God Is a Peacemaker
In New Mexico, where the CAC is located, there are two national nuclear laboratories. In a recent pastoral letter, Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe called for a conversation toward nuclear disarmament. He rooted his invitation in Jesus’ teachings:
I invite us to reflect on how Jesus practiced nonviolence and how we can do the same in the United States.
When he began his public ministry, Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). In part, he was saying the days of violence, injustice, war, and empire are coming to an end. We are invited to welcome God’s reign of peace and live in God’s universal love and nonviolence here and now.
In the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), Jesus commanded us to be peacemakers and to love our enemies, saying: “Blessed are the peacemakers, they will be called the sons and daughters of God” (5:9). “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ but I say to you: ‘offer no violent resistance to one who does evil’” (5:38–39). “You have heard it said, ‘Love your countrymen and hate your enemies.’ But I say love your enemies and pray for your persecutors, then you will be sons and daughters of the God who lets the sun rise on the good and the bad and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust” (5:43–45). In these teachings, Jesus says that God is a peacemaker, and since we are God’s sons and daughters, we are peacemakers too, not warmakers. He says that God practices universal nonviolent love, and since we are the sons and daughters of the God of universal nonviolent love, we practice universal nonviolent love, too. There are no exceptions, no justifications for warfare, and no “just war theory.”
Many would question these teachings as naïve, impractical, and idealistic. But as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote so well about this call to love our enemies, “Jesus is not an impractical idealist: he is the practical realist.” [1] Dr. King also stated:
Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, the command to
love one’s enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival. Love even for enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of our world. [2]
Archbishop Wester continues:
I invite us to have a conversation together about what it means to follow the risen, nonviolent Jesus, who calls us to be peacemakers, put down the sword, and love everyone, even the enemies of our nation. Certainly, these commandments challenge us to face the violence that is being prepared in our name here in New Mexico, and to start the process of nuclear disarmament so that no one ever again calls down hellfire from the sky. As Dr. King concluded, “May we . . . hear and follow [Jesus’] words—before it is too late.” [3]
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