Reconciliation
Introduction The disappointment, the guilt, the anxiety, and even the anger many are feeling in the wake of the vote by the UK to leave the European Union should not be ignored. It is important we hear the pain many are feeling. We are in a time of considerable turbulence. And this is an opportunity for the Church to ask itself challenging questions: what does it mean to love our neighbours - meaning the neighbours in our streets and those across the nations of Europe? We should witness the peace of God to those who are distressed, and we should be actively working to be peacemakers. We have the ministry of reconciliation. We’ve already seen some ugly responses to the vote. As the Church we must utterly condemn all racism. We are stronger as a Church because of the work of migrant Christians. They have brought a huge amount to the UK, and I hope they will continue to do so. We should model through our diversity – whether that’s racial, across the generations, or between different classes – what it looks like to live and work together while fully respecting each other’s differences. This witness of unity honours God. As we reach out to our communities we also have an opportunity to sweeten the debate that is taking place. This is a chance for us to work to bridge divides, to be salt and light across Europe for strong ongoing relationship: across the UK, across our communities, and in our churches. The Church should be a bridge between broken relationships. We should actively look for opportunities to bring peace into fractured places. We should hold out a hand of friendship when others turn away. It may also be a time for the Church to reflect on its own role in the past few years. We can look at politics and see a political vacuum: the absence of leadership is deafening in its silence. Maybe there is a need for us to repent for when we have walked away from public life, when we have failed to provide public leadership. This is a time where the confidence of many has been shaken, where foundations are crumbling. As a society, it is a time when we look beneath our feet and see only sand. As the Church, this is an opportunity for us to point to the Rock. To look to the one who gives us everlasting hope, and whose foundations stand in the strongest of storms. We pray for peace and we trust in our King Jesus – who is the hope of the nations. But we also hear His call, the call for us to be His ambassadors in this world. That means we love those around us with a love that requires sacrifice, and it means we take on responsibility and act with authority that comes from Him. This is a time for reconciliation and healing. It’s a time to provide hope and vision. After the 2014 referendum in Scotland we produced this short booklet, written by Rev Gordon Kennedy, to help the Church engage in the crucial work of reconciliation. In light of the referendum result, we are reissuing this text in firm view that this work is more vital than ever. Steve Clifford General Director Evangelical Alliance Reconciliation
Living Together The morning after He would have woken up, the morning after, the debris of the celebration all around, still full from too much fattened calf. But the ring was still on his finger, the sandals on his feet and, hanging up nearby, that new robe. The lost son had come home and beyond expectation, he was reconciled to his father. How had this happened and what does it all mean the morning after? Reconciliation is a work required because we’re human and can’t make human relationships work. We don’t want to be alone but together we fight and argue, disagree, tell lies and cheat one another. Not all the time, but enough of the time for it to be an ever-present problem. We’ve been wounded by hostility from those we hoped we could trust, and too often they’ve been wounded by us. Relationships are easily broken, sometimes over small things, sometimes not so small things. Disagreeing about the colour of your team, appearing to favour another friend or selfish dishonesty and self-serving manipulation. And that’s before we consider the world of politics and referenda. In Jesus’ story it all seems so easy; the son comes home to the watching father who immediately reconciles himself to his son and welcomes him home into a restored and renewed relationship. But it isn’t that simple, is it? Haven’t we tried? We’ve spoken kindly, we’ve tried to understand and empathise, but nothing seems to work. Once broken, that relationship just won’t be fixed. So what do we do, then? We can’t go through life with a series of disposable relationships. Our Christian community and congregations will collapse if we can’t find some way to be reconciled ourselves after division. Perhaps like that son when he decided to return to his father, we need to find a first step we can take to set us on our way.
The crisis of disunity If it isn’t broken it doesn’t need fixed. There is no need for reconciliation where all our relationships are in perfectly good order. Could it be that simple, is this our first step? One of the great accounts of reconciliation in the bible is the story of the golden calf in Exodus 32-34. Let’s look there and see where the work of reconciliation begins. The facts are simple: Moses and Joshua are on the mountain for a long time. After the fire and thunder of Sinai, nothing seems to be happening and so the people have Aaron make an idol for them. The Lord notices this rejection. The people, he tells Moses, “have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them” (Exodus 32.8). The Lord notices and declares that the relationship is broken – there is disunity. Coming down the mountain, throwing the tablets of the covenant before the people, Moses recognises and accepts that the relationship has been broken. Perhaps it’s that simple. The first step towards reconciliation is acknowledging that a relationship has been broken. Too often we try to hide from this painful truth. We limp along, hoping that it isn’t that bad. We imagine that somehow, if we don’t make it worse, it will all get better by itself. Reconciliation
It’s embarrassing if we have to discuss mistakes we’ve made or to try to talk about our emotional responses to the failures of others. But if we don’t admit that something is broken, we will never try to fix it. It will take courage to be the first to speak of our broken relationship. The other person, or group, may not agree with us. They might not recognise our sense of brokenness, and of course we may be wrong. But if we are wrong and it isn’t broken, then having addressed this with our neighbour will help us overcome our mistaken understanding. The Lord expresses the brokenness to Moses and through Moses to the people. What if he had not done this? The people were already casting off all restraint, (Exodus 32.25), if this fracture in their relationship with the Lord is not fixed they will be lost to him. The benefits of reconciliation far outweigh the risks of speaking and being wrong. Let’s think of some of our relationships: • Are they as strong and close today as they were in the past? • Has there been some disagreement or difference of opinion between us that has weakened our relationship? • Do we believe the Lord wants us to have broken or reconciled relationships with one another? • Should we not, even now, go to our friend and neighbour and raise this matter with them?
The challenge of anger Anger is an emotional response to certain situations. Anger can, and often does, lead to uncharacteristic action. Anger is a work of the flesh to be replaced by the fruit of the Spirit: kindness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5.19-23). While we are struggling to see the fruit of the spirit grow in our lives, we cannot pretend to be unaffected by anger. We know there is an anger without sin. Jesus gave us that example. “…Jesus looked at a synagogue crowd who would withhold healing from a troubled man and was angry but did not sin.” (Mark 3.5) Sadly we know too little of this sinless anger. We should be righteously angry at the offence of poverty, human trafficking, the injustice of innocent civilians being a victim of military violence. But instead we get angry at being caught in traffic, our favourite TV show not being recorded or someone daring to hold a different political opinion from us. There is a challenge of anger that the work of reconciliation must face. And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiffnecked people. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, (Exodus 32:9-10) 9
It’s not only the Lord who is angry. When Moses comes down from the mountain, we read: “Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain” (Exodus 32.19).
Reconciliation
Unexpressed anger has a way of burning within us and not being consumed. When the people heard these words, as we read them, we know the Lord was angry at His people. The reality of God’s anger is often rejected and denied by many in the Church today. We believe God is without sin and because our experiences of anger are so often tainted with sin, we don’t want to attribute anger to God. We are afraid of God being angry with us on account of our sin. We don’t live in the assurance of God’s love, and so we create a heavenly grannie who is always kind to a fault and never angry. And so we exchange the glory of God for an idol of our own making. Because God loves he is angry at the hurt caused by sin. Because God is just he is angry when his creation suffers injustice. Because God is holy he is angry when his glory is abused and rejected. Because God is the God we love and know in Jesus Christ, he is angry in righteous ways. The anger of God and the holiness of God, the justice of God and the love of God work together to multiply one another, we could say if God never gets angry then God never truly loves or acts in justice or displays his holiness. Anger breaks our relationships and hinders the work of reconciliation. We personalise our anger too easily and too quickly – we’re rarely angry at a situation or decision, but are too readily angry at a person. We hear anger expressed and feel it directed against us. We respond defensively and aggressively, especially when we believe the anger we experience to be unjustified. Reconciliation must face the challenge of anger: When were we last angry? Were we right to be angry? How did we express our anger? When did we last face anger from another? Is there a situation making us angry today, how can we express that without sin? Can we speak to God about our anger? Do we imagine he will not hear us?
The character of God Acknowledging brokenness and facing the challenge of anger are two steps we need to take in the work of reconciliation. There is at least one more. When God created all men and women he created us in his image (Genesis 1.26-27). We were to display the image of God. God longs for His likeness to be held and known within His creation. He is pleased to display that image in you and me. Our desire as disciples of the Lord should be this: to live as the image of God so that God might be known in all creation. As he responds to the tragedy of the golden calf the Lord generously and graciously reveals more of himself, more of his character. The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, (Exodus 34:5-6) 5
This is the God we love and submit to and the God who is merciful and gracious. It is this the Lord who achieves reconciliation between himself and his creation in the cross of the Lord Reconciliation
Jesus, this God who reveals himself to us that we might know of his likeness and so live in his reconciling image. The Lord is not a distant God, He is not an impersonal force of nature or super-nature. The Lord reveals himself as a person. When we read about God we are not reading a title, a designation, but a personal name. Because reconciliation is the work of fixing broken relationships, it’s not a work for a committee or a team, but for people. A work achieved between victims and abusers. Yes, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission may aid the work, but reconciliation is achieved when one asks for mercy and it is granted by another. That God reveals himself as the Lord personalises our relationship with God and affirms us as persons who are tasked by God with this work of reconciliation. The Lord is merciful and gracious. God is concerned about people in their situation of need and doesn’t wait for them to be worthy or ready. He goes first and acts to meet that need. Where relationships have been broken are we concerned about that? Does it trouble us that someone we once were close to is now distant to us? Our nature is so self-centred we find it very difficult to be concerned for the other in our broken relationship. But this is the image of God, this is the mind of Christ, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2.4). We find it hard to learn this. Our pride rails against such merciful living, we insist to ourselves that we need to look after number one. If God had thought like this he would not have sent Christ to suffer and die on the cross. It is hard to live in mercy and grace, and it doesn’t get easier. Each time we have to deny ourselves, to humble ourselves, to risk making the first move towards another, it costs us. But if we never pay this cost, we will live in ever more broken relationships and never find the image of God displayed in our lives. The instinct of the Lord when faced with the golden calf was to wipe out the people and begin again (Exodus 32.10). This is often our first response to a broken relationship – to abandon it and find a new one. But the character of the Lord comes to the fore and he cares for the other, the one who broke the relationship and in mercy achieves reconciliation. God is slow to anger, abounding in generous love and unending faithfulness. I was once given good advice: “If someone makes you angry and you feel you must speak out or you will burst, it’s better to burst.” The tired old saying about counting to ten is worth repeating to ourselves often. It is too easy to press send on that email. We are too quick with that text message. If we would work for reconciliation, we need to learn strategies to slow ourselves down. The generous love of the Lord always seeks the best good of the other. Sometimes letting people know how angry we are shows just how deeply we’ve been hurt. But the best way is to always ask what’s best for the other person, preferring their needs to our own. This generous love will offer reconciliation but will wait for the other. It will never seek to impose a restoration. This generous love does not gather up a list of offences we have suffered but looks to the future with hope of renewal and reconciliation. Let all creation prove the Lord will be faithful. Every promise and commitment he has made he will keep and achieve. We have made commitments of fellowship, to support and encourage one another, to love and care for one another. We would do well to remember to be faithful to our commitments as the Lord is faithful to his. Our great encouragement and empowerment in seeking to work for reconciliation is that we are made in the image of God: Reconciliation
What will it mean for us to bear and display God’s image before creation? What is there in the image of God that we can pray God will grow in us to take forward the work of reconciliation? As we thank God for his mercy and grace, his generous love and unending faithfulness, will we pray for God to display these through our lives? There is a work and calling of reconciliation set before us. The need for reconciliation is seen all around us. One final word. You may have read through all this thinking: Yes, I’ve tried that, I’ve done that, I’ve prayed for that, and still my relationship is broken. Well, the fruit of the spirit includes patience, kindness and gentleness. The Lord will never force nor impose reconciliation on us and we cannot make another reconcile to us. We can so live as to create an environment in which reconciliation may grow, but having lived for reconciliation we must wait for others to enter into reconciled relationships with us. Do not lose heart. Living for reconciliation is living for the glory of God, living in the truth and hope of the gospel, living in the way of the spirit. Let us live in this place of reconciliation.
Prayer Gracious God we thank you that you have shown us true reconciliation. You sent Jesus into the world so that we might have a relationship of love with you. Lord, when we know that our relationship with a brother or sister is strained and damaged, give us courage to take the initiative to begin a process that leads to wholeness, renewal and reconciliation. Lord you have called us to love one another, help us to seek to do that. Building relationships that are able to move on to places of trust and love that bring you honour. Help us in our weakness Forgive our sins Strengthen us in your love. In Jesus name Amen.
Reconciliation
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