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Anna Rankin

Comment: What is Reconciliation?
Michael Whitley

From the Director: Ireland is changing and so are we!
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The Whole Gospel for the Whole World (and beyond...)
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Rwanda Ten Years On
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Anglo-Irish Relations
Russell & Katherine Norton

The Hard Gospel
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Interview with Robin Eames: RECONCILIATION - A View from Armagh
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Interview with Sean Brady: RECONCILIATION - A View from Armagh
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Church-based Peacebuilding
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Evangelism & Reconciliation - are they irreconcilable?
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Dogville and the Drama of Redemption
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Blessed are the Peacemakers?
Drew Gibson

Review: Bitter Fruit
David Buckley

Review: The Colour of Darkness
Jacqui Livingstone

Review: The Lost Message of Jesus
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Review: The Futures of Evangelicalism
David J Montgomery

Review: Evangelicals in Ireland: An Introduction
Stephen Cave

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BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS?

IN IRELAND we have been used to thinking about peacemaking in relation to the Troubles, but we need to think more broadly about conflict and peacemaking. We live in a society in which there is conflict within schools and families, a society that refuses to let ethnic minorities, homosexuals and others live in peace. In this first study in a series of three, Rev Drew Gibson, Associate Minister at Bloomfield Presbyterian Church helps us to think about the opportunities and costs of being peacemakers.

Let’s have a look at Luke 4:16-30
In this passage Jesus comes with a message of good news, freedom, sight and release. Initially people are very pleased, but suddenly they turn against him and try to kill him. Why should this be?

As Christians, we must have something to say to situations of conflict. But there is a problem: ‘we should not be surprised that the practice of forgiveness and reconciliation will produce new enemies of the Christian church.’¹ Let me make some suggestions about the four groups of people whom Jesus mentions in v18 and following verses.

The poor.
Everybody in Jesus’ community was relatively poor economically, but these people are the poorest of the poor, the destitute. They represent the outsiders, the marginalized in our society, the people whom we would rather not have around and whom we don’t like to think about. They have been called many things including non-persons, scum, animals, ‘them’. You certainly wouldn’t want any living next door. In contemporary terms, these may include people who sleep rough and travellers, but may extend to social outcasts of all sorts.

• Can you think of four groups of people who might fall into this category in Belfast today?

To these very people Jesus brings good news about a God who accepts all people, who is building a socially inclusive community in which all people may be accepted, loved and valued. It’s not difficult to see how a message like this would make some people, the insiders, the ‘nonpoor’, feel uneasy.

• How would you bring the good news to a drug dealer in a local school?

The prisoner.
There are many types of imprisonment. We may be imprisoned by our past, by a habit, by things we have done or that have been done to us that we can’t forget or we may be fettered by the expectations of our family that weigh heavily on us. There are also more subtle types of imprisonment. We may be held captive to a mindset that ties social harmony to a certain type of political arrangement or to the assumption that a higher level of physical comfort will bring about peace of mind. Such spiritual imprisonment results from the belief that a change in outward circumstances is necessary in order to bring about spiritual peace. The belief that an improvement in someone else’s outward circumstances is a threat to my spiritual peace can be equally limiting and destructive. Jesus’ early release programme for prisoners was offensive to many people because they themselves were prisoners of another sort.

• Think how we might proclaim release to someone who is imprisoned by their hatred of a rogue who hurt them badly some years ago but who has now become a Christian.

The blind.
It is true that there are none so blind as those who will not see, so it is not difficult to link blindness to bigotry and sectarian hatred (feel free to write your own sermon from here on). But of course blindness is different from simply closing one’s eyes. Blindness is an inability to see rather than an unwillingness to see. The blind know that they are blind, and know at least something of what they are missing. They find ways of coping and compensating, making life as good as it can be within the limits imposed on them by their blindness. But the healing of blindness may pose a threat to those surrounding the blind. ‘He may not love me when he sees that I am not pretty.’ ‘She may not want to live here when she sees how awful it is.’ ‘She may not need me if she can do things for herself.’ ‘At least his blindness gives me a bit of protection against his violence.’

When metaphorical blindness is healed it can be even more threatening. ‘If they know their wage rights my profits well be hit.’ ‘If there’s an enquiry, they will see my dark deeds.’ ‘If they can get access to our markets then our jobs will be under threat’. ‘If they know how to take control of their own resources then our shareholders will not get a decent dividend.’

From the individual to the international level, recovery of sight to the blind may be a real threat to those around them.

• What problems might arise if a middle-aged middle class woman becomes aware that her life is being greatly constrained by her husband’s thoughtlessness?

The oppressed.
A couple of years ago it was claimed that Northern Ireland had become a ‘cold place’ for Protestants. It is certainly true that in many Loyalist areas people feel isolated, under threat and unloved. It is curious that these feelings have resulted, at least in part, in reaction to efforts to make Nationalists feel at ease after decades of feeling oppressed. Undoubtedly any effort to put Loyalist minds at rest will run the risk of being understood as oppressive to Nationalists. The same problem exists globally. If ‘third world’ nations are to develop materially then the exploitative trade practices under which they have suffered will need to be dismantled. This is very likely to result in farmers, manufacturers and many others in the ‘West’ feeling hard done by or oppressed. It is no wonder we in the six counties see our situation as a ‘zero-sum game’; no wonder that politicians and many others want trade tariffs to remain in place. Offering release to the oppressed may well meet significant resistance from those who benefit from the other’s oppression.

• Consider the pros and cons of committing yourself to buying the ‘fair trade’ option whenever possible.

Jesus came to proclaim the ‘year of the Lord’s favour.’ We can paraphrase this phrase as ‘the time when God wants to do great things for anyone who will accept what he has to give.’ The people in Nazareth did not see themselves as poor, as prisoners, blind or oppressed so they could not ask for God’s help. Instead they felt jealous and threatened. In contrast, in 7:1-10, especially v9, and 10:25-37, especially v33, Luke records that Jesus was impressed with the faith of non-Jews, the outsiders. The church has always needed courage to take the good news to the outsiders and, in doing so, to risk the wrath of those on the inside.

1 Peskett and Ramachandra, The Message of Mission: 167

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