People will never see God in us by our violence; that is, the people who will call us children of God will see the peacemaker in us. Want proof? Jesus said in Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” He really was saying that there is a judgement to come, and that we are not to procure that judgement, even though we can be deluded in our thinking that we have that role, for as the good book says, “Vengeance is Mine,” says the Lord.
Of course, this is one of those words of God that is very inconvenient, that we are tempted to shy away from, and to pretend isn’t there, especially when the world is alight with turmoil and rage and it looks to the Christians to respond. We want to reserve the right to judge. Especially, as we are apt to do, when we think a little violence is the right thing to do. “An eye for an eye,” apparently, never thinking that that’s about restitutive justice and not violence begets violence, not to mention that Jesus overturned this in the Sermon on the Mount. To my shame, like most, however, I’ve used violent responses more times than I can count. But God calls us all higher. God calls us away from violence.
Let’s not be confused, though, we are to be peaceMAKERS and not peaceKEEPERS.
We don’t just roll over and let the violence happen to us. We do have a role to open our mouths. We execute an insurgent peace, even as we refuse to curse by violence. In order to do this, even as we recognise we need to speak up, we will need to reconcile who we are dealing with. It isn’t flesh and blood, but the powers and principalities that we war with. We know the powers and principalities by their rules of engagement; narcissism is the method — their warrant is entitlement, their empathy is non-existent, their exploitation is prevalent.
WHAT TO EXPECT
I have just signalled what it is we are to expect. If we expect what we will receive we are less inclined to be offended and gobsmacked by the offence of those who misuse and abuse power. We will expect abhorrent behaviour. The trouble with our responses to evil is we can come to think that only evil can rise to evil, when in all reality all violence is enmity toward God.
Violence, whether it is done in God’s name or not, is evil and enmity toward God. The enemy dupes us easiest when we’re self-righteously indignant enough to meet violence with violence. There is no justifiable violence, ever. And yet we need to be patient with ourselves and others, because we all get this wrong, which heralds the need all the more for us to commit ourselves to the journey of peacemaking; a practice of progress and not perfection.
As we see violence come against us, whether it is through face-to-face combat or words on a Twitter feed, we are to see the enemy behind it all. It is too easy to see the devil in the person against us, and so much harder to see the God in their image. We overcome evil by doing good, even as it pertains to someone doing evil against us. It is our only chance to make a difference for God in our mortal being; to be called a child of God, which is every Christian’s truest goal. Any violence subverts God’s purpose in us.
We are to come to expect that those who fight in the devil’s name will fight wearing the face of narcissism. They will appear to have no regard, no empathy, having full confidence that they are entitled to do what they will, and exploit people and situations in the name of doing what is right. Yet such violence can never be right. Still, they will not be able to be convinced otherwise. It is up to us to not be thwarted by disgust couched in terms of indignation. We must see the enemy fuelling our demand for justice.
We must be prepared for this. We must expect that tyrannical forces will not be reasoned with. If we come to expect that our words will have no effect, we will neither be surprised nor jaded. And we will continue our peacemaking efforts in the honour of God. What is more important than justice in this life is the eternal justice that is still to come. And woe betide that reality! We must continue to believe that God is making a cosmic point.
HOW TO RESPOND
We must not become disheartened even as we speak the truth in love that leaves the violent under no misapprehension of who we stand for and why. Merely standing up will be life-threatening. Peacemaking in this way involves more courage than responding in violence.
We will often be tempted to imagine how incomprehensible the responses of violence are, even as the Spirit of God counsels us to be wary to not become ensnared in a self-indignation that leads to violence as a response.
We must always respond by the fruit of the Spirit. Can there ever be violence in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness or self-control? We can see here that violence isn’t just an overtly violent action, it is just as much done by words and intonation, impregnated by thoughts and attitudes, and desires for good that are blurred by demand. How many wars have been started by a pen stroke, let alone a single insult? — violence!
If we desire real and sustainable change, we desire a noble thing, but we must understand that our job is not to change the world, but to do the best we can to live as God wills us to live. We must imagine ourselves in the overall scheme of things, and yet it is hard to accept God on God’s terms, let alone this world on this world’s terms. Whenever we get offended, we can imagine that we have overreacted, even as we recognise offence renders an effective response impotent. God’s Kingdom is a kingdom of peace, and we’re to build it in peace.
The most powerful response is believing that we can influence a situation, and we are only able to influence situations where we don’t polarise the other side further into their corner than they already are. We need to work smarter than that. We can bring evil to its knees through a peace it cannot comprehend. If you don’t believe me look up the Reverend Wade Watts and Johnny Lee Clary. Nothing can defeat a person committed wholeheartedly to peace. It’s only when they succumb to being violent that their efforts are broken.
Accepting that we operate within a limited scope of control — acknowledging a truth which keeps us humble — we take the pressure down on ourselves and we do what we can, even as we are directed to demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit. We are children of God, first and foremost, and that is the way it is to stay. We speak out against and act on injustice always, yet we never do violence.
Jesus calls peacemakers “blessed” because they usher in the Kingdom by doing God’s will.
Photo by Aleksandr Ledogorov on Unsplash
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