By J.R. Miller
No one of the Beatitudes has a greater promise, than that for the peacemakers. "They shall be called the children of God," said the Master. This must be because they are like God. God is a peacemaker, and we become His children just in the measure in which we are peacemakers.
In one of the prophets, God reveals His desire for the peace of His people by saying: "I know the thoughts that I think toward you--thoughts of peace." Always God desires His children to have peace. He wishes them to be at peace with Him, to be reconciled to Him, accepting His grace and love, and entering into fellowship with Him. He wishes them to have His peace, the very peace of God, in their hearts, amid all the trials and sorrows of life. Christ bequeathed His peace to His friends. "My peace I give unto you."
Then He wants them to be at peace among themselves. Strife between brothers is unseemly, undivine. If we are God's children--we will share with Him all these desires for peace.
In a narrower sense, a peacemaker is one who seeks to cure dissensions, to bring together those who are in any way estranged, to remove misunderstandings, and to promote peaceable relations among men. It is a noble mission, one to which every follower of Christ should be heartily devoted. The blessing upon the peacemaker is so great, so exalted, and so divine--that everyone should be eager to win it.
One way to be a peacemaker--is to live a peaceable life oneself. Perhaps there has been too little attention paid to the cultivation of the graces of Christian life. Doctrinal soundness has been insisted upon as a test of Christian life--more than the graces of the Spirit and beauty of character has been. An irritable temper is too often regarded, not, indeed, as a quality to be admired and commended--but, at the worst, as an excusable infirmity, one that must be charitably tolerated, a weakness so common among good people that no one can reprove his neighbor for it. So many Christian men and women are touchy and easily offended, so easily hurt and so likely to hold a grudge--that it seems necessary to leave a wide margin in defining what true religion requires of its followers in the matter of patience and forbearance.
But the teaching of Jesus on this point is very clear. He insists on love, not merely as a fine sentiment--but as a quality of daily life, affecting all its relations and its contact with others. "But I tell you--Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek--turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic--let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile--go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Matthew 5:39-44. There would seem to be no place left in this teaching for resisting wrong, for resentment, for retaliation. Certainly strife is not commended by our Master.
In the epistles, too, there is many and exhortation to peaceable living. For example, Paul counsels Christians, as much as in them lies, to live peaceably with all men. If there must be quarreling, it should not be the fault of the Christian. He must not begin it. It must not come through his insisting on his rights. He must do all in his power to get along with his neighbor without strife. If others are disposed to be quarrelsome, he must meet the disagreeable spirit with love, overcoming evil with good. "The finest thing about our rights," says George Macdonald, "is that, being our own, we can give them up."
According to the New Testament, whatever is unloving in act, word, or spirit--is to be avoided. All malice, bitterness, clamor, and evil speaking are to be put off--and all meekness, patience, kindness, and thoughtfulness are to be put on. We may do a great deal as a peacemaker, by always keeping love in our hearts. In the Bahama Islands, wells of sweet water are often seen near the sea. They rise and fall with the tide, and yet they are always fresh and sweet. As the water filters from the sea through the coral it loses its brackish saltiness. A Christian's heart should be such a well, sweetened by the grace of God--and yielding only love, instead of nature's resentment and bitterness.
We may be peacemakers also--by living so that it will be impossible for any one to quarrel with us. The influence of such a life in a community works continually toward peaceableness. One contentious person can fill a whole neighborhood with strife. A quarrelsome man stirs up bitterness wherever he goes. But one person who has the forbearing spirit, who meekly endures wrongs himself rather than contend against them, is a maker of peace. Others are influenced by his example. Every time we keep silent under insult, and loving and sweet under provocation, we have made it easier for all about us to do the same.
We may seek to be peacemakers also by exerting all our influence to prevent dissensions among others. We find continually, as we go among men, the beginnings of bitterness and estrangement. In every community there are whisperers who go about retailing gossip, the tendency of which is to separate friends. Every Christian should be a discourager of tale bearing. Too many people encourage it. They are glad to hear something unpleasant about another, and are quick to pass it on. Such eagerness is not commendable.
There are peace destroyers, who delight in sowing doubt and suspicion of others in people's minds. One often learns, in close fellowship with others, that two neighbors or friends are in danger of becoming enemies. Now is the opportunity for the peacemaker's ministry. Instead of aggravating the little beginning of bitterness, as he may do by a word of encouragement, he should set about to try to heal the breach and restore confidence. Usually it is not hard to do this. Many quarrels begin in a slight misunderstanding, and a few words spoken by a true hearted peacemaker will show, first to one and then to the other, that there is really no cause for ill feeling, that the doubt of loyalty is unjust, and that a separation or an estrangement is not only unnecessary--but would be positively sinful.
A true peacemaker, going about thus, trying to draw people ever closer together and to heal all threatened contentions and quarrels, is doing a divine work of love in the world. The great majority of strifes among men are needless. They are caused by the meddlesomeness of outside parties. Or they come from hasty words or acts unconfessed and unrepented of. The peacemaker's word, spoken at the right moment, would prevent all this.
We may do the peacemaker's work also--by seeking always to bring together those who have become estranged. In every community there are such people. Sometimes they live under the same roof and eat at the same table. There are brothers and sisters; there even are husbands and wives, who are farther apart than any strangers. A thick wall of rock has been built up between them. It may be difficult to heal such estrangements. But even in the most unhappy and most hopeless alienations, the peacemaker's holy work may yet be crowned with success. It requires great wisdom and the purest and most unselfish love. It requires both patience and prayer, for only God can be the real peacemaker in such cases, and the most we can do is to interpret His love to those we seek to bring together. Yet many a blessed reconciliation, followed by a long and sweet friendship, has been brought about by a wise and Christlike peacemaker.
Still another way in which we can get the blessing of the peacemaker, is by seeking to diffuse more and more of the love of Christ. This we may do in our own life by showing patience, gentleness, and forbearance wherever we go, under whatever evil treatment we may be called to endure. Christians should make their homes, homes of peace, in which no angry word shall ever be heard. But home is not the only sphere of such influence. It is wonderful how much one noble nature may do toward making it easier for all in a community to live sweetly--by the warm tides of its own lovingness changing the atmosphere of a whole circle.
