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| Banksy |
Peace is probably one of the most
important topics the church should be discussing right now. I say this not just
because we have so little of it these days, but because how we understand peace
set the parameters for how we view and resolve conflict, personally or
otherwise. For example, if we simply
define peace in the dictionary sense it is freedom from disturbance, a tranquil
state of being, or a state of not being at war. That alone makes peace an end
goal with a lot of open territory for how one can arrive there.
If a
marriage is hurting from lack of communication and lots of disagreements you
can just terminate it: get a divorce and file under irreconcilable differences
and peace will ensue; if you have a friend, sibling, coworker, or someone of
the sort whose relationship with you is centered only on them, their needs and based
on seeing everything their way, then go along with it and you will never be
without peace; if another country or people group is standing in the way of
peace blow them all to hell so peace can be restored. Of course none of these are good ideas, but
they are where we tend to take them when conflict disrupts our definition of
peace.
As
an alternative idea, what if we stopped thinking of peace as the end resolution
to conflict and make it the means to resolve conflict? And while we’re at it
maybe we could stop seeing every conflict as a bad thing and become alert to
the fact that it is necessary for alerting us to a need for change.
Why
would I say this? Because, when Jesus says things like, “forgive us our debts
as we have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12), and “Peace I
leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be
troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (Jn.14:27), peace is not the
end goal because we already have it. We have God’s peace so when we read
something like “Blessed are the peacemakers for they
are the children of God” (Matt. 5:9), we
cannot see it as peace being the final resolution, but rather peace being the
way to treat each other and the means by which we do life together.
Miroslav
Volf (theologian) says it like this: “Inscribed on the very heart of God’s
grace is the rule that we can be its recipients only we do not resist being
made in into its agents; what happens to us must be done by us.”[1] To my mind
this is the epitome of what the church should be, representatives of God’s
grace and peace wherever we go.
Yet
as the Kreiders have said, churches really do not describe themselves as being “cultures
of peace” even though that was one of the good things being cultivated by the
early church.[2] As far as I can tell the church now might struggle with even
wanting to be such a people because we are more comfortable drawing lines in
the sand that reinforce our stance against those we don’t support. Rather, what
should be happening is learning to posture ourselves as a loving people who were
and are recipients of grace and peace and therefore extensions of it.
My
point is there is a much better picture to this creation story we are in, but
we have to insist on re-finding and refining it in our lives. This is just the beginning of what needs to
be said about this, which more will be coming in the following posts, but I
want this to launch the conversation. And I want this to remind us to be aware
that “the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our
Lord Jesus… make(s) you complete in everything good so that you may do his will…”(Heb.
13:20-21). Peace is already present even amid our conflicts.
[1]
Miroslav Volf. Inclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity,
Otherness and Reconciliation (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996), 129.
[2] Alan Kreider, Eleanor Kreider, and Paulus Widjaja. A Culture of Peace: God’s Vision for the Church (Intercourse, PA; Good Books, 2005), 9-10.
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