Peacemaking versus Peacekeeping

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9 NIV)

I grew up thinking that peacemakers were rare, sentient beings. I envisioned Mother Teresa at the highest level, living a life of poverty to care for the world’s most needy. I thought of women like my grandmother, who smiled and persevered in the face of tremendous hardship, and other, more stereotypical versions of matronly women sitting in rocking chairs, knitting, and remaining calm in the midst of great chaos.

I, on the other hand, was passionate and vocal, outraged by injustice and ready to engage a debate at the drop of a hat. I preferred to talk about politics, world events, and justice. Peacemakers were not my people—or so I thought.

I wrongly believed that peacemakers were meek and mild-mannered. I had confused peacemaking with peacekeeping, and it was that confusion that kept me silent on matters I felt strongly about for years. The tension I felt between who I was and who I thought I was made me feel like an outcast. In retrospect, this tension adversely affected my relationship with God and prevented me from fully understanding my identity in Jesus. It also left me feeling deficient when it came to how I fit into the larger Christian body.

After years of studying, deconstructing, and re-approaching Scripture by setting aside my preconceived notions and theologies, I learned to differentiate between what the culture was speaking versus what the gospel was speaking. I learned how my ideas on peacemaking were entangled with my identity as a Christian woman, and I began to see the way culture communicated what it looked like to be a “good Christian woman,” what it meant to be a peacemaker, and how those messages misrepresented the heart of God and the gospel.

Studying the life of Jesus and his disciples drew me into a greater understanding of what it looked like to be a peacemaker and how my concept of peacemaking had fallen short. I had always envisioned the with-the-little-children version of Jesus or the on-the-cross-asking-God-to-forgive-his-persecutors version of Jesus. What I didn’t understand was the radical Jesus. The Jesus who defied the world systems, threatened government authority, and shook religious leaders to their core.

The gift of grace defied the system of fairness and governance that required an eye for an eye. The proclamation that Jesus is Lord defied the Roman kingdom that declared Caesar as lord. People wanted a king, and Jesus showed up on a donkey. The Prince of Peace showed mercy, spoke truth without fear of condemnation, disrupted religious systems, turned man’s concept of God on its head, and changed the course of history. Jesus’s peacemaking came with boldness, defiance, and mercy, and it disrupted the world’s systems by ushering in a completely new kingdom system—one that called its followers to radical, transforming love, reconciliation, and life in unity with one another as brethren.

The Scripture I’d spent decades reading without fully grasping has come alive in entirely new ways under this historical lens. It’s been both eye-opening and liberating to realize how often we put our concepts of God, peacemaking, and justice through the lens of current-day culture and tradition.

Slowly, I’ve shed my fear and uncertainty. I’ve learned to embrace and accept my unique gifts and callings and my passions and heart for justice as uniquely given to me for a purpose. I’m learning to let go of the expectations of culture, particularly “Christian culture” when it doesn’t reflect the truth or heart of the gospel. I now consider peacemakers my tribe, and I no longer see the silent and serene pictures of my previously misunderstood definitions. Instead, I see the warrior, the truth-speaker, the humble, and the gentle, all wrapped into one another and working together.

I have embraced the difficulty of peacemaking and learned that it is active, uncomfortable, and hard. Peacemaking requires we stand in the tension between one perspective and another, that we have patience in the face of adversity, kindness where there is none in return, persistence where there is apathy, truth where there are lies, light where there is darkness, voice where there isn’t one, and unity where there is discord.

To be in the midst of a kingdom movement that focuses on reconciliation, restoration, and unity has been one of the most difficult, humbling, and yet fulfilling calls on my life. It has taught me more deeply how much we need Jesus, how kind and merciful he indeed is, and just how deep and sustaining his love is for his creation.

Jennifer Kinney lives in Shanghai, China with her husband and twin sons. She works as a communications coordinator for a non-profit fighting to end human trafficking in Asia. When she isn’t doing that or playing referee to her two busy boys, she writes at jenkinney.com about her life abroad, random thoughts, and being a mom to a child with epilepsy.

Photograph © Slava Bowman, used with permission