peace

Matthew 5:9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

We all woke up Saturday to learn that we Americans have begun another Middle Eastern war based on dubious intelligence claims. This morning we learned that Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed 3 U.S. service members, at least 9 people in Israel, and 4 people in other countries in the region. In Iran, the U.S.-Israeli strikes have killed at least 133 civilians, including, reportedly, dozens of school children, and wounded 200 others, according to HRANA, the media agency of an Iranian rights group based in Washington.

War is deadly. That’s the point. I grieve for the civilians who died, and I grieve, as well, for the members of the military who were killed. Maybe all soldiers are aware they could die in combat, but soldiers don’t make policy or decide when to go to war. Did these soldiers or their grieving loved ones have a personal stake in this particular conflict? I doubt it.

When I was a teenager during the Vietnam War, I was certain I was a pacifist. I find the question of pure pacifism more complicated now than I did then, and I look forward to reading a book on the topic written by my colleague Ben Daniel, to be published later this year. Ben’s book, Grace Over Guns: Pursuing Peace in a Militarized World, should be released by the end of this summer.

What I am certain about is that Christians are called to be peacemakers. In 1980 (practically ancient history at this point), my denomination’s General Assembly adopted a report entitled, “Peacemaking: The Believer’s Calling.” Based on Matthew 5:9 as well as the rest of the rich scriptural heritage of peace and justice in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, and based also in the Reformed tradition that historically has been committed to world-transforming action, the forty-plus page report states, among other things, “we believe that these times, so full of peril and tragedy for the human family, present a special call for obedience to our Lord, the Prince of Peace. The Spirit is calling us to life out of death. … We are at a turning point. We are faced with the decision either to serve the Rule of God or to side with the powers of death through our complacency and silence.”

We are faced with a decision either to serve the Rule of God, or to side with the powers of death through our complacency and silence. So, what does it mean to be a peacemaker? I’m grateful for some excellent exegetical work done by April Hoelke Simpson, who writes, “One way to answer this question is to pay attention to how the term eirēnopoios [the Greek word translated as “peacemakers”] was used in the ancient world.” The word occurs in the New Testament only in this verse, but outside the New Testament, it’s used by Xenophon and Plutarch to refer to “those who are committed to peace rather than to war.”

Another clue is that Jesus, a devout Jew, certainly would have been shaped by the rich meaning of the Hebrew word for peace, shalom, which includes not only lack of conflict but also safety, welfare, prosperity, and completeness on an individual and group level. “Peacemaking,” therefore, is the active pursuit of wellbeing for all, especially those for whom such wellbeing has been denied. As “The Believer’s Calling” puts it, “We know there can be no national security without global security, and there can be no global security without political and economic justice.”

Jesus says that peacemakers will be called huioi theou; literally, “sons of God,” or, in more contemporary and inclusive language, “children of God.” While I celebrate that all God’s people are “children of God,” the way Jesus uses this phrase here may point to something more. Simpson writes, “[I]n the context of the first-century Roman Empire, when Matthew was written, the term ‘son of [a] god’ was politically significant. Multiple emperors – not least Rome’s first emperor, Augustus – were granted the title ‘son of god.’ … In texts about Augustus, we find repeated reference to the idea that he was an agent of peace for the whole Roman Empire.” This means Jesus’ choice of words here, naming his peacemaking followers “sons of God,” is subversive. Simpson writes, “Whereas Roman rhetoric portrayed its rulers as those who had the divine right to rule and establish peace, Jesus tells his followers something different: true peace comes not through Rome but through you. You are agents of peace in the world, agents who bring reconciliation and genuine wellbeing to those who need it. By being thus, you will be rightfully called the heirs of God. … The point is that Christians are called to be agents of peace in the world, and they are emphatically not to do so through a model of domination that conquers and suppresses in the name of ‘peace.’”

Are some wars necessary? I’m not sure. I am sure, however, that this war is a choice. There were diplomatic options for most of the stated aims of this armed conflict, a conflict not approved by Congress, a conflict that does not make Americans or the rest of the world safer. I turn again and again to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s wisdom:

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Resources:
Ben Daniel, Grace Over Guns: Pursuing Peace in a Militarized World (Harvey, ND: Herald Press, 2026
Peacemaking: The Believer’s Calling, https://www.pcusa.org/sites/default/files/8-peacemaking-believers-calling-1980.pdf
April Hoelke Simpson, “Commentary of Matthew 5:1-20,” January 22, 2023,
https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/beatitudes/commentary-on-matthew-51-20-3
Nicholas Kristof and Stephanie Shen, “A War of Choice Does Not Make Us Safer,” February 28, 2026, video:
https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000010744432/a-war-of-choice-does-not-make-us-safer.html?searchResultPosition=2
Nicholas Kristoff, “The Folly of Attacking Iran,” February 28, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/opinion/trump-iran-war.html
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” in Strength to Love (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010)

I grew up with Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday “Hosannas” were followed a week later by Easter morning “Alleluias,” with nothing in between. If my childhood Presbyterian churches held Holy Week services, I didn’t know about them. Sometime after I quit going to church in college, Presbyterians switched to Palm/Passion Sunday. The “passion” comes from “the Passion of Christ,” the phrase used to describe Jesus’ arrest, trial, conviction, and execution. One theory I’ve heard is that churches started telling the Passion story on Palm Sunday because so few people show up to hear it on Good Friday.

So, Palm or Passion? The lectionary for this coming Sunday offers two sets of texts. The Palm Sunday gospel lesson, Mark 11:1-11, describes the spontaneous parade that erupted when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. This was powerful street theater. A donkey sounds like a humble steed but it’s meant to echo Hebrew Scripture passages describing returning kings: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” [1 Kings 1:32-40; 2 Kings 9:13; Zechariah 9:9].

The crowds greeted Jesus as the Messiah; “hosanna” means “save now.” These crowds expect Jesus to overthrow the Romans, and the Romans take note. This was just before the Passover celebration in Jerusalem, and Passover was a tricky problem for the Romans. The Passover festival is all about deliverance from slavery and freedom from oppression. Passover wasn’t good for the Empire.

These events help explain why Jesus was arrested and crucified. Jesus didn’t merely offend the religious authorities of the day. He proclaimed another kingdom – the kingdom not of Caesar but of God – and called people to give their allegiance to God’s kingdom first. He was, in other words, a real threat.

The people are half right. He did come as God’s Messiah, but they misunderstood what that meant. It didn’t mean “regime change” by violence, but rather the love of God poured out upon the world in a way that dissolved all the things we use to differentiate ourselves. But that means the religious and political authorities are also half right. Jesus was a threat to the way they led and lived. For that matter, he still is. He threatens our obsession with defining ourselves over and against others. He threatens the way in which we seek to secure our future by hoarding wealth and power. He threatens our habit of drawing lines and making rules about who is acceptable and who is not. He threatens all these things and more. But the authorities are wrong in thinking that they can eliminate this threat by violence. The words of Dr. King come to mind: “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. … Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

The Passion gospel lesson is Mark 14:1-15:47, and it includes the anointing of Jesus with costly ointment by an unnamed woman, the last supper, the betrayal by Judas Iscariot, the arrest in Gethsemane, Peter’s denial, the trial before Pilate, and Jesus’ conviction, torture, crucifixion, and death. We know the story. Why hear it again, either on Palm/Passion Sunday or during Holy Week?

I know people who grew up in traditions in which they were taught that we should listen to the Passion story because we, ourselves, are somehow guilty of Jesus’ crucifixion, and once a year we should be reminded and feel horrible about that. I do not fall into that camp. I don’t buy that those who shouted “Hosanna” are necessarily the same people who shouted, “Crucify him!” And I don’t believe listening to the gory details of Jesus’ death every year somehow makes us better disciples. Sensationalizing the brutality of crucifixion feels as though it has more to do with morbid curiosity than with the point of the story.

The point of the story is why I believe, nevertheless, that there is a good reason to hear the whole Passion narrative, whether on Palm/Passion Sunday or during Holy Week: As Jesus’ followers, we need to remember the consequences of challenging the powers that be. And we need to remember the consequences to all of us, to the whole world, of continuing to live by the politics of Rome. Whether we are Republicans or Democrats; American, Russian, or Ukrainian; Israeli, Palestinian, or Haitian; whether we are corporations or governments, parents or siblings, husbands or wives, whenever we seek to influence others through coercion and violence, we are following the politics of Rome. It is so easy to fall into thinking that violence is normal, that coercion is justified, that it’s just the way the world is. And it’s especially easy to turn our backs on drones, secret prisons, terrorism, counterterrorism, occupations, politically caused famine, mass incarceration, and all the other heartbreaking costs of the politics of Rome when we are relatively insulated from them by one form of privilege or another.

Brian D. McLaren imagines an alternative Palm Sunday in which a heavily armed Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a white war horse. “’Hosanna!” the people shout. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord to execute vengeance on our enemies! … Crush the Romans! Kill the collaborators!’” Jesus calls the people to fight to the death to avenge the blood of their ancestors. He shouts, “’Those who live by restraint will die by restraint. Now is the time. Now is the day of annihilation for our enemies.’ And so, the battle for Jerusalem begins.”

Then McLaren concludes, “No. That is not what happened. And the differences are at the heart of the story of Holy Week.”

So, Palm, or Passion? Either: if the Palm Sunday texts are read in a way that celebrates all that makes for peace; if the Passion narrative is read in a way that deeply laments the politics of coercion and violence; if, in either case, we are invited to remember that the end is always Easter, the peaceful power of death-defying love.

Resources:
Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” in Strength to Love (Harper and Row, 1963; reprinted as a gift edition by Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010).
Brian D. McLaren, http://brianmclaren.net/palm-sunday-2011-end-of-violence/
Brian D. McLaren, http://brianmclaren.net/palm-sunday/

Solvitur Ambulando

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Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Palm, or Passion?