How to Be a Peacemaker in a Divided World

Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

Pope Leo XIV, in his address on World Peace Day, which is January 1st,
he called for peace throughout the world.
The theme of the day and the year is,
"Peace be with you all: Towards an unarmed and disarming peace."
He was calling all nations to be men and women of peace.
Not a peace through violence or threat,
but a peace of unarmed violence, of negotiation, of conversation,
of a peace that sees peace through nonviolence.

Some of the statistics that he quoted are rather shocking.
One quarter of the world’s population today live in war-torn areas,
200 million people, that are in humanitarian need.
125 million are displaced because of the war that they live in.
Global military spending is $2.7 trillion,
13 times the amount of money
that is spent on humanitarian aid.
This is darkness for sure.

In the midst of all that, Pope Leo is challenging the world
to turn back from this armed violence,
from this peace through armed means,
through threat, or through violence.
He pleaded with the world to stop.
We need to turn back towards each other.
We are one people.
We are one people in the whole world.
We just have one planet.
It is in the midst of all that darkness,
that we hear these readings today.
Of people who live in darkness,
and it feels like a lot of darkness with such war around the world.

I know we live here in Silicon Valley,
and we live far away from all that darkness and war.
And yet, there is much darkness also,
and shadows in our own community.
It is very hard to have ordinary conversation in the family
because there is so much division among us.
We are not a culture of healing, but of winning.
We want to win at all costs.
We have to be careful as Christians not to buy into that.
That is not Christ's way.
He was one of peace.
Christ espoused peaceful means as well as peace.
And He wants us to be part of this.
He calls us to be actively part of this,
not to allow others to divide us.

We hear this from Paul in the second reading.
For 2,000 years we have been listening
to division in our Christian community.
People come along and say, I am speaking for Christ
and then they divide the community.
Paul very, very boldly and very sharply says,
No, no, they are not.
Did not die for me or you.
Christ died for us.
We are only one in Christ.
Do not be fooled by any of these people
who speak claim for Christ.

Christ spoke of God's love
and God's nonviolence.
God spoke of peace.
Christ was all powerful and
yet choose to come as a vulnerable one.
He did not choose power but powerlessness.
That is what Paul adamantly was in his own beloved community.
These were Corinthians who he loved deeply,
spent a lot of time with.
He was scolding them to not be fooled
by those who follow Christ but do not follow him.

Our world has a lot of people
trying to tell us what to do.
And they say this and they say this or that,
but I can just tell you, it is not the gospel.
It is not Jesus Christ.
Jesus did not say any of those things.
We do not need to invade any new countries.
That is not Jesus.
Jesus did not do that.

We want to be very clear about what Christ said
and what He did not say.
Any of those who say they are speaking for Christ like this
they are not speaking the truth.
We have to be very mindful
of what the Lord is asking of us.
See the challenge for our gospel is to hear it
and bring it down into our own heart.

There was a great coach, Lombardi, who said,
"Winning isn't the main thing. It is the only thing."
That may be fine for sports but it is not true for life.
I fear we have internalized this into our culture.
And the challenge with that is
we become blind to all the people we hurt.

Now, that applies to us in
our own regular discussions in our family,
where we want to win at all costs.
It does not matter how I win.
I can bring up misinformation.
I can quote stuff on YouTube or anything I want.
It does not matter as long as I win the argument.
You see, that is division in our family.

That is not helpful to us.
And we do it as a nation to win at all costs.
We have to do so through peaceful means, negotiation.
We talk. And we come to agreement.
I know there are other people who are not going to do that,
but that is not us.
You see, that is them.
We are peaceful and we seek peace.
We claim to be Christians, my friends,
and we do not do that.

So what does that mean for us in our own lives?
It means that we have to pause in our own life
and see, how I run my life?
Where do I get my information?
Is it dividing me against my family,
against my friends, against my community?
Because if it is, then I can tell you
it is not coming from Christ.
This is not the gospel.

And then we need to find in our own life,
how do I become a person of peace?
How can I actually be a person of peace?
I am going to suggest that one of the best ways
to be a person of peace
is to be a person who is present,
a person who is present who is sick,
who is genuinely struggling with life,
whether that be physical or mental,
but that we be present to them
in a peaceful, loving way.

Another way is that if we see an injustice,
then we speak up peacefully,
and we use our voice to speak against the injustice.
It is not enough to use words.
We have to serve.
Can we be there for people?
People who do not have a voice, yes,
we can be a voice for them.
But those who are broken by poverty,
who maybe are here
because their lives in their home country are decimated,
no chance of a successful life,
that we can reach out to them
and be a presence to them,
a healing, peace-filled presence.
The challenge for us today is the same one
that the apostles had when they were called.

Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard John had been arrested,
he withdrew to Galilee.
He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum,
in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali.
This is significant.
Zebulun and Naphtali were the first lands to fall
when the Assyrians attacked Israel.
They were humiliated and degraded for generations.
This was a multicultural region,
called "Galilee of the Gentiles,"
a place where Jews and non-Jews lived side by side.

Perhaps Jesus went there because it felt safer,
far from the king who had taken John's head.
But Matthew sees deeper meaning.
He sees Isaiah's prophecy fulfilled:
"The people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light.
On those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death,
light has arisen."
Jesus brings light to the darkest places first.
He goes to the margins,
to the forgotten,
to the mixed and marginalized communities.

And there, in that unlikely place,
Jesus finds his first followers.
He walks along the Sea of Galilee
and sees two brothers, Simon and Andrew, casting their nets.
He says to them,
"Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men."
At once, they left their nets and followed him.
Then he sees James and John with their father Zebedee.
He calls them.
Immediately they left their boat
and their father and followed him.

Notice who Jesus chooses.
Not the religious elite.
Not the scholars in Jerusalem.
He chooses ordinary fishermen from the margins.
Jesus does not call the qualified;
he qualifies those he calls.
He promises them they will do great things:
preach the good news,
heal the sick,
walk the path of God.
They will be light in the darkness.

They just dropped everything and followed Him.
They had to leave the comfortable behind.
Then they turned around and
they gave up everything and followed Christ.

Now, I am not asking you to give up everything,
but I might do ask you to give up some comfortable things.
You might have to give up that comfort zone,
of your political party, your tribe,
and to stop professing that,
and instead be a person of peace and reconciliation.

That we give up the comfort of some of our excess stuff
that we have and give to somebody who is poor,
maybe you give up some of the television
and some of the social media that is toxic to us,
that is just destroying our lives and dividing us.
Instead we spend time being present
to our family by loving one another
in physical ways, just caring for one another.

You see, just like the disciples,
they had to leave behind their nets.
We might need to leave some stuff behind
to be men and women and boys and girls of peace.
You see, it does not come without a cost.
We have to be clear about that.
You cannot have everything.

We have to choose, and Christ is asking us,
and Pope Leo is asking us,
and our bishops are asking us to choose peace,
to be men and women of peace in our homes,
in our communities, and in our world.
So today, let us leave behind our nets.
Let us come and follow Him.

Let us be fishers of people.