Daily Worship

Peacemakers

November 08, 2013 0 0

Matthew 5: 9

'Blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called the children of God'

Most people want peace.  For peace brings a promise of blessing and a prosperity.  Peace means the difference between good days and bad days.  God's peace destined to settle and to quieten the heart and the peace of Christ above all peace, a peace which is beyond understanding and which soothes the soul beyond measure.  Augustine got it right...'our hearts are restless until they find there rest in you'.  

God's shalom has two qualities.  The absence of the bad and the presence of the good.  Experience tells us that there will always be work to do in ourselves, in our communities, in our nations, in our world, to challenge that which is bad and to hope for that which is good.  Edmund Burke writes, 'All it takes for evil to prosper is that good men do nothing.'   

Blessed are the peacemakers, not the peace-lovers or the peace-doers but the peacemakers.  Making peace isn't easy or straightforward.  Negotiating settlements, arbitrating disputes, reconciling differences, stepping in to the gap between good and evil.  What do you do when an enemy attacks your neighbour?  Martin Niemoller, German protestant church pastor during world war two writes:

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

Blessed are the peacemakers...

 

Lord God, Peace is at the heart of all you are. 'My peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you' (John 14,27) Christ promised to his disciples and followers.  Yet we struggle to find lasting peace in a world so beset with difference and in which the agendas of the powerful hold sway.  Negotiating settlements, arbitrating disputes, and reconciling differences, stepping into conflict are all difficult, and exhaust and diminish our resources more than we know.  Thank You God, that you raise up peacemakers, people who are willing and committed to standing in the gap, defending that which is right, and just and honourable and good and true.  Help us to accept the peace that you offer to us in Christ and to work for the reconciliation of all ultimately to your purposes where your shalom will bring rich fruit, blessing and bounty, and that as your children we can play peacefully together in your garden once again...Amen.  

 

 

Padre David Anderson
Chaplain to The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards

Padre David Anderson is currently serving in Kabul on Op Herrick 19.  He has taken a series of well-known verses or passages from across scripture which expose and express our human nature in response to war and our hope for something better, God’s peace.