How can I become a Peacemaker?
Come, ye children, hearken unto me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
What man is he that desireth life, that loveth to see good days?
Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.
Turn away from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. (Psalm 33: 11-14)
King David was a great warrior. He killed the giant goliath in single-handed combat and led God’s people to countless victories. He was also a man of God and a prophet, the man God anointed (Christ in Greek; Messiah in Hebrew) to lead His people after King Saul turned his back on Him. The Holy Spirit empowered David to give voice to mankind’s greatest longings and fears and prophesy God’s teachings on how to live well and the coming of the perfect Messiah, Jesus Christ who would lead God’s people to perfection.
God blessed David to use violence to protect the Jews and the Holy Land against their enemies, but He also made it clear that His greatest desire was for everyone to become peacemakers. The protection armies and police provide is designed not to perpetuate violence, but to provide a safe place for everyone to pursue peace and perfection (e.g. 1 Timothy 2:2; the anaphora of St. John Chrysostom).
God’s desire for us is given form in Psalm 33: if we want to live well, we have to avoid gossip and lies, surround ourselves with good things, and pursue peace. Sounds great, right? But how are we supposed to “pursue peace”?
One of the best ways to interpret scriptures is by using other scripture (another is to look at how the verses are used in our services – as above – and the Church Fathers). St. Peter teaches more about the “peace” described in Psalm 33 (he then goes on to quote verses 12-16):
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. (St. Peter 3:8-10)
Let’s break this down into its component parts so that we can see how it is done.
Unity of mind
We pray for this at every Divine Liturgy when we say;
Let us love one another so that with ONE MIND we may confess: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity One in Essence and Undivided. (Anaphora of St. John Chrysostom)
Clearly, the mind that we are to share is a mind that knows and confesses the truth. Peace is the fruit of a community that knows and loves God. This is the “peace that passes human understanding” (Philippians 4: 4-7). It is our responsibility as peacemakers to help grow this kind of community through living and sharing the Gospel. But what do we do in the meantime? When our faith is weak and people around us have no interest in knowing or loving God? The answer is not unity around false beliefs (which would be idolatrous heresy), but sympathy and love.
Sympathy
Our minds are built for sympathy (literally feeling/thinking with someone). When we get to know people, we do not just collect data about them, we automatically create virtual icons of them inside ourselves. Others do the same for us. When we desire what is good for our neighbors and minister to them toward that end, we are imitating the covering and protection that our Lord gives us;
He who dwells in the help of the Most High shall lodge in the shelter of the God of heaven…
He shall overshadow you with His shoulders, and under His wings you shall hope;
His truth shall encircle you with a shield. (Psalm 90: 1, 4-5).
In such a situation, our neighbor’s joy becomes our joy and his sorrow becomes our sorrow. We automatically desire what is best for them and work towards that end. This is hard and goes against our fallen instincts. Instead of covering them with love (which goes to the prototype), we are tempted to use these virtual neighbors as chess pieces in our mind, moving them around so that we can figure out how to manipulate them in real life. Alternatively, we can use them to construct or replay dramas that center around their faults. This would be a misuse of this power (e.g. Psalm 81)! It is important to realize that the things that happen to others happen to us, as well. This is one of the meanings of Christ’s teaching that we should “love one another as we love ourselves” (St. Matthew 22:39); it is as much an ontological statement on community as it is a reminder on how to behave.
Brotherly Love; a Tender Heart
Love is both a fruit of Christian unity and the way to bring others into that unity. The person who loves enjoys peace within his life and brings peace to others. Here is how the Apostle of Love describes its qualities (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7):
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
We often think of love as an emotion, but emotions are unreliable. St. Paul says that “love never ends” (1 Corinthians 14:8a), but is that true of our feelings? We need to think of love less as a feeling to be cultivated and more as a duty that can be maintained through constant vigilance and effort. For example, anyone can be patient, all it requires is refusing to react to things in haste (e.g. by “counting to ten” when we are getting upset or holding on to an angry e-mail or text response for a few hours); anyone can be kind; all it requires is that we treat other people the way we would want to be treated (e.g. St. Luke 6:31); and anyone can “bear all things”, all it takes is recognizing that in the end, love wins (1 John 5:3-4).
Humility; Blessing instead of Reviling
Humility means finding joy in building up others and not ourselves. It involves giving up the pursuit of our own pleasure, comfort, and opinions in order to minister to our neighbor. It is voluntarily suffering in order to help others. Why does Saint Peter tell us that humility is required for peace? It isn’t just that proud people are pushy (i.e. violent) with their ideas, seldom listen, and rarely consider the needs of others; it is that humility has a sacramental quality that incarnates Christ – the Prince of Peace – to the world;
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His Body, that is, the Church, of which I became a minister according to the divine office which was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known (Colossians 1: 24-25)
Humility is a real sacrifice. We hold our tongue (or use it gently) when we could defend our ego – even when we are right and our neighbor is wrong. Through this sacrifice, we are participating in Christ’s own passion. After all, He sacrificed Himself for us (and for the victory of peace) when He went patiently to the Cross, even though He was right and we were wrong. This act of kenosis (self-emptying, especially in service to others) was a key part of Christ’s ministry and must be central to ours as well.
Here is how Saint John of the Ladder put it (I am quoting from “Step Eight”);
The beginning of humility [what he calls “freedom from anger”] is silence of the lips when the heart is agitated; the middle is silence of the thoughts when there is a mere disturbance of soul; and the end is an imperturbable calm under the breath of unclean winds.
St. John then continues with a story that reinforces the different levels of humility:
I once saw three monks receive the same injury at the same time. One felt the sting of this, but kept silent; the second rejoiced at his injury for the reward it would bring him, but was sorry for the wrongdoer; and the third, thinking of the harm his erring neighbor was suffering, wept fervently. And fear, reward and love were to be seen at work.
In conclusion, there are three levels of peacemaking.
Those at the first level seek peace because they are cowards or because they are afraid of what God will do to them if they do not follow His commandments. But God does not respect cowards and does not want slaves. We might start here, but this cannot be where we end up.
Those at the second level seek peace because they like the rewards, both in this lifetime (it’s nice not to have to worry about people attacking you all the time!) and the one that God has promised to everyone who follows His commandments. But God does not want us to be mercenary in our love. We may go through this stage, but this cannot be where we end up.
Those at the third level seek peace because they have been transformed into peace. It radiates from them as a positive force because their bodies and their hearts have become temples to the Prince of Peace. This is God’s desire for us. And through Christ, this transformation is possible.
