This is the idea that in some circumstances nations are indeed called to fight when faced with unchecked aggression. The Second World War was a terrible price to pay, but historians and even theologians grudgingly agree that there was no other alternative but to fight. Even Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a well-known minister and theologian in Germany participated in an attempt to assassinate Hitler. The unfortunate thing about the concept of the Just War is that it can be easily misused and manipulated to put a positive spin on any nation’s use of force. We have seen far too much of that in recent years.
A less-well known stance is the concept of the “Just Peace” as a response to war. It allows one to take the route of a Just War if absolutely necessary, but it takes the pre-emptive approach: prevent war before it happens. The thoughts on this have been around for a tremendously long time, and yet it is a voice that we seldom hear. In some ways the United Nations is founded on the core idea, but the notion of the “Just Peace” goes far beyond conflict negotiation and mediation. Preventing war is taking deliberate steps within our society is to dismantle those circumstances that lead to armed conflict. The Just Peace is ensuring that fairness, equity and justice are done and seen to be done, so that conflict may never get to open warfare.
But this is not a new idea! Greek Philosopher Plato once argued that one cannot have peace without justice. This was nearly four hundred years before Jesus climbed up the Mountain and proclaimed “Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God.” Jesus takes things a step further and ties Justice into the well being of everyone in society.
Even today, this is revolutionary stuff! Jesus ties peacemakers in with the poor, the bereaved, and those who do not have power in society. Jesus ties peacemaking with a sense of justice that those people whom society rejects are the very people that God loves:
Blessed are the poor, yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are those who mourn, because they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth…
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God.
This is where the art of peacemaking lies, not in understanding the grand relationships between nations, but in the very relationships that we have with one another. A just society is a peaceful society, one in which we treat one another with respect and dignity, where no one is deemed to be an outsider. That starts with you and me, right here, right now. As we move into the official Remembrance Day services this week, I would hope that we remember that justice and peace does start with each of us, with an act as simple as a moment of silence… but one that leads to our own action.
Amen.
Notes:
[1] From the Script of Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.
Sermon originally preached at Zion 7th Line and Westminster United Churches, Thamesford, Ontario
Sunday, November 10th, 2002
Revised and preached at Clarkson Road Presbyterian Church, Mississauga, ON
Sunday, November 6th, 2005
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