Matt.5.9

Matthew 5:9
God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.

Last week we started by examining the verse we were about to study carefully—breaking down the actual syntax of the sentence. The verse if you remember was, Matthew 5:4 “God blesses those who mourn for they will be comforted.” And after looking just a bit closer at this verse we interpreted it to mean that:
1. We should—mourn (mourning meaning hurting with those who are hurting).
2. God blesses—those who do mourn.
3. And those who—mourn will eventually have no reason to mourn anymore (i.e. they will be comforted).
And we’re going to break down every verse in this series just like that to get started so that we can dodge any temptation to intentionally misunderstand what the verse actually says. And though it may seem tedious with some of these verses I think you’ll see clearly why it was necessary when we move into the final weeks of our study here:
1. We should—work for peace
2. God blesses—those who work for peace.
3. And those who—work for peace will be called the children of God (i.e. Christians or heirs of heaven).
This one seems a little more straightforward in terms of how it might apply to us than last week’s verse but it actually has the potential to be a little confusing. And the main cause for confusion with this verse is how we decide to interpret the phrase “work for peace.”

Using the word work beside the word peace implies that there is actually an active role for us to play in this. I think too often many of us Christians view our role and responsibility in terms of peace is that of complete pacifism indicating that we have no opinion on any given matter. And the rest of us seem to think working for peace means choosing the side we deem as being correct and then fighting for that side. Those of us who adhere to the former hear peace and we think, avoid conflict. But I can’t help but think that if Jesus wanted us to simply avoid ever being caught up in conflict there would have been a clearer way for him to present that to us than to tell us to work for peace or to be peacemakers. Additionally, if Jesus wanted us to simply avoid all conflict then why do we find him right in the middle of it throughout his ministry? In terms of the latter stance, if Jesus wanted us to choose a side in every battle and argue for its correctness then peace really isn’t the right word at all—competition is. For a better understanding of what working for peace looks like in the Kingdom of God consider Jesus’ reaction to having a woman caught in the act of adultery placed before him (John 8:3). The different ramifications of simply avoiding conflict, choosing the “correct” side, and working for peace in this situation are matters of life and death. And we’re faced with situations similar to this all the time; although they may not be life or death situations they do serve to present a picture of Jesus (good or bad) to the world all around us that doesn’t know him. Let me explain what I mean by this before I get into how Jesus actually handles the situation.

Every day you are given hundreds of opportunities to weigh in on little conflicts, whether it’s some form of gossip (work, political, celebrity, church, etc) or someone looking to vent about troubles with his/her spouse or friends or parents. And the really important thing for us to grasp is that with every one of those situations that people lay at our feet we have the opportunity to either work for peace (reacting as a child of God) or we work against peace.

Now if we could jump back to this event in John 8 I think we can start get a picture of what it looks like to work for peace in conflicts. The Bible says that this woman was caught in the very act of adultery.

I can never seem to make that statement in a message without wondering off on a brief tangent. I can’t help but picture these religious leaders (pastors essentially) sneaking around following a woman from their congregation that they think has been acting strange (about 85% of churchgoers are convinced that this is what pastors do) until eventually they see her head off to a cheap pay by the hour motel under a bridge somewhere. Then they kick in the door and grab the woman and escort her to church, naked I presume. Ridiculous right? I’m so glad there are no longer people in our churches who watch for their brothers and sisters to screw up so they can take it public. Tangent ended.

So here stands Jesus, some local religious leaders, and a sheet covered (for the sake of lustful wondering minds) woman. Everyone here wants to hear what Jesus says should be done with her. This is clearly a conflict. The way I see it, Jesus has three options: he can avoid the conflict (i.e. take the not my problem route and she’ll be killed), he can choose a side (i.e. he could choose her side, approving of her sinful deeds or choose the side of the religious leaders and she’ll be killed), or he can work for peace. Now some people seem to recall Jesus taking the side of the woman in this story. I think that is a misunderstanding. To ”take her side” would be to approve of her actions and Jesus does not approve of her actions. He works for peace. And working for in this situation (as with every situation) looks like leveling the playing field. Jesus reminds the religious leaders that they too have needed to be forgiven from time to time and so should forgive this woman. He also reminds the woman that her accusers are gone but only she can keep them away by changing her ways.

Working for peace for us means that we assume (even if wrongly) that everyone in a given situation is doing their best to do what is good. And when people come to us with conflicts we remind them that we all make mistakes and need second chances and forgiveness and fairness. I know how ridiculous that sounds at first. It seems ridiculous to me as I’m typing it but think about it seriously. How many major conflicts could be solved by both parties assuming that the other is just trying to do what is good? Our greatest conflicts come from people trying to read each other—judging motives and predicting future actions. The role of a Christian working for peace is not to run away from conflict or to choose a side but to eliminate judgment of motives and to promote complete honesty. In the Kingdom of God we believe peace takes work because we’re bent on judging and punishing but we remember that we (more than) once needed forgiven so now we forgive and encourage others to do the same.