Chorus:
Lord, Make us instruments of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let your love increase
Lord, make us instruments of your peace,
Walls of pride and prejudice shall cease
When we are your instruments of peace.

Recently, we sang this simple chorus as a response to communion. Even though we didn’t sing any of the verses, the words of the chorus were enough to make me think, and unfortunately laugh out of irony.

You see, the American church is not often good as the instrument of peace. We tend to have two extremes: Accommodating or Contemptuous. The accommodating churches give up what they believe so that everyone will like them and feel comfortable. The contemptuous use what they believe to make others feel inferior because of what they do, believe, or who they are.

The problem with either point of view is that neither promotes peace. Contemptuousness is aggressive and tends to breed big controversies, and ultimately produces bigoted congregations unwilling to be the humble servants that Christ had modeled for them. Accommodation, on the other hand, is passive but just as severe, but instead of being outwardly explosive, it is a gradual poison which eats away at a church making them a community which lacks any recognizable faith.

In this song we see first a call to be made instruments of God’s peace. Instruments are not passive, but active tools used for a purpose. The other lines of the song ask for love in place of hatred, and pride ad prejudice to be gone. These things cannot be done if we are against the people we are trying to help, or even if we are against one another.

God wants us to balance these two aspects of being servants. We must be opening and welcoming to everyone. Period. Christ’s model is that of love toward even the most despised outcast. At the same time, God has given us standards and guides on how to live as one of His children. We cannot give up on these to make life easier or to avoid conflict.

Many people won’t like the cost of taking up our cross, but our job is not to force it on their backs. We are only instruments of God’s peace, spreading His love to all those who will accept it.

SDG,

-Paul Hart Cochran