Shalom Makers
The Seventh Beatitude
Blessed are the shalom makers because they will be called the offspring of God.
For most people, to say they desire peace is a lie.
Watch their actions and it will become evident that a life devoted to making true peace is absent.
“Peace” as the absence of conflict may be a goal, but only a temporary one to plot how to win the next conflict that arises.
Peace that results from winning and losing or from a stalemate is at best a temporary cessation of hostilities, because the desire for what the other has never goes away, as is the desire to keep it from the other.
Cain and Abel multiplied by the billions.
The very notions of winning and losing in any relationship from individuals to countries, belie this truth, because death of some sort is always the result.
True Peace
True peace results in life for all because the parties to peace desire for the other to “win” and vice versa. “Do unto others …” (Matt 7:12) is the only true way to peace.
The Hebrew term for this state is shalom. Shalom encompasses the idea of peace to be sure, but peace as wholeness, health, abundance, contentment, and blessing from God.
True peace can come only when my only devotion is to God alone and I do not desire what others have. To the contrary, I desire for them to have what I have—shalom, peace, wellness, contentment in the shadow of my Creator.
Then multiply that to all of humanity.
The first and last of the Ten Commandments embody the true foundations of peace (1. “You shall have no other gods before me.” 10. “You shall not desire your neighbor’s house …”).
But Jesus goes further:
Doers of shalom
Almost every English translation renders oi eirēnopoioi with “the peacemakers” though several have “make peace” or “work for peace.” One has “peaceable men,” and another has “bringers of peace.” The Amplified Bible has “the makers and maintainers of peace.” Any of these are technically correct.
But as I hinted in the previous section, Jesus’s Jewish audience would think of peace not in its “absence of conflict” sense but peace as wholeness, as abundant life, in a word, as shalom in the way God intended.
There is a reason that this seventh beatitude falls where it does. The ability to be a shalom-doer is dependent on the fulfillment of the first six beatitudes: poverty of spirit, mourning the condition of the world, showing mercy, desiring the righteous character of God, seeking lowliness rather than power, pure-heartedly devoted to God.
To embody these prior beatitudes is the basis of true service in the pursuit of shalom.
True peace—and peacemaking—requires a death to self, a death to human desire. Only then can the peacemaker see clearly to do the things necessary for peace. Only outside of the system of conflictual desire, can the peacemaker model shalom and create the desire for peace-shalom from those caught up in the human notion of peace as a temporary absence of conflict.*
And as the case with the prior beatitudes, the only true embodiment of the shalom-maker is Jesus, the incarnated one, the enfleshment of God, who entered humanity from without, who alone could see all things clearly, who alone could model the doing/making of shalom and could speak the words necessary for shalom and who was willing to give his life to bring about shalom.
Jesus was outside of human desire for power, thus he could tell the truth without fear.
He did not fear death, so the human desire for survival did not drive him, only the desire for shalom.
The peacemakers are those who have abandoned human desire; they desire God alone. Paul called the result “the mind of Christ.”
The peacemaker does exist within the fray of the world (by default) but refuses to participate in the fray, save for speaking the truth to all parties without bias or preference.
That lack of participation may mean that the peacemaker is considered an enemy of both (all) warring parties—the shalommaker does not take sides because neither side has a monopoly on righteousness. Rather, both parties are blindly caught up in an “I am right” rivalry that demands the acquiescence of the other.
In the case of Jesus, as the shalom-seeking enemy of all, he became the supreme scapegoat that laid bare human desires and paved the way for a new way of life—of sole desire for God that results in shalom.
Jesus’s voluntary death was the ultimate expression of shalom-making.
In much of the rest of the Sermon Jesus unpacks the practical actions of peacemaking-shalomdoing.
Sons of God
Why does Jesus say that the peacemakers will be called sons of God (maybe better, offspring of God)?
Isn’t Jesus the only Son of God?
Yes, but as creations of God in God’s image we are all potentially the offspring of God through faith in Jesus (Paul uses “sons of God” in this way in Romans 8:14; 8:19; and Galatian 3:26).
Shalommakers are the offspring of God because through the way of Jesus, they have conceptually reentered the Garden prior to Adam’s fall to desire for godhood, the very desire that led to Satan’s rebellion and expulsion from heaven. The Garden of Eden is descriptive of God’s provision of shalom and as God’s offspring we envision being in that place (John uses the expression “eternal life” or “abundant life”). Revelation 21-22 is John’s vision of this return: God’s offspring have been redeemed from the fallenness of desire, thus entered the renewed Paradise of Revelation 21-22 and its description of eternal shalom.
As peacemakers/shalomdoers, the offspring of God carry out God’s mission to help others extract themselves from this very slavery to desire and the conflicts of mutual human desire in whatever form it takes (power, sex, money, possessions, relationships).
They will be called
Who calls these people the offspring of God (the passive voice is indeterminate)? Every entity in heaven and earth calls them such because it is the truth. God calls his offspring “children of God” because they have entered into what He created them to be (John 1:12); the world begrudgingly, and usually in secret, acknowledges them as God’s offspring (but refuse to give up their own desires that would make themselves thus, and they continue to war against God’s offspring); the offspring of God call themselves that, not out of pride, but in pure humility and gratitude for what God has done for them.
The offspring of God realize that shalom is the gift of God and only those who have entered into that shalom (and rejected the chaos of the world) can be purveyors of shalom.
The only way to be a peacemaker is to already be at peace, come what may.
An Invitation
Are you interested in learning New Testament Greek? I will be teaching an intensive course with 50 hours of live instruction via Zoom from June to August. Please contact me at jack.painter@gmail.com or go to https://www.rightonmission.org/intro-to-new-testament-greek for more information. I would love to have you!
*“Conflictual desire” is a concept I draw from Renée Girard. At some point I will post further on Girard’s thinking about human interactions.