Don’t Be A Peacekeeper

Make peace. Be at peace. But maybe it’s time to not keep peace.

Don’t avoid conflict at all costs, just to keep the peace. Because what you lose is your soul.

“People notice peacemakers because they dress funny. We know how the people who make war dress – in uniforms and medals, or in computers and clipboards, or in absoluteness, severity, greed, and cynicism. But the peacemaker is dressed in righteousness, justice, and faithfulness – dressed for the work that is to be done.” –  Walter Brueggemann

When Marly and Jack came out in support of their lesbian daughter, their pastor came to their house to ask them to keep their support private. Stay quiet. Don’t cause trouble. Don’t make the church look bad.

Marly and Jack declined. They were open and honest about their daughter. They did what was right by her… That’s their job.

To do the right thing can cause ripples, make enemies, and break up the illusion of peace. But peace comes as the result of doing the right thing, not the least disruptive thing.

Just as personal peace comes from a doing the right thing, so does interpersonal peace.

How do you know what is right? God’s Spirit of love will confirm it in your heart.

If you have to choose between love and doing what you think is the right thing, always choose love and it will always be the right thing.

Families of LGBTQ teens sometimes require them to remain closeted for the illusion of peace. The picture of no conflict. But that is not peace. That is scapegoating – it is funneling all the conflict into the one and shoving that one in the closet.

Those who choose love and who seek righteousness, justice, faithfulness, do the opposite of scapegoating; they share the load. They absorb some of that discomfort so that it doesn’t all rest on the one person’s shoulders. To share that load is an act of love. It is active love.

Anyone, of any faith, or of no faith, is called upon to seek righteousness, justice, faithfulness – that, as Brueggemann says, is the dress of the peacemaker for the work that is to be done.

“And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8

That is the call.

For all of us.