Jack D. Popjes, Contributor
Popjes
Taking a shortcut from the milk cooler to the cashier, I tried hard to ignore the four-year-old girl who whined and cried her way down the grocery store candy aisle. Her mother dragged her along by the hand saying firmly, "No candy right now. We'll be home for dinner soon." The child, obviously experienced at manipulating her mother, suddenly threw herself down on the floor and started screaming. The exasperated mother finally grabbed a candy bar off the store shelf, gave it to her, and peace was restored in the candy aisle.
Peace? Not really. Just until the next time - a candy aisle, a toy store, or a TV programme at bedtime.
The kind of peace that comes from appeasement never lasts. The demands always escalate, whether from a whining four-year-old or a terrorist organisation, a recalcitrant church member or a disgruntled missionary.
Unbiblical ways of making peace
Societies tend to develop unbiblical ways of making peace. For instance, when a conflict breaks out among the Canela people in Brazil, the way they restore peace is to persuade one of the parties in the conflict to pack up, leave, and let some time go by. Sometimes the person is shamed into going, at other times, he or she may leave in a huff. After living in another village for a few days, a week, or even a month or more, the individual or family returns to the village. No one says anything to anyone about what happened in the past. Time erased the conflict, and restored peace.
Peace? Not really. Just until the next time there is a conflict. Instantly, all the old enmities spring to life, and the hostility is worse than before. Peace at any price is the direct opposite of what God had in mind. Whining, anger, walking away and passive resistance are hellish ways of dealing with conflict, and grudges.
God designed human beings to live in peace and He designed a way to make peace, true lasting peace.
The ancient prophet Isaiah preached during many years of internal conflict in Jerusalem. He gave the citizens God's recipe for peace: "The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever." (32:17)
Peace comes, not by giving in to the person who screams the loudest, or by walking away in shame or in anger, but by somebody doing the morally and ethically right thing.
Peace, as a result of morally and ethically right actions, is a repeated biblical theme. Even the order in which they are mentioned is significant. King David put it this way, "Righteousness and peace have kissed each other." (Psalm 85:10)
Long before David the poet-king penned those lines, Abraham met Melchizedek who was " ... first ... King of Righteousness, and after that also ... King of Peace." (Heb 7:2)
The apostle Paul defined the Kingdom of God as ... "Righteousness and Peace ..." (Rom. 14:17).
God especially wants His children to live in peace with one another. Jesus gave clear, easy-to-follow instructions for making peace in His famous Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said, "If (you recognise you are not in a right relationship with God and) are offering your sacrificial gift at th (to show you are sorry for your sin, and want God to forgive
you) and there remember that your brother (or fellow believer) has something against you, leave your gift there in front of th First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. (Mat. 5:23-24 expanded material added by me in parentheses).
I wonder what would happen in Christian churches around the world next Sunday morning, if during the Prayer of Confession and Pardon, every person who remembered that someone had something against them would get up and walk out? Some pastors might not have much congregation left to preach to.
Some congregations might not have a pastor to preach to them.
Weird? Not at all! To make things right with other people as a prerequisite to making things right with God is Jesus' recipe for peace. That is how the Kingdom of God operates.
Unless we, Christians, from pastors and mission leaders down to congregants and mission workers, start following the operating instructions clearly written in the manual of life (the Bible), we will never have true peace.
Yes, candy aisles and church board meetings will quieten after an appeasement. The fur (or the sparks) will stop flying in the mission agency after one side in a conflict pulls back and keeps a low profile.
But unless conflict is taken seriously and dealt with biblically, the quote from another ancient prophet would fit, "They dress the wound of my people lightly as though it were not serious. "Peace, peace,' they say when there is no peace." (Jeremiah 6:14)
Jack Popjes is a former director of Wycliffe Bible Translators (Caribbean). He may be reached at Jack_Popjes@wycliffe.ca.
