Above the Sea of Galilee in the northern part of Israel is a high hill called the "Mount of Beatitudes.” This is the traditional site of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

The site is marked by a simple church with a high open dome and a balcony running around the outside to give the visitor a clear view of the mountainside and the Sea of Galilee below.

I entered the church and passed through on my way to the viewing porch outside. Another tour group inside the church and the leader was reading a portion of the Sermon on the Mount. I stood looking down at the hillside -- trying to imagine the great crowds that gathered to hear Jesus -- while I listened to the words of the gospel being read.

But suddenly the words were drowned out by a loud roar overhead. My attention immediately left the peaceful hillside below for the sky and two Israeli Mirage fighters. They were heading out over the Sea of Galilee for a war patrol above the occupied Golan Heights.

It is perhaps ironic that the words of the gospel that were so suddenly smothered by the roar of the jets were these: "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God."

Peace, in the sense of the Bible, is much, much more than a mere absence of conflict or an uneasy truce. The Hebrew word is shalom which, in its most basic sense means "total" or "whole." Shalom is a state of wholeness --.wholeness within ourselves and wholeness in all of our relationships. To be in shalom with your family is to experience the totality of what family life is meant to be -- not an armed truce or even congenial toleration but mutual care, upbuilding, support and love. To be at peace with your neighbor is to seek his or her highest good and to work actively for it.

The foundation for all other aspects of peace is our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. In the Bible this shalom is seen as a gift of God. Paul writes in Romans 5: "therefore, since we have been justified or declared righteous through our faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." That is the vertical dimension – peace between you and God.

But there is also a horizontal dimension to Jesus’ work of peacemaking. It is the impact Jesus wants to have between people. Jesus wants His reconciling work to have an impact on the way we live with each other. So in this beatitude, Jesus calls us to share His work. He calls us to be peacemakers as well.

That’s not an easy task. One of the most dangerous things a person can do is to step into the middle of a dog fight and try and break it up. You all know that peacemakers are not always appreciated by those who do not desire peace.

I am not what you would call a Trekie -- a fanatical follower of the old television series "Star Trek". A true Trekie would have named his first born child "Kirk" and his second born child "Spock" --even if the child was a girl.

But there is an episode of Star Trek that was recently rerun which I found very interesting. The Federation Star Fleet -- the "good guys" had been lured into a trap by the admiral of the Klingon Empire -- "the bad guys". Captain Kirk was personally confronting the Klingon commander as they and their fleets prepared for battle.

But these preparations for war are brought to a sudden halt by people of a superior race who, through the power of intellect, are able to render both star fleets incapable of attacking. They step into the middle of the war and bring it to a halt.

The Klingon, of course, was enraged. You expect that. That's the way Klingons are. He finally had the Federation trapped and now he was being cheated of his prize. But what is interesting is that Captain Kirk, the goodest of the good guys, was equally enraged. It was not that he wanted the Federation fleet to be destroyed. It was that he wasn't going to permit anyone to tell them what they could or could not do. "You have no right," Kirk tells the superior beings, "to take away our freedom to kill each other."

That is often the fate of the peacemakers -- to be kicked at from both sides. But there is also another fate in store for peacemakers. Jesus says that they will be called "children of God." They might be called other names by the world – “interfering, soft headed, do-gooders” comes to mind. But that name God gives them is “my children.” And God’s opinion is really the only one that matters in the long-haul.

Paul writes in Romans 12, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all people."

As far as it depends on us, we are to be at peace with “all people” – not just the one’s we know. This means that our efforts at peacemaking can’t just stay local – just in our own family or our own local community. Our concern for peacemaking needs to be wider than that because we are citizens in a democracy where our voice and vote make a difference.

There is an election coming up next month in our nation. We don’t have a right as believers not to vote.

No. I am not suggesting how you should vote. How to create an atmosphere for peace is something that believers may honestly disagree on -- all with the best intentions in the world. Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, both Christian men, took very different approaches. One helped to reduce the tensions of the Middle East at Camp David. The other paved the way for the removal of the yoke of Communism from Eastern Europe. I admire them both.

But I do suggest, in obedience to 1 Timothy 2 that we commit ourselves to prayer for the candidates and for those who will be elected so that, in the words of Paul, we may live "peaceable lives." I also suggest that in your voting, you keep peace in mind. Jesus says that that’s the road to being blessed.

High in the Andes Mountains is an enormous statue of Christ knows at The Christ of the Andes. It sits right on the border dividing Argentina from Chile. It was built to seal the resolution of a series of boundary questions that had more than once threatened to bring war. As long as the statue stands, the nations have pledged that there will be peace between Argentina and Chile. And so, The Christ of the Andes stands at 14,000 feet above sea level, with one hand holding a cross and the other hand held up as through providing a blessing.

Ironically, shortly after the statue was erected as a symbol of mutual peace, a new controversy and bitterness broke out. The problem was that the statue of Christ faced Argentina and had its back turned toward Chile. The tension was defused by a Chilean journalist who humorously pointed out that it was only right that the statue face that way, “for the people of Argentina need more watching over than the Chileans.”

When it comes to peace, we all need to be on our guard.

Roger Shinn, an a commentary on this beatitude, stated that "even the warrior, if he is a Christian, will be less a warrior than a peacemaker."

I saw this demonstrated some years ago at the Presbyterian General Assembly where the report of the Committee on Peacemaking was given by a Presbyterian elder who is also a full colonel in the Air Force. He gave the report dressed in uniform. And, after the written report, he gave a personal postscript -- a plea to the church to continue to work for disarmament. Hesaid that he firmly believed that the purpose of our Air Force is to buy the time to make peace possible. “We won't be able to buy time forever, he said. Disarmament must come. Or we will surely destroy ourselves.”

Some people suggest that we don’t need to worry about the bomb – the bomb in our hands, the bomb in the hands of the Russians, the North Koreans, the Pakistanis, the Iranians, the French or even in the hands of a terrorist group like Al Queda. They say that God either won't let it happen or, if it does happen, it will be according to his will -- perhaps even the door to the end times as some suggest.

I don't know. I do know that God gave us our minds for a purpose and a role in the political processes of our nation for a purpose and He has called us to be peacemakers. In that light we are to pray and we are to vote and not do either one without the other.

As we come today to the Table of our Lord this World Wide Communion Sunday, let us remember the faces of others who also gather today -- Christians in the former Soviet Union, in Iraq, in Iran, in China who are our brothers and sisters through faith in Jesus Christ. They aren’t abstractions. They are people Jesus loves and wants us to love.

In the silence of this moment, as we prepare to meet with them at the table of the Prince of Peace, let us pray that there will never again be a time when they shall be locked with us in war rather than in faith.