radical peace, redefining justice, and purpose

Peace must come by peaceful means or else someone is being pacified. Peace is not merely the absense of conflict, but the presence of right relationships that bring enemies together in love.

When I look through history, the people who devoted their lives to peacemaking and seeking justice for the oppressed often lose their lives to the cause. Why is it that peacemakers and bridge-builders so often find that the job calls for the ultimate sacrifice?

Furthermore, it seems like the church throughout history has really lacked in the peacemaking department. In fact, I frequently hear observers say "Look how Christians love one another" when conflict abounds (which is definitely all too often). So, what makes peacemaking so difficult and so radical?

Well, I guess I look to the beginning- when peace was first broken. Two factors contributed to this mournful day, the rebellion of Satan and the disobedience of man. Injustice itself is a result of of these two grievous failures. Peacemaking has become a radical thing because it reacts against that very thing that has permeated all of the world as we know it.

What exactly does this mean about justice? As American culture defines it, justice is when criminals receive the right consequence for their crime. However, I'd like to propose a different definition of justice. Justice happens when the church actively engages in bringing God's redemptive and restorative plans to the existing world. We can only bring about peace and justice when we have first made our peace with God.

If on thing is clear about what God's up to right now, it's that He desires the reconciliation of relationships, both horizontally and vertically. He's diligently pursuing restoration, and He has proven His mission in the person of Christ.

Jesus also pounded away at the idea of self denial. My concern with the push of Christian hedonism is that the focus on personal enjoyment leads to the abandonment of the focus of God's purposes.

How does all this connect? Radical peace, the redefinition of justice, and God's purposes? God has not called us to be agents of judgement, but agents of redemption. Radical peacemaking requires that we pursue the furtherance of God's justice, and this is God's purpose. Our cultural framework opposes selflessness and the reasoning of the whole gospel and how we live it out. It values self esteem, confidence, and pride. We believe we have some sort of divine right to things such as happiness and safety and acceptance. The truth of the matter is that we have been bought with a price and that we don't deserve to expect anything. Our consumer culture propigates instability and inability to commit; we constantly look for bigger, better, faster things. We are not content; we move around in pursuit of happiness.

Being a bridge often requires being walked on, but just like submission, this doesn't imply passivity. Being a bridge, being a peacemaker, requires that we're in active and constant pursuit of reconciliation and restoration of relationships of all kinds. In humility, in recognition of our brokenness and failures, in our weakness, Christ is made strong and His purposes can be carried out.

Lastly, Jesus doesn't merely address behavior, he addresses the heart. No sustainable, real change can be made when we're treating the symptoms of the problem. Like someone said this week, if you staple fresh apples to a dead apple tree, the apple tree remains dead and the apples become mushy and gross. Real peace requires a change of heart and an alignment with God's purposes in the world.

Thanks for reading. Let's hold each other accountable to submitting to Christ in our chase of radical peace and justice.