The Peacemakers
I’m telling my fourth joke of the night. They have all been puns. I’ve been on a roll, but this one is a swing and a miss. I chuckled to myself and said to the audience, “I guess I am my father’s son.” My dad loves to play with words. So much so that it’s a sport to keep up with him. He’s got three solid languages under his belt, too. Imagine conversations sprinkled with multilingual puns and dad jokes. I’ve been immersed in this world for much of my life. Add to this my own predisposition for unearthing unique relationships, and enjoying a good laugh, and it is no wonder that I would become the kind of performer who enjoys sharing word play as good humor. Yup, I am my father’s son.
That statement is often a lighthearted way of describing a profound connection between parents and children. Throughout a child’s life we see this connection. We see it in the child’s physicality and body language. We see it in their approach to things and the ideas they go into the world with. For good and for evil, the way a parent is deeply forms the child. Present or absent, competitive or altruistic, mean-spirited or joyful, disappointed or encouraging – the condition of the parent forms the child in profound ways.
The analogy of the family is used often to describe the relationship between followers of Jesus and the Father, too. God is the good father. We are to come to God as children. We become God’s children by trusting Jesus and following him into being with God. In the first lines of the book of John we find this proposition:
To those who did receive him (Jesus) he gave the right to become children of God…
What does this mean, “to become children of God”? I believe there is a clue in the beatitudes. However, before we address that directly, we need to talk just a little bit about the context of family for the listener of Jesus’s words. It is a reality that the bond between child and parent is profound. It is also true that different cultures deal with this connection differently. For example, in Lebanon (the homeland of my own parents) when a couple has their first child, the parents take on the name of the child and the child bears the name of the parents – literally. It looks something like this:
Say James and Maria have a child named Chris. For a very very long time James would be addressed as Father of Chris (Abu-Chris). Maria would be addressed as Mother of Chris (Im-Chris). Chris, for his part in all this would be addressed as the Child of James (Ibn-James). The documented lineage here, both orally and in most records, follows the father. Hence Child of James, and not Child of Maria. That’s not to say Child of Maria would never be used. It would just be less common. Notably this naming change would be similar for a daughter. This re-naming convention brings to light how upon birth, in some way the parents become representatives of the child and the child becomes a representative of the parents.
To this day, if my family visits with others from Lebanon, I will hear my parents addressed with my name, as mentioned above/earlier. Meanwhile I have to be on the lookout if someone calls me with my father’s name. I share this as an image of how connected the language in the Levant is to this idea of interconnection, and representation, and the bond of family.
Even further, the rarer story in the region, especially at the time of Jesus was the story of the one who leaves. The one who leaves the family farm, or business, or home, or even town. All of this leaving brings with it high amounts of risk – travel was extremely dangerous, and survival much more challenging than today. They also destabilized the structure upon which everything else was built – the family. For children who stay, then, their lives are formed in significant ways by the life of the family. The family work is probably going to be theirs. The rhythm of life that the family has will likely be adopted. The family’s view of the world, also theirs. Notably, sending a child off to study with a Rabbi was an exception and something considered a way towards a better (even more honorable or honored) life.
In the midst of this culture Jesus said these words:
Happy are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Peacemaking is no easy business. Ask anyone who has pursued the work of mediation, conflict resolution, or reconciliation. It is messy, difficult, arduous, and many times unfulfilling. As much as anyone tries, sometimes peace just doesn’t come for all the parties in any given conflict. Yet, if we are to have any chance of living in peace, someone has to act. Someone has to decide to sit in the middle of the mess and begin to work towards peace. But who will this be?
It will be someone for whom peace has come in their own life. In a previous note I talked about the two wars that every person seems to go through. One, is the war between them and reality. Said another way, the war between them and God. The other is the war within themselves. That is the war between the person they have been, the one they are now, and the one they hope to be. If peace has come to a person, they are not warring anymore. However, the method by which that peace has come is formative. If it is on account of their own power, the person may become boastful. If it is on account of abiding by a set of rules, they may become legalistic. If it is on account of believing a certain story, they may become manipulative. But if it is on account of a person, they may just fall in love. They may want to stick with that person for life. They may over time become more and more like that person, become a reflection of that person, and point others to that person.
Such is the encounter with Jesus.
We have turned another corner in the beatitudes here. The turn is nuanced, from responses to proactive intention. Take a moment and imagine what it would be like to see God. Imagine as best you can, a God whose essence is love (God can’t not love). Imagine that love being present to you, being directed towards you, being for you. I don’t know about you, but I think I would just want to stay there. This is not to say that the love of God is only for those that see him – heaven forbid. But there is a difference between being in the presence of God and being in the presence of God whom you can see.
That is where we were left in our last position in the beatitudes. In this position we may begin to look at God and then look at the world around us. We may begin to sharply discern the difference, and there is quite a difference to discern. We may be drawn to do something about it. Given our journey so far, it would be unsurprising if the thing that we did was attempt to bring peace between warring parties. Whether between quarreling siblings, friends, strangers, families, clans, tribes, towns, cities, states, or nations, there would be plenty opportunity to intercede. We would enter reliant on God, having experienced the pain of loss, with a mild disposition, our own hunger and thirst having been satisfied, merciful, having a singleness of heart. What would someone like that do to the dynamic of war?
There will be many that will say, “Your crazy for even trying.” There will be more that will say, “Best of luck, but you know nothing will ever change.” And yet in the Kingdom of Heaven, those who disinterestedly step between two warring parties and try to make peace, will be called the children of God. They will have become so formed that in their actions others will recognize who they represent. God, who takes the first step in making peace with a people (us) who war with themselves and within themselves. God, who out of love, literally shows us the way, the truth, and the life we might have. God, who in Jesus, embodied every position of the beatitudes himself. God, who we may come be call his children. Can you imagine?