FIGHTING FOR GENUINE PEACE

AND BROTHERHOOD
Grade 12/1, lesson 4
War, disturbance, riots have made human
tired and oprressed. There is a deep longing
from the human heart for a peaceful situation.
This hope is in line with God’s will, the Creator.
We will learn from Jesus who has come into
this world to proclaim love and peace.
• Questions to be answered
1. Mention various conflicts and war in today’s
world
2. Mention various conflicts and war in our
country today
3. Mention and explain some reasons why
these conflicts and war happened
4. What are the consequences of these
conflicts and war for human beings?
5. Why do most of the people long for peace?
 Conflicts and war in the world
1. Facts of conflicts and war
 Poso, Ambon: religion based
 Sampit, West Kalimantan: ethnic based
 Middle East: multi-facet
2. The reasons why these conflicts happened.
 Religion and ethnic fanaticism: narrow mindedness
and feelings of beng threatened
 Arrogance: feelings of being the strongest
 Greediness: economical based
 Fighting for freedom and defending rights.
3. The consequencies of conflicts and war
 Physical destruction: many died, public
fasilities, infrastrucures,, ecology are
destroyed
 Spiritual destruction: human rape, humanity
and dignity destruction, culture and
civilatization rape, etc.
Is there any good/benefit coming from war??
4. Human longing for peace.
Everyone needs peace to live and develop
their lives to a more human life. Can everyone
make this longing for peace a daily fact? God
has endowed this peace in the hearts of human
and sin has cast it away. To make it real, humans
need awarenes, acknowledement, and respect
to human dignity and human rights. Peace
cannot be upheld if human dignity and human
rights are neglected.
 Peace in the Light of Scripture
Questions to answer:
1. What does OT say about peace or shalom?
2. What does Jesus say about peace?
3. What does the Church say about peace?
4. What is your own opinion about peace?
1. OT about peace
 OT oftens speaks about shalom. Shalom means
personal and social welfare. In daily life means family
health and family welfare and this is a grace from
God. If there is no peace, problems and suffering will
befall the righteous (cf. Ayub 3).
Syalom also means “God be with you” (cf Hak.6:12,
Mzm 129:7-8). It also describes that the righteous ones
have abundant peace (cf mzm.37:11-37). Actually,
shalom is a common greeting in OT (cf 1Sam 25:6).
Shalom also implies a hope for having goodness in life.
Shalom is always connected to justice. Hopefully there
will be no injustice among the people.
It seems that shalom has a spiritual meaning (cf
mzm 36/37). Every individual, group, family, and
ethnic should be in peace.
Shalom is not only to do with no war, but also with
the immanent danger of war.
Shalom is a peaceful condition of being in the
house of God (cf 2 Sam 7:1).
Physical condition of peace doesn’t guarantee the
genuine peace. The genuine peace is a
correpndence between the external/physical
peace and the spiritual peace: rejection of injustic.
This is described in Yesaya 2: 4:
 “ And he shall judge among the
nations, and shall rebuke many
people: and they shall beat their
swords into plowshares, and their
spears into pruninghooks: nation
shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any
more”
2. Jesus’ teaching about peace.
Jesus said: (Jn 14: 27): “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give
you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be
troubled and do not be afraid”.
What kind of peace does Jesus leave for us?
In Jesus’ time, the Jews expected a political peace, freedom from
the colonial domination, no war, no oppression. Jesus asserted ( Lk 1:
79 ): “to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
Jesus affirmed that peace is not a trivial quietness, not a political
peace as expected by the Jews. Jesus said that peace is much more
deeper than what they expected. But this is exactly the point they
rejected Jesus. Jesus’ teaching about peace brings resistance,
opposition, controversy, contradiction and conflict among the people,
even among the members of the family.
Peace taught by Jesus cleans the world from
rebelliousness, transgression, evel and wickedness. It is the
peace for those who are in line with Jesus. Peace is a
result of an achievement of truth and a result of the
struggle and spiritual encounter. Jesus’ teaching is not an
external/physical peace that depends on other people, but
a spiritual/internal/moral peace that is fully rooted in
truth, in jesus Himself.
Peace doesn’t only mean no war or no disorder. More than
that, peace means a composure within one’s heart due to
a clean/genuine relationship with God, neighbours and
the world; a peace that makes visible the Kingdom of God.
Jesus Himself reminds us that His peace doesn’t negate
the sufferings as experienced by the disciples in the early
Church and also by the followers in the world today.
Peace has to be tested by suffering. The world is full of
sufferings, but Jesus is full of peace. The peace owned by
the disciples actually comes from Jesus. “ I say all this to
you, so you have peace in Me”. This kind of peace should
dwell in everyone’s heart. It is so powerful that every
evil/wickedness should not be revenged with
evel/wickedness but with goodness. “if people, slap your
left cheek, give also your right cheek”. Jesus rejects
every kind of violence in His teaching.
3. Church teaching about peace
The Church teaches and elaborates what Jesus has
taught. Peace doesn’t mean no war. Peace means
condition of welfare and wellbeing in every human.
Peace means justice. Peace means the result of a
good social management of the society which is
longing for a more perfect justice in their lives.
Peaceful condition is not a fact received, but it is an
on going process that has to be built and developed
toward its perfection. Peace will be established if
personal/individual desire, greediness, selfishness
can be managed and restrained.
 Peace will not be achieved in this world since
humans prioritize their selfishness and personal
interest. On the contrary, peace will be realized
if every one’s welfare is fullfilled and every one
equitably exchange what they have. A strong
good will to respect the dignity of every one
and every nation is the condition to create
peace in this world. Peace, then, is also the fruit
of love . If there is love, peace is there.
 Peace is the highest welfare most needed
for the human development and for the
development of human institutions. It assumes
a just and harmonious social order in which
every one is peaceful. The humans are expected
to develop good relationship with God, with
neighbours, with nature, and with oneself. This
harmonious relationship will really determine
the quality of human life.
 Struggle in Upholding Peace
1. Mahatma Ghandi.
In struggling for freedom, Indian people
wanted to fight against England by violence and
weapons. But Ghandi said: “you all must be
ready to face death, but you yourself shall not
kill. Think of your enemy as your stupid brother.
We will only win the struggle if we can kill the
hatred in the heart of our enemy”.
 Ghandi started to fight against England
without violence. His two magic formulas are:
ahimsa and satyagraha.
Ahimsa is a philosophy of anti-violence.
Satyagraha is action or struggle without
depending on power. Anti-violence comes from
Ghandi’s awareness of the spiritual unity in
himself. Satyagraha and ahimsa are not just the
way to reach the unity, but it is the fruit of unity
within himself.
 The first foundation of Ghandi’s life , his actions and
thoughts, is the respect of the holiness of life and the
awareness that love is the law for all. That’s why he said: “if
love and anti-violence were not the law of our lives, then
all the world would have fallen into pieces”.
In Ghandi’s spirit, peace doesn’t mean the absence of
violence. Peace means the absence of condition that can
lead to violence. This kind of such a spirit has been missing
in many countries, including Indonesia. That spirit is fading
away, defeated by individual and group interest which act
on behalf of national interest.
2. Church efforts to uphold peace and genuine
brotherhood.
In order to uphold peace and genuine brotherhood, it is
better to do the following steps:
• Learn carefully Jesus’ teachings, Church’s teachings, and
the teachings of world figures such as Ghandi and
Mandela about the meaning and significance of peace.
• Make this efforts a moral movement, not an
indoctrination, and involve many people without
looking at their religion, race, ethnic and idelogy.
• Build this moral movement from the grass root
• Begin it from yourself, your family, your community how
to build culture of peace and genuine brotherhood.
 Tasks to do:
Compose a Prayer for Peace and Genuine
Brotherhood
Questions:
1. What are the special characteritics of the
peace taught by Jesus?
2. Write the chracteristics of living out the
genuine brotherhood
3. Pray the prayer you have composed