Reconciling Ministries...

 

“Reconciling Ministries”

 

2 Corinthians 5:16-21
5:16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.

5:17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

5:18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;

5:19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

5:20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

 

[See also Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32]

 

Reconciliation is a beast. It has to be one of the hardest things to do in the world. When a trust is broken, when two or more parties part ways over not just disagreements, but something that hurts to the core, restoring them to a “right” or righteous relationship often literally requires an “act of God.” 

 

As a pastor, I have counseled troubled couples who are struggling in their relationship with each other. Diagnosing the glitch and helping them find the way back is difficult enough, but if there is a breach of trust involved—a series of lies, an infidelity—the job is so much harder, if not impossible. If an affair was involved, for example, I would simply ask both parties if they were willing to commit to the necessary steps in the process of reconciliation to proceed. If one of them said “no,” then we were done. (Of course, I typically offered to refer the couple to a professional relationship counselor, as the task was beyond my paygrade.) Even if both were willing to commit, an arduous effort would be required to build relationship “bridges” for reconciliation to happen, and rarely could the level of trust be restored to that which existed before the break. Could the offending party live with that? If not, again, the effort was doomed to failure. Was the offended party willing to begin the process by forgiving, even if it had to happen in small, deliberate steps? Again, if not, healing the breach would be all but impossible. And what of their willingness to understand what went wrong? It was rare that all of the “blame” rested on only one party, barring an abusive situation, at which point I would sign off on the effort myself, and encourage both the abused and the abuser to seek immediate, professional help, if not legal representation. (Abusive situations, in my experience, usually require a complete break, therapy, and a fresh start for the victim.) 

 

I can hear some of you saying, “But as a pastor, didn’t you use prayer and scripture as healing tools with these couples?” It’s complicated. Of course prayer was important to the process and each of these reconciling sessions began and ended with it. I also encouraged the couple to pray individually and as a couple, depending upon their comfort level, especially in the early stages of the reconciliation process. I did NOT use most of the scriptures having to do with marriage, as frankly, most of them were written in ancient eras when “brides” were the “property” of their “husbands,” and were sworn to “obey” them. Most of the biblical guidance in marriage is not helpful in our current cultural realities. I cited texts about love, grace, forgiveness—sure—but with caution added about how these lofty ideals must be woven into and tempered by the day-to-day “real” life of the couple in the relationship. When a breach of trust has occurred, one of the first casualties of an ailing marriage is intimacy, which must be painstakingly rebuilt, nearly from scratch. This, too, requires human patience—what the Bible calls, appropriately, “longsuffering.” 

 

Prayer IS important, but it, too, should be a part of the rebuilding of the couples’ essential communication in the reconciling effort, and NOT applied as a falsely spiritualized “balm,” invoked as a kind of miraculous “short cut” to the hard steps of healing. They need to learn all over again how to talk to each other, from simple, efficient exchanges of information to “love language,” and prayer may actually get in the way if either party or both try to substitute it for active listening to each other. They need to talk to each other, not God, certainly in the early stages.

 

I know that my launching into this long account of my experience in guiding struggling couples may seem like a tangent, but from my perspective, it is where the word “reconciliation” may find its hardest context. Real couples, having real problems—including ones that have led to an initial separation, or even talking to divorce lawyers—trying to really rebuilt that which has been hurt, harmed, or shattered is one of the hardest things human beings must ever do. Many of these same concerns can certainly be applied to horrific breaches in other family relationships brought about by things such as addiction, or in severed friendships, but in my experience, maintaining relational health is most challenging in covenantal relationships that have involved life-long goals and planning, careers and finance, the complications of children and family, and, of course, sexual intimacy. Full disclosure: not all of my couples counseling involved heterosexual couples, as gay and lesbian relationships are just as vulnerable and fragile, sometimes more so because up until recent times, they have had to exist in hostile environments, if not in total secrecy. 

 

So, let’s build back to this weekend’s text, which is one of my all-time favorites in the pages of sacred writ. Here are the cogent truths revealed in II Corinthians 5:

 

·      God is a reconciling God, desiring to restore God’s relationship to humanity, maintain it eternally, and help the human community be reconciled internally.

 

·      The Godhead came fully into the human realm in Jesus Christ, and in this “incarnational,” divine/human amalgamation, reconciled humanity’s relationship to God by making God more “human” and humans more “divine.” Christ experienced the dreaded power of human sinfulness that poisons relationships, and Christ, through the reconciling power of God, humans are “connected” to God for all eternity, eventually “becoming like Christ” in that we inherit a “heavenly” yet corporeal existence in the second resurrection. Through this process, in time, “all things become new.”

 

·      Now, we are called to a “ministry of reconciliation.” Probably within this larger “call” upon all of God’s people, each of us must discern what this “ministry” looks like for us.

 

·      We are also commissioned as “ambassadors for Christ.”

 

·      Looping back to the first verse, the theme of the whole passage is that we are to “from now on…regard no one from a human point of view…”

 

Yes, there are multiple sermons here—MANY, MANY sermons, and over 36 years, I’ve only scratched the surface of this passage, even though it is one of my all-time favorites. For the purpose of today’s narrative, let’s look at some of the key points.

 

·      God is a reconciling God, desiring to restore God’s relationship to humanity, maintain it eternally, and help the human community be reconciled internally.

 

First of all, the II Corinthians 5 passage tells us much about God. God IS a reconciling God, and God, in reconciling the world to Godself, now expects US to pick up that mantle. We are in the unique position of living fully in the human community, but since being reconciled and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we and build the discipline of see others from the divine perspective, which is that of wanting them redeemed and accepted as a child of God. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” or more appropriately to this passage, “Do unto others what God has done for you in Christ Jesus!” 

 

Paul is trying to tell us that the God of the Bible has always been a reconciling God who loves humanity, and yet in that love, has over the millennia developed a process to reconcile us, after we putted things up. Now, we could go into a major theological debate here about “original sin,” and just how humanity blew it—in fact, I’ve come to believe that our real“original” sin was that we DID, from the beginning, choose to regard others from a human point of view, meaning we planted a seed of selfishness that took root real fast. Until the Christ Event, we had grown incapable of seeing other human beings from the divineperspective, instead always watching out for ourselves, first. Christ came to break this DNA chain and re-introduce the “divine” gene. Jesus did this through his life, his teaching, his sacrificial (or we might say selfless) death, and the new strand of DNA we see demonstrated in the resurrection. God IS a reconciling God. To view God as a judgmental God, or a legalistic God, or even a doctrinal or dogmatic God is to miss the whole point of the Christ Event. And to NOT see the human qualities of acting out the divine compassion in Jesus Christ is to miss the whole purpose of the incarnation. To reduce Jesus to nothing but a “blood sacrifice” to wash away “my sin” may be the most selfish act perpetrated by “original sin” and perpetuated by the “old DNA.”

 

If you struggle with theological reflection, the lectionary this week gives us a story that illustrates the reconciling nature of “the father.” It is the passage from Luke 15 we have come to know as “The Prodigal Son,” or more appropriately, “The Loving Father.”

 

·      The Godhead came fully into the human realm in Jesus Christ, and in this “incarnational,” divine/human amalgamation, reconciled humanity’s relationship to God by making God more “human” and humans more “divine.” Christ experienced the dreaded power of human sinfulness that poisons relationships, and Christ, through the reconciling power of God, humans are “connected” to God for all eternity, eventually “becoming like Christ” in that we inherit a “heavenly” yet corporeal existence in the second resurrection. Through this process, in time, “all things become new.”

 

Regarding the second bulleted point above, I really doubt we’ve even begun to understand the “magic” of the incarnation and the resurrection. God fully understands the “human condition” now, and humanity is empowered to see each other from the perspective of God, with an eternal desire to “fix” all of our relationships so that love, grace, and peace reign. Most Christian doctrine—especially that of the fundamentalist or the “evangelical”—has so devalued this element of the Christ Event that Jesus is, himself, devalued. Jesus LIVED for our sin, more than “died” for it, and in the resurrection, he was not simply “revived” from the tomb, but “reconstituted” in a form that carries this “new” DNA for all of humanity—a form about which a later epistle suggests “We know not what we shall be, but know that when he appears, we shall be like him.” The eternal, reconciling “self” born at the resurrection of Jesus is the destiny for all of humanity if we respond “yes” to the redemption offer.

 

·      Now, we are called to a “ministry of reconciliation.” Probably within this larger “call” upon all of God’s people, each of us must discern what this “ministry” looks like for us.

 

What of the “ministry of reconciliation?” If we, as God’s people, are now injected with the ability to “not regard others from a human point of view” but a divine one, we are necessarily thrust into a life of finding broken relationships and working to heal, or reconcile them. This is not just about “collecting scalps” or “saving souls,” as some would have you believe, but doing “Jesus stuff” means working to heal ALL broken relationships we encounter, at least to the best of our ability. It begins with a huge slice of humble pie, as each of us has collected a few relationships that can stand strengthening, if not outright mending. Who likes to admit that? And how hard is it to look for the hurt and aim for healing in the relationships that may be under our own roof? Ouch. I won’t tell my personal stories, and I won’t ask you to confess yours, but we each know where we must begin, if we are to take up this “ministry of reconciliation.”

 

I will confess to becoming so passionate in my later days about social justice that I have often crossed over the “righteous indignation” line into pretty much hatred of those on the other side of the political aisle when all I see in their rhetoric is racism, sexism, or down right selfishness, bordering on narcissism. Even if my take on this has merit, as a Christian commissioned to be a reconciler, I must find a way to build a bridge to these people and develop a willingness—with God’s help—to engage in conversation aimed at finding common ground. I will never be reconciled to these people if all I do is denigrate them and “write them off,” and I certainly won’t be successful in persuading them to see my “justice” views one iota. But it’s just so easy to dispatch them and even detest them, and when I hear labels like “libtard” and “snowflake” coming my way, it’s not only obvious they have similar views about me, which makes it even easier to snipe all the more. Friends, this is really hard stuff, here. THIS is why Jesus was willing to go to the mat for reconciliation, even when that “mat” was not a wrestling one, but a cross.

 

Again, this “ministry of reconciliation” may be as simple as starting anew a friendly conversation with your neighbor over the fence you installed (or they did?) BECAUSE of who they are or what they do in their back yard. It may be as simple as listening more carefully to the ways you disrespect or hurt your partner or your children, and working to fix these things. It may be harder—seeking reconciliation with others with whom you have or have had major disagreements over social, religious, political, or financial issues. Or even harder still—accepting and building even a small “foot-bridge” to someone who hurt you very badly OR whom YOU have hurt very badly. The latter requires confession, of course, as most of us cannot live with ourselves without rationalizing our behavior. Confession pulls off this scab, with no mercy. 

 

What if the one you must approach with this “ministry of reconciliation” is yourself? This may be the hardest one of all. Are you carrying around stuff locked away from your own psyche because it pains you too much to think about it? What have you locked away from God (or think you have)? Are you living with sores or secrets so buried that it will take the power of the resurrection to dig them up from the graveyard you have submerged them in? Dear One, YOU are the object of what Jesus came to heal and reconcile! Stop trying to reconcile others until you have yourself been reconciled to God! This may be exactly what Jesus meant when he said “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Please seek counsel about this, if you see yourself in this “Mirror of Reconciliation,” whether that be a pastor or priest, or a professional counselor. Your God is a RECONCILING God—remember that!

 

For some of you, when you saw the title of my sermon this week, you probably thought, “Oh, he’s going to talk about LGBTQ issues, again.” Obviously, this was not the primary aim of this message or of this text, but my LGBTQ siblings ARE certainly a central audience to the “ministry of reconciliation.” It’s about time that we set aside our “human point of view” concerning sexual attraction, identity, and relationships and give people their dignity. If we accept the central tenet of II Corinthians 5, that in Jesus Christ, God is a reconciling God, then we must step down from the judge’s bench and advocate for the “accused.” That is where the gospels always show Jesus, after all. That science has come to view human sexuality as a “spectrum” or continuum, and not merely an “either/or” leads me to believe that part of human evolution includes de-polarizing whom we may be attracted to or love. For my more “conservative” friends, let me put it this way: our reconciling God would never hold you responsible for respecting others for engaging in a healthy, human relationship that does not match your own views of marriage or covenant. However, you may be in a danger zone if you take up the judge’s gavel and pronounce judgment when it is beyond your paygrade. I cannot see the God of Jesus Christ looking down on you at the judgment seat and castigating you for not hurtfully judging another person, casting them out like a “demon” from the camp. If we are called to a ministry of reconciliation, is there room for us to set up court and sentence others for views and values other than our own? The secular law is written to protect other people, their property, and their “rights” under the law. When it is used to persecute someone who has engaged in behaviors that in no way harm or infringe on others, it is unjust. So it is with the laws of God. 

 

·      We are also commissioned as “ambassadors for Christ.”

 

Remember what I said about a number of sermons from this passage? This would be one. Lots of words have been written about what “ambassadors” for a country do when they are actually doing the job of being an ambassador. In our time, it is not unusual for a leader to give an ambassadorship as a reward for support during an election campaign, or to a close friend, as these may be cushy jobs with a palatial home in a fascinating country. However, “real” ambassadors are called upon to live, teach, and reinforce the values of the “home country” in a foreign land, and some of these lands may even be hostile to the cause. To be an ambassador is to give up one’s own quirks, causes, and values, if they compete or mask those of the sending entity. In the case of Christ, it’s best if we adopt, as best we can, the values of Jesus, and then live these out in the company of the “foreign land” of our community, hoping that when people witness our behavior, they may be getting a glimpse of what Jesus is like. That’s a tall order, friends! It may actually be easier to say what an ambassador shouldn’t do. A couple of years ago, one of my staff colleagues at St. Paul’s UMC told of being in a retail establishment when a customer absolutely “went off” on the manager, spewing profanity, threatening to tell others about how bad the business was, and demanding they get their own way. The party was wearing a St. Paul’s t-shirt. Ouch. Can you see how bad this is on so many levels? And one does not have to be sporting a convicting article of clothing to spew anger in such a way that witnesses present won’t remember who you are. Of course, today, you may wind up in a viral video on social media! If you have a temper, seek help to temper it, before you sign up for your “ambassadorship.” As a reconciler, come to recognize that people do the best that they can. Their performance or attitude may not meet your standards, but neither do they deserve your wrath to such a degree as creates a public spectacle, even if the two of you are the only witnesses. God is always watching.

 

·      Looping back to the first verse, the theme of the whole passage is that we are to “from now on…regard no one from a human point of view…”

 

And, of course, the last point takes us back to the central point of Paul’s address on reconciling. Imagine if God were to view the human race from a human point of view! We would have all been toast long, long ago. The human “fuse” may be the shortest thing in the universe. Instead, in Jesus Christ, God viewed humanity through human eyes, but with God’s heart. And in being the recipients of this grace, we are now sent out bearing this ministry of reconciliation, ourselves. Our eyes need refocused, and our hearts need a transplant, if we are to be successful at it. And if we are to aspire to being ambassadors for Christ, we should be willing to make sacrifices that may well dizzy our own views and require a courage far beyond our norm. Do you see now why the Holy Spirit was such an essential continuing presence of God in the world and in the lives of believers? Both of these jobs are impossible, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Amen.