What does God ask? Reconciliation.

Saturday, February 03, 2007
Reconciliation: Statue by Josefina de Vasconcellos, “two former enemies forgiving”(6)

Reconciliation.
“Reconciliation may be seen as part of a process of restoring a relationship gone wrong … by substituting for one of peace … This may be the relationship between individuals or between nations or between God and human beings.”(1)

“Sudan's government and pro-government Arab militias have been accused by human rights groups of carrying out genocide against black African residents of the Darfur region.”(2) In Sierra Leone a man begins, “Once upon a time, a bad spirit came and turned the heads of the children against their own parents. With the help of guns and drugs coming in, the children fought amongst each other.”(3) St. Stephen’s United Methodist Church is involved with the Children’s Rescue Center in Sierra Leone, one spot of hope in an otherwise devastated country.

In the years following apartheid (South Africa), the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation has struggled. The past is being ignored. Reparations, media spotlight, and real change have faded.(4)

Humans have been known to do some awful things to one another. We can name places: Rwanda, Cambodia, Germany, our communities, our homes, and our churches. Yet, we tend to cover over rather than work to reconcile and change for the future.

“That keeps us vigilant, you can be sure … Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own … All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he's already a friend with you.”(2 Corinthians 5:11-21, The Message)(5)


God intends that we would be reconciled between things that are not right and things that are. This ‘ministry of reconciliation’ is challenging. In fact, the Apostle Paul in Corinth, 60 AD, has to do a lot of explaining. When we were far apart from God, God came close through Christ, and offered us an outstretched hand. Reconciliation is the message of God’s love for everybody, from the worst of all possible situations to the best.

This Christ-style love compels Paul to shout from the roof-tops: God wants reconciliation. Specifically, it is God who made it a costly priority to bring us closer, reconciled. Therefore, Christ’s love obliges him to keep offering reconciliation.

As disciples of Christ, we now follow in those footsteps through our service, words, and existence pointing to reconciliation with Christ and one another.(7) “Where else but in church could I hear … with news of more bombs going off in Iraq and of an older parent preparing to see her forty-something daughter die, that God’s comfort means eternally righting the world—and learn, with assent, that we are called to that tortuous work?”(8)

Reconciliation is possible - through the power in Christ to reconcile the world. We can become a new creation in Christ. We cannot forget.


Notes:

[1] "Reconciliation." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 24 Jan 2007, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reconciliation&oldid=102907688.
[2] “Analysis: Defining Genocide.” BBC NEWS, 1 Feb. 2005,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3853157.stm.
[3] Braima Moiwai “Children of War and Hope,” Tambou/Tambour, Fall, 2002, http://www.tanbou.com/2002/fall/ChildrenOfWarHope.htm.
[4] Wandile Zane, “The Challenge Is To Change Ourselves,” The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, April-May, 1998, http://www.csvr.org.za/articles/artzware.htm.
[5] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message Remix, (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2003), 2 Corinthians 5: 11 – 21.
[6] Rebecca Kennison, “Designed by Josefina de Vasconcellos, the statue of Reconciliation in St. Michael's Cathedral in Coventry depicts two former enemies forgiving each other.” 21 May 2001. In “Reconciliation.” Photographer. Picture taken in West Midlands, England. Dual-licensed under GFDL and Creative Commons Attribution 2.5: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:CC_some_rights_reserved.svg.

[7] Walter Klaiber and Manfred Marquardt, Living Grace: An Outline of United Methodist Theology, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), 185.
[8] Michael Vander Weele, Context: Marty E. Martin on Religion and Culture, Volume 39, Number 1, January 2007, B: 1.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

One of the things that worries me about Christianity is that at times it seems that it is too focused on forgiveness.

Ostensibly, if you believe that Christ died for your sins, you are forgiven. (According to many Christians, if you don't believe that, you're going to hell. We've been over how insane I think that is..).

The problem is that forgiveness is, on some scale, dangerous. I am generally willing to forgive transgressions whenever I can, and I generally hope that other people are willing to forgive mine. However, if I launched a atomic weapon, I wouldn't think it was reasonable to ask for forgiveness. If I wrote a informational virus that made people think that banzai suicide attacks were the ultimate act and would get you instant access to heaven, I wouldn't expect forgiveness. If I started major wars that lead to the suffering of billions..

I'm very strongly against war. I understand that conflict is inevitable, but I'm strongly for resolving that conflict without the use of weapons. In my perfect universe, it would be impossible for you to shoot me, beat me, or even hold me somewhere against my will. And vice versa. [Sheer's utopia has been slowly evolving for some time now. Sooner or later I'll write it down. I have no doubt that it's not for everyone..]

People fighting is awful. People fighting over resources that just diminish the more they are fought over is stupid. People fighting over concepts of God (for example) is astonishingly stupid.

I understand that world leaders don't think like I do. I also understand that apparently power corrupts the thinking of humans. I only hope that it doesn't corrupt the thinking of dieties.

By the way, feel free to email me, unless you're not comfortable having conversations that aren't in a public forum. My email address is easily locatable, with a little creativity, on my web site - www.sheer.us

Unknown said...

By the way, if you really want to help stop war, convince everyone in America to stop paying taxes until the government builds a honest voting network, and only permits war by majority consent of the population. Or, alternately, has a honest system via which only those who are proponents of war have to pay for it.