PEACE IN OUR TIME

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.        —Nelson Mandela

Maybe you think of a famous headline, or a dove, or a hippie with his hand raising the  “peace sign”—whatever you think of when you hear the word peace, it is probably not the whole picture.

The sixties popularized “hippie” peace, which basically meant an end to the Viet Nam War, but also called for certain freedoms—like the freedom to smoke pot in public parks unmolested by police while wearing rainbow, day-glo, tie-dyed bell-bottoms. Looking back, there was a certain, undeniable selfishness to hippified peace.

At the other end of the spectrum are those  who believe in peace through military superiority. The idea here is that big guns keep the bad guys from even trying to interrupt your family barbecue. Certainly, a strong national defense policy keeps rogue forces from messing with us, but is this the kind of peace the Bible promotes?

“Blessed are the peacemakers” says Jesus in the sermon on the mount, which groups them together with the poor in spirit, the mournful and the meek (among others). To be a peacemaker is to be a source of God’s peace in the midst of conflict, troubles and war. This almost guarantees unpopularity. The last thing angry parties in a dispute want is for someone to ask them to calm down, even if that is exactly what they need.

Perhaps this is a partial clue to all genuine peacemaking; namely, doing what is truly needed above and beyond what people simply want. Your 5-year-old wants to stay up with the adults well after 8:00, but you know what happens if that child simply gets her way: there will never be peace again.

Every opportunity we have to overcome hostility with hospitality, belligerence with benevolence, enmity with amity, and conflict with cool heads—we practice peacemaking. Christ tells us to “love your enemies” and to “turn the other cheek.” Peacemaking is simply obeying these instructions.

The two biblical words for peace are shalom and eirene. The latter is the source of the name Irene, as well as the adjective irenic. Eirene was the greek goddess of peace, but when New Testament writers use eirene, they really mean shalom. Shalom is more than the mere absence of conflict, it is a positively-charged virtue in and of itself, suggesting the very completeness to which God created us and toward which He moves His creation. It is not “human harmony by human power”—which is humanism and/or utopianism—but the power and presence of God in supplanting human sin and folly.

What We Pray for

Our peacemaking—and our becoming peacemakers—necessarily begins with us praying for peace. We call upon God’s power and presence to take the place of the things we want, which are not trustworthy. We pray for God’s Shalom—his completeness and wholeness to be completely manifested in ourselves, our families, and our world. †