Gospel Reading:
Matthew 5
Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.
The Beatitudes
He said:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you,persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Homily
The reading you just heard from Matthew’s Gospel is known as the Sermon on the Mount, or the Beatitudes, which are proverb-like sayings of Jesus. The pattern to them is easily recognizable; Jesus names a group of people normally thought to be unfortunate and pronounces them blessed.
The seventh beatitude says: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” Along with the beatitude about the merciful, this one does not speak to how we should be (poor, afflicted, meek, pure of heart) but about what we must “do.” The Greek term “eirenopoioi” means those who work for peace, those who “make peace.” Not so much in the sense of being reconciled with our enemies, but in the sense of helping enemies to be reconciled with each other.
In Jesus’s day, emperors, such as Caesar, would sometimes refer to themselves as “eirenopoioi,” ironically enough. If you’ve studied any of Jesus’s parables, you may have noticed that Jesus is clever, and uses irony to make a point. And it’s possible that he may have been doing that here. The irony of our day being that politicians and leaders of various empires claim to care about peace, and some are certainly more genuine than others. War is seemingly never-ending, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Russia-Ukaraine, and Israel-Palestine just to name a few from the past 20 years or so. The U. S. Is currently involved in 5 different wars or ongoing conflicts, but the Caesar’s of our day continue to paint themselves as “peacemakers.” It brings to my mind Jeremiah 6:14, They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”
One need only to look into the eyes of a Palestinian mother, or see it etched onto a Gaza child’s face. “Peace” may be the only prayer on their lips, but it is certainly the furthest one from reality.
In the Old Testament, peace is often side by side with justice, such as in Psalm 85:11, where it says that “Justice and peace shall kiss,” and in the New Testament. Peace is side by side with grace. When Paul writes: “Justified by faith we are at peace with God in Romans 5, it is clear that “at peace with God” has the same meaning as “in the grace of God.” The Hebrew word for peace, shalom, which appears over 200 times in the Bible, means far more than simply tranquility of order. It signifies a wholeness, a state of well-being, harmony, health, prosperity, on physical, emotional, and spiritual level. It also, then, is the complete opposite of not only war, but of injustice, oppression, or anything that falls outside of what God has willed for us.
Therefore, the condition for being a instrument of God’s peace is being in union with its source, which is the will of God, and the courage and strength to sacrifice some of our inner peace in order to create peace out there.
So, What do true “peacemakers” look like? That’s easy—they look like Jesus. Honoring others above ourselves, sharing with those in need, rejoicing with those who rejoice, mourning with those who mourn, and consistently confronting evil and doing good. Jesus was, after all, called the “prince of peace” for a reason. And the Prince of Peace not only spoke of reconciliation, mercy, and peace, he acted on it. He turned the other cheek, but when the time came he also flipped over tables in the Temple and chased out the money changers with a whip.
A call to be a Peacemaker is not synonymous, then, with a call to be quiet people who avoid confrontation even when necessary (they are proclaimed blessed by another beatitude, that of the meek); and neither are peacemakers synonymous with pacifists, if by pacifists we mean those who are against war, yes, but are keen to to stay uninvolved because it doesn’t personally concern them. Often, in our culture, we speak of self-care and finding “inner” peace, which, don’t get me wrong, is very important. But, God calls us to be a people who so love peace that we are willing to compromise our own personal peace and do what we can to confront injustice, and to, at the very least, be moved or disturbed by it, as God certainly is.
Our Lady of Light 