Peace-building and peace-being

Peace-making is a process of bringing two sides to an agreement to end a conflict. Peace-building happens after peace-making. It is intent on making peace the new normal, something that will last. Peace-building is a hard and dangerous task. Pastor Phil Kniss gave a brief list of persons who suffered as a result of their efforts at peace-building. The human tendency is to take short=cuts to impose peace through power. We are all called to be peace-builders, and we may be tempted to view peace-building as an exercise in “working harder”. Pastor Phil pointed to the example of Jesus in Luke 4:1-21 to say that peace-building needs to be viewed less as a function of our hard work and more as flowing out of who we are. Jesus, in his time of temptation in the wilderness, was encouraged to become someone he was not. We face similar temptations as peace-builders. In fact, we even tend to view the list of tasks in Luke 4:18-19 that Jesus quotes from Isaiah as a laundry list of tasks we need to do. Pastor Phil challenged us to embrace our identity as children of God.