Matthew 5:9

The Peacemakers

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God. Matthew 5:9.

Many kings have had some special name attached to them because of their greatness or on account of some quality for which they were famous. We have Alfred the Great and Frederick the Great, William the Conqueror and William the Silent, Ethelred the Unready, Bichard the Lion-hearted, and so on. Edward 7: bore a finer name than any of these. He was called Edward the Peacemaker, and he was given that name because he was very wise and tactful in smoothing quarrels and preventing wars.

An old writer has said that there are three things people may be peacebreakers or peacekeepers or peacemakers. I wonder to which of these three classes you and I belong. Let us look at each of them for a minute or two.

1. Well, first there are the peacebreakers. There are some people who go about the world looking for slights; they are ready to pick a quarrel with anyone who thwarts them. Oliver Cromwell once said of John Lilburne that he was so quarrelsome that, if he could find nobody else to quarrel with, John would quarrel with Lilburne and Lilburne with John. And there are a good many “John Lilburnes” still.

But you may be a peacebreaker though you are not really one of these extra specially quarrelsome people. It takes two to make a quarrel, and if you allow yourself to quarrel with anybody about anything, whether they be a “John Lilburne” or not, then you, too, are a peacebreaker.

And the peacebreakers include not only those who break the peace with others, but, what is even worse, those who break the peace between others. The surest way to do that is to tell tales about people behind their backs and repeat unwise things that your friends have said about each other.

A clever Frenchman once said, “If all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in this world.” Perhaps the Frenchman was looking too much on the black side of things, but often people say things about their friends in haste which they regret at leisure, and if you go and repeat these nasty remarks then you are a peacebreaker of the most contemptible sort.

2. Then there are the peacekeepers.

There are two ways of keeping the peace the wrong way and the right way. Sometimes it is wrong to keep the peace. Britain might have kept the peace with Germany by not entering the European War, but by so doing she would have wronged her national conscience and sullied for ever her national honor.

Some people are very pleasant to live with. They do not quarrel or fight. They do not interfere. They would do anything for a quiet life. But sometimes to make peace one must break the peace. It is easier, when two of your friends have quarrelled, to stand aside and let them alone than to try to make them friends again. If you see something unjust done it is easier to say, “It's none of my business,” than to try to put it right. But to stand aside while wrong is done because you are a lover of peace is not to be a peacekeeper. It is to be a coward.

But there is a right way of keeping the peace too. There was once a business man who went to London and made a large fortune in that city. He was never known to lose his temper, and some acquaintances laid a wager that they would make him do so. They went to his warehouse and asked to see some cloth. They made him take down piece after piece until the whole counter was littered. Then one of them produced a five-shilling coin and asked for five shillings' worth of a certain material.

The merchant took the crown, laid it on the cloth, cut neatly round it, and handed the tiny bit of material to the purchaser. So he kept the peace by keeping his temper, and he really came off the winner in the end.

3. Best of all there are the peacemakers. And not one of us is too young to be that.

There is a beautiful story of an incident that happened in the American War between the North and the South.

On one occasion two squadrons of cavalry one belonging to the North, the other to the South sighted each other across an open piece of country. At once the bugles rang out and the opposing forces dashed to the charge. When they were about a hundred yards apart a little child ran out from a clump of trees and came between the horsemen. Instantly the bugles sounded “Halt!” One officer from each squadron dismounted and went to the child to comfort him. They talked to each other in quite a friendly fashion, and then one of the officers picked up the boy and carried him on his shoulder back to his own regiment. Afterwards the bugles sounded the “Retreat” and the squadrons separated. As one of their number said, “We just didn't feel like fighting then.”

That is what peacemaking means. It just means “coming between,” and a little child can do it.

There is another fine story about how a little child got in between. She was a very poor little girl and she lived in the slums of a great city. Her mother was a cripple and her father was a drunkard, and she had a very sad home indeed.

One summer some friends who saw that she was badly in need of fresh air made arrangements for her to go away for a fortnight to the country. But when they came to find her she refused to leave home. Yet she seemed to want to go and they could not understand her refusal. At last, after much persuasion, she gave the reason. What do you think she said? “You see,

it's like this. Father drinks, and when he comes home awful mad, he pitches into mother and I gets in between So she gave up the flowers and the birds and the sweet country air because there would be nobody to “get in between.”

Boys and girls, it sometimes costs to be a peacemaker, to “get in between,” but it is angel's work. And for the peacemakers there is a splendid promise “they shall be called sons of God.” Jesus was called the Prince of Peace. When He came to earth the angels sang, “Peace on earth, goodwill towards men.” He was the great Peacemaker. He is our Peace, and one of the most Christ like bits of work on earth is to make peace.