Position Opening: Peacemaker
Given the constant flow of screaming headlines, you’d think there’d be a high demand for peacemakers. With all the shrill rhetoric about the need to resolve a myriad of disputes, you’d naturally assume that mediators could command princely fees, plus a hefty bonus once peace had broken out. But alas, they don’t; and the reason is quite simple. As long as people cling to the smallest shred of hope for victory, peacemakers are as welcome as the plague.
There’s a perverse irony to this, because war actually isn’t good for business. No one in Europe made a lot from World War I, for example. Nor did the Lebanese civil war boost the local economy all that much either. And as far as I can tell, there have been few corporate sponsors for the strife in Syria. In each instance two or three good peacemakers could have saved a lot of people an awful lot of money; but no one gave a thought to hiring them until it was way too late. Where was the chamber of commerce when people needed it?
When Jesus blessed the peacemakers in our midst, you can bet he meant to include more than just the professionals. Of course Jesus would be happy were international peace to erupt spontaneously; but he’d never be entirely satisfied until such peace filtered down to the local level. Not until peace reigned in our hearts and in our homes would Jesus be at peace himself — at least that’s my theory.
When it comes to being peacemakers on the local level, many of us stall out. We simply don’t know what in the world one person can do, and we generally have no idea where to start. But of course there’s lots we can do, and perhaps it’s useful to consider what we ought not do.
For starters, it might be helpful to turn the words of Jesus inside out. As near as I can tell, Jesus never said “blessed are the war-mongers.” Nor did he ever bless “those who sow strife and try to get on people’s nerves.” Nor did he ever praise those who deliberately press other people’s buttons to get them all riled up. Certainly not blessed are those who walk into a roomful of people and immediately raise their hackles. No, that’s not the sort of person Jesus had in mind when he thought of peacemakers.
If these words describe the non-peacemakers in broad strokes, I’m sure all of us can embellish them with detail from our personal experience, or at least from hearsay. To carry it further, we aren’t peacemakers when we spread malicious gossip, nor when we chip away at people behind their backs. We aren’t peacemakers when we play one person off against another, nor when we undermine someone’s self-confidence. When we leave people fearful and in doubt and paranoid, we definitely are not peacemakers. What we’ve really done is to gather tinder and all but put the match to it.
Put positively, being a war-monger sounds like a ton of work, and frankly it can be a pretty dangerous business. There’s always the risk that we can get burned. Worse still, we can get sucked in and become a participant in the war we merely wanted to watch and enjoy. But it is, in my opinion, far more prudent to take the road of the peacemaker. It may not seem very entertaining to see our friends and neighbors getting along, but it’s certainly a lot safer for us.
This last weekend Pope Francis hosted leaders from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, as well as Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. There’s no denying that there were times when none of their predecessors got along; and to say that two in their number still don’t see eye to eye is putting it mildly. Given all that, the invitation that Pope Francis extended to come to Rome and pray must have seemed laughable to many. After all, if war and hate can’t achieve peace, what good could prayer possibly do?
Two things struck me as I eyed the video from the gardens of the Vatican. First, two sworn enemies were enjoying an hour or so of peace. Did they enjoy it? Was the taste of peace enough to whet their appetite for more? Second, there were two long-time rivals who have long since made peace, and all because of prayer. For nine hundred years and more, pope and patriarch were bitter foes. But for fifty years they’ve enjoyed a peace that the world cannot give. Prayer brought Paul VI and Athenagoras together, and this weekend two friends — Francis and Bartholomew — showed two implacable foes that it can be done. I hope that wasn’t lost on anyone.
Conventional wisdom says that if you don’t like war, then fight harder to bring it to an end. If you don’t like your neighbors, then irritate them some more and maybe they’ll move away. And if you don’t like people in the office or in your family, then bug the heck out of them until they avoid you like the plague.
But when all else fails, and all that hard work is for naught, then extend the olive branch of peace. If it fails to work, you’ve really lost nothing. If it does work, you’ll be the big winner. And you’ll know finally what Jesus meant when he said: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
Notes
+Early last week I received a letter announcing that the Grand Master and Sovereign Council had on 27 May created the Historical Institute of the Order of Malta, and had appointed me to the Commission for Research and Educational Programs.
+Last week the monks of Saint John’s Abbey held their annual retreat, under the direction of Sister Margaret Michaud, a Benedictine of our sister-house Saint Benedict’s Monastery.
+On June 5th I attended the annual dinner of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, held in Minneapolis.
+On June 7th eight monks arrived at Saint John’s to spend two months with us in a program of English as a Second Language. In the group is a retired abbot from Austria, two monks from the monastery of Christ in the Desert in New Mexico, one monk from our priory in Japan, one monk from the Philippines, and three Cistercian monks from an abbey in Vietnam. Happily, we have confreres who can speak those languages; and we noted how appropriate it was that they arrived on the eve of Pentecost. Their presence reminded us once again that the Church and the Order of Saint Benedict gather together peoples from all nations.
+On June 8th Fr. Brad celebrated the abbey Mass, his first with us as a newly-ordained priest.
+Spring has finally come in a big way, as the pictures in today’s post suggest. Among the surprises was the blooming of the peonies on Pentecost. Affectionately knows as the “Pentecost Rose,” they rarely bloom on their feast day at Saint John’s. But in our gardens some of the white ones opened alongside the yellow iris, and elsewhere pink and red are just coming into their glory.
A Monk's Chronicle 