Eric Simpson

The Way of the Peacemaker Eric Simpson

The Beatitudes are primarily an announcement by Jesus of a paradigm shift, a new kingdom or country or community - whatever metaphor we use is less important than the point that is being made: the old guard is over, the new kingdom has arrived. If you were poor and stigmatized and rejected by society in the former paradigm, you are uniquely blessed by God and all things are yours in the new paradigm. The Beatitudes are not only as an expression of a promise, and therefore also a consolation, but they describe one's passage from earthly patterns of thinking and concerns to the paradigm of the kingdom, where an entirely new pattern of thinking can begin to occur. The path of the peacemaker is essentially paradoxical; there are miles to go but we are constantly arriving, participating in fullness while still being poured out. In seeking God, we seek peace, and in finding peace in God, we become peacemakers, which is the summit of the blessings which Jesus pronounces. One moves from possessing the kingdom of heaven, which denotes the opportunity to enter into the present reality that is at hand, to not only inheriting the earth, being filled, obtaining mercy, and seeing God, but having entered and having allowed the kingdom of God to possess us, we evolve to that status that is not natural to us, contrary to the popular notion - we are called children of God. We become, as St. Peter writes, "partakers of the divine nature," which is precisely who we are meant to be as human persons.