It is a sad but recognizable fact that the word peace has lost a bit of its punch these days although it seems to be more adept at taking one. The word peace seems to evoke one of two very different responses, each of which shows that the word has seen better days.
On the one hand, when people start talking about peace it often evokes a wide-mouthed horse yawn (and then visions of sugar plums and warm fuzzies dancing in their head). Perhaps like a once rugged stone dropped into a rock polisher, if a word is tumbled around long enough in people’s mouths eventually it comes out so smooth and shiny that it is only good for your bathrooms clear glass jar or for carrying around in your pocket as a worry stone when days get rough.
On the other hand, the term peace has a way of provoking people’s ire. If ever there were a word (other than justice) that makes people want to punch your lights out, especially good church going folks, it seems it is the word peace. Honestly, I’m not sure which is worse: the yawner or the slugger. Each response in its own way shows what those of us who are committed to learning and living Jesus, not just in the world but in the church as well, are up against. How sad.
For Christians (and here I want to say “of course” but unfortunately can’t), Jesus is the Prince of Peace who tells Peter to put away his sword, comes offering a peace the world cannot give, and stands bruised and beaten before Pilate not as some pious patsy but rather as a person whose bloody visage and humble carriage are not only a sure sign of the man’s character but also an indictment of the leaders whose modus operandi is either one of manipulation, intimidation, and violence or washing their hands and looking the other way. Jesus is a sign of contradiction in a world whose minions more and more become addicted to violence as a way of making their way through life.
And so, because the English word peace fails to communicate the fullness and richness of the Hebrew word shalom, which is what the early Christians maintained Jesus of Nazareth embodied and bequeathed to them, I think we would do well to follow the example of such earthly luminaries as Mohandas Gandhi, Lanza del Vasto, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Dalai Lama and speak, think, and act in terms of nonviolence. All the above follow the example of Jesus who was himself a proponent and practitioner of non-violence in a violent society. Although shalom is not merely the absence of something bad – hate, conflict, violence, war – but fundamentally a reverent way of being in the world and in relationship with others, focusing on nonviolent behavior as a conscious practice might rescue the word peace from images or interpretations that trivialize it.♦
For another take on the Christian’s call to peacemaking, see my essay here.