Peacemaking
“Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.’”
Matthew 5:9
Too often, people make claims like “Violence keeps rising – there never were so many protests or riots or killings back in the old days.” I would imagine that “back in the old days,” we just didn’t hear about violence as much as we do today with our 24/7 news cycle and social media channels stretching across the globe. Proof that violence has been with us is a riot that took place in New York City 100 ago today…
It all began rather innocently, friends ribbing friends for failing to follow social convention. You see, in the early 20th century, men generally wore hats when outdoors. If a man wore a jacket or blazer, he would doff his head with a felt-style hat with a brim. However, it became a custom in the warmer months for men to wear a straw hat with a flat top, short brim and a ribbon around the base of the hat. Each region generally had identifiable dates when men should/could begin wearing straw hats in the early summer and then, sometime after Labor Day, there was a date recognized as “Felt Hat Day” when the men switched back to the warmer head covering. Friends began to knock off their friends’ straw hats in anticipation of that date. It was playful and fun. Yet, young boys – hoodlums, to use the lingo of that era – began to be more destructive than playful, knocking off hats worn by strangers and stomping them on the ground. On Sep. 13, 1922, these hoodlums began several nights of violence, growing to be a crowd of more than 1,000 that targeted men in the business district of Lower Manhattan, which resulted in violent responses. Police finally brought back peace after two days of this rioting, resulting in just a few arrests with seven of the boys receiving public spankings by their parents, as required by the police lieutenant!1
The “Straw Hat Riot” took place only 100 years ago, but person-to-person violence has been around since Cain killed his brother Abel. How is it that, after 2,000 years, we still haven’t been able to embrace the peacemaking task our Lord assigned us in this Beatitude given at the Sermon on the Mount?
Too often, I have tried to live this particular Beatitude wrongly. I work so hard to keep the peace in my family, my workplace and my church, but being a peacemaker requires that I be that peace of God. It starts with me … and you. How do our conversations reflect; how do we relate to others to show and how do we live God’s peace each and every day?
