Beatitudes: Merciful Peacemakers

 Matthew 5:7-9
James 3:13-18

August 24, 2003

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Who is wise and understanding among you?  Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.  But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth.  Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish.  For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.  But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.  And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

December 7 1941, Pearl Harbor is attacked by pilots and bombers fighting under the flag of the Empire of Japan.

December 8, 1941 the US Treasury Department seizes all Japanese banks and business operating within the borders of the United States of America.

December 9 Many Japanese language schools across the country are closed.

January 14 President Roosevelt orders re-registration of suspected "enemy" aliens in West.

January 27 Los Angeles City and County discharges all people of Japanese descent on civil service payrolls.

March 2 Lieutenant General John DeWitt issues Proclamation No. I, designating the Western half of the three Pacific Coast states of California, Oregon and Washington and the southern third of Arizona as military areas and stipulating that all persons of Japanese descent would eventually be removed.

March 7 the United States Army acquires a site in Owens Valley, California which will eventually become the Manzanar detention center.[1]

Eventually several other such detention centers across California and the American west are established, including one in Fresno, California.  Between 1942 and 1946, thousands upon thousands of American citizens, who happened to also be of Japanese descent were uprooted from their homes, transferred to these prison camps and held, simply because they were Japanese.  Many of the young men who came from these camps, entered military service and were shipped out to fight in Europe.  Many of those uprooted from their homes, never regained their homes, their furniture and most possessions too big to move in the trucks.  They lost their businesses and their neighborhoods.  Many of those Japanese-American citizens lost everything.

In September 1942, Mike Blueian of Fresno California, gave his daughter Alice a bicycle.  The bicycle belonged to a friend of little Alice, another little girl named Yoshino Uyemara.  Mike Blueian made little Alice promise, that someday when the opportunity presented itself, and the little Japanese girl returned from the internment camp where she had been sent, Alice should return the bicycle.

In time, these two little American girls lost track of each other and perhaps began to lose hope that they would ever see each other again.  Unaware, however, they both attended UCLA.

Alice married Robert Kezirian and raised six children in Rolinda, California.  Yoshino, now called Elaine by many of her friends, married and raised three children in Selma, California.  Rolinda and Selma are both towns on the outskirts of Fresno, they happened to live only twenty miles apart for most of their lives after having been separated suddenly in 1942.

One day, the promise little Alice had made to her father, rose up in her mind. Somehow, probably with the help of the internet, she located Elaine Uyemara.

Sixty-one years after that promise was first made, at a local burger joint in Fresno, California, Alice Blueian Kezirian returned the very same, but now beautifully restored bicycle her father gave her to its rightful owner, to Elaine Uyemara Omoto.  Alice Kezirian is a member of the Pilgrim Armenian Congregational Church of Fresno, California and the basic facts of this story appeared in the AEUNA newsletter just distributed this past week.[2]

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

We don’t know the mind of Mike Blueian from sixty-one years distance.  What was he trying to do by giving that bike to his daughter?  Was he trying to take advantage of a situation, giving his daughter a bicycle he recognized leaning against a white picket fence, in front of an abandoned house in the late summer of 1942?  Did he just want to give his daughter a bicycle he found and knew he would not be able to afford any other way?  Was he being sneaky and opportunistic, taking advantage of the situation, figuring that the rightful owner of the bike would never come looking for it?

If so, the promise he asked his daughter to make was just an afterthought, a way of calming a guilty conscience and pretending that nothing was wrong.

But perhaps this act was one that followed a different logic, a different wisdom, one not born on earth.  Perhaps this act was born not in an “unspiritual, devilish, envious mind” run by “selfish ambition and wickedness.”

Perhaps this act was born out of the “the wisdom from above.”  Perhaps it is “pure.”

Maybe this act of Mike Blueian’s, of giving his child a bicycle and making her promise to return it is an act of mercy.  Did he know what it was like to lose everything in a land called home, in which one felt safe and in which one’s family and people had hoped to find refuge?  Had he known firsthand in his own childhood, the experience of being uprooted and losing everything?  A father in 1942, perhaps somewhere around forty to forty-five years old, he would have been a boy about his daughters’ age in 1915.  Had he been in Turkey in 1915 and did he remember similar deportations, and even worse torturing and annihilation at the hands of a government that should have been protecting him?  Did he himself make a promise to that little girl if only in his own heart, that somehow her entire childhood would not be lost?

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Did Mike Blueian also somehow know the heart and mind of his own daughter?  Knowing that she could never swallow the situation whole, that she would never forget her friend, that she would somehow hold on to a small piece of this poor friend’s childhood, safe and secure.  That the little girl somehow had the courage and the will to render the promise meaningful, rather than an empty conscience calming futile bunch of words?

And what was Alice Kezirian thinking, was she just trying to keep the promise because she had made it to her father?  Did she want to simply perform a random act of kindness in her fathers’ name?  Or was she making a deeper statement, acting out of a wish to make a deeply wrong situation a little more right?  Was she perhaps hoping to perform an act of justice and make peace in a situation where there had only been violence, war-time logic and injustice?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Oftentimes when the word “peacemaker” especially when quoted from the Beatitudes, it is used to describe a pacifist.  But this is not necessarily a complete definition of what Jesus means by “peacemaker.”  A peacemaker is not someone who simply wants to stay out of war or conflict or fights in general.

Neither does Jesus intend that the word have the same connotation as it did in the Old American West. You see in the days of Jesse James and Wyatt Earp, “The Peacemaker” was the nickname given to a variation of the Colt 45 revolver, because of its popularity with the Army and with lawmakers.  In the Beatitudes, we can probably assume that Jesus didn’t mean ”blessed are the gun-toters or gun-lovers.”  But there is an aspect of Peacemaking that comes close to that Old West understanding of Peacemaker.  Like the Old West Lawman, often peacemaking is active, not passive.  One cannot be a peacemaker by sitting at home and hoping for peace, or that everything will just come out OK. 

Biblically, peacemaking and mercy go hand in hand.  In the Beatitudes the two go almost back to back, separated only by a blessing extended to those who are pure in heart.  A peacemaker goes forth with mercy in his hand, rather than a Colt 45, to make right what has been so wrong.

A woman went to a photographer to get her picture taken.  She insisted in a haughty way, “Please, I hope this photograph does me justice.”  The photographer studied his subject for a few moments and said, “May I suggest, madam, that what you need is not justice, but mercy?”[3]

We’ll come back to the idea of mercy in just a moment.

Another aspect of peacemaking is that it does not act in a vacuum.  The peacemaking of the Beatitudes is not a simple pacifism that cares nothing about the ways of God except a simple hatred of war.  It is also not just a man acting as sheriff and working to get people what is owed to them.  Peacemaking comes in a larger context, as we find in the words of James.

“the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.  And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”

There is a particular progression that the author of the book of James refers to.  A process and a mindset and a worldview that he calls “wisdom” that comes somehow from above, from the teaching and example of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to make peace with me and with you.  A wisdom, which comes from God in heaven, who created all the universe good and insisted on not giving up on it all when it somehow went awry anyhow.

James says that this wisdom from above begins in purity, which we spoke about last Sunday, then it moves on to being peaceable (a synonym for peaceable is peaceful, and the New International Version translates it peace-loving.)  Then comes gentleness, a willingness to yield, being capable of mercy and being full of good fruits and absolutely no trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 

And what does James say is the result of this type of wisdom or world view.  I prefer the NIV translation in this instance which says, “Peacemakers who sow peace raise a harvest of righteousness.”  That is, by making peace with others and between others with gentleness and mercy in tow, by making peace with your past, with your sins, with your God and with yourself, by being willing to yield to what may be so threatening in these things, the natural reward is righteousness about which we also spoke last Sunday as being a gift from God.

Of course Jesus says in the Beatitudes that the reward for such a wisdom and worldview is receiving mercy and being known as children of God.

“My boy,” said the store owner to his new employee, “wisdom and integrity are essential to the retail business.  By ‘integrity’ I mean if you promise a customer something, you have got to keep that promise – even if it means we lose money.” 

“And what,” asked the teenager, “is wisdom?”

“That,” answered the boss, “is not making stupid promises!”[4]

This shopkeepers’ teaching on wisdom and integrity, certainly begins by sounding as if it is from above, from God, perhaps even from a teaching Jesus himself would have given.  Yet for Jesus, the logic and wisdom from above is not about saving money or not making stupid promises.  Its about mercy and making peace with all, and reaping righteousness, and doing the right thing to bring justice and mercy to all, even if it means losing money, even if it means persecution, even if it means the cross.

After the sacrifice, after the pain and the suffering, however, the reward is righteousness is being right with God and becoming a child of God.

A scenario that most of us have probably experienced will help to illustrate my point. It’s been a long, hard day. You’re cleaning up the dinner dishes and have just poured your three-year old daughter a glass of juice. She’s asked for juice in a big-person’s glass and you’ve conceded because all her spill-proof cups are in the dishwasher. As you hand her the glass, you tell her to be careful not to spill, but you haven’t had your back turned for more than thirty seconds when you hear it crash against the floor. What happens next is crucial and may be dependent on how your parents (and other caretakers) treated you in similar situations. If you whirl around snarling, "I just told you not to spill!" and berate her for the next two minutes, then you might want to investigate if some of your behavior could be stemming from how you were treated as a child.[5] 

In such a circumstance, you might agree with me, exploding at the little one is not the proper response, is not the just, right, merciful, loving response that comes from the logic of the beatitudes or the logic of the “wisdom from above.”  What is? 

In such a circumstance, would you turn and hug the child who is crying after spilling the juice, because she really wanted to drink it and now its all over the floor?  Perhaps? 

Would you decide that the child needs to learn a lesson but yelling is not the way and send her to the corner to sit in her time-out chair?  Certainly better than simply yelling at the little one for two minutes, but probably not the best answer.

Would you take out a sippy-cup out of the dishwasher, wash it, fill it with juice and give it to the little one and say, “That’s the last time I’m going to give you a big person’s cup!  Now go drink your juice!”  Also not a good choice.

There are dozens of ways of handling that situation, but however you would the peacemaker’s response and even initial approach should be not to simply be dismissive of the other human being, not to simply vent and scream and act out of blind frustration, shouldn’t be ignorantly repeating some ancient drama that actually began when you yourself were very young, it should be gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and without hypocrisy.  It should be gauged to make peace and to make things right.

In the example I’ve shown, perhaps there was another way.  When the child first asks for the cup, busy as you are, perhaps the way to respond would not have been to say OK, here’s what you want, the big person’s cup, now go away.  Perhaps the proper way would have been to realize that a big person cup should wait til there would be time to supervise her drinking, perhaps at the dinner table, also taking into consideration, “Hey, if she spills this juice, the mood I’m in and knowing myself, I’m really likely to explode and fly off the handle and yell at her…maybe not.

A proper response then could be to say, “Can we have a big person cup next time, wait til I clean one of your cups, here which color do you want?”  Then go through the negotiations of figuring out which cup to be used in a safe no-fuss way.

Making peace is not just choosing the easy, affordable, no pain alternative.  It takes effort, wisdom, patience, kindness, mercy and all those other pieces we’ve been speaking of, that come from a different logic than that of the world.  They come form a Christ-centered wish to make things right, to make peace and to gain righteousness.

Next week we will consider more the implications of this wisdom from God and living according to the constitution and bill of rights that come from God above.  We will consider that the implication of that lifestyle is not only the blessings that Jesus promised, but sometimes the pain and the hardship that comes with it as well.  The suffering, and in addition, the redemption of that suffering and the new life that comes despite the hardship and pain.

In the meanwhile, I pray that the wisdom from above will give us the ability to be a bit more pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, and full of mercy.  I am confident that as we do, we too will receive mercy and will be ourselves as the children of God.