reconciliation: 2 lenses for consideration

“to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.”

~titus 3:2

“there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.”

~proverbs 6:16-19

it is true that the way in which one frames a question can have a significant impact to the answer of that question. our approach has consequences. when we define what it looks like to be an ambassador of reconciliation as follower of Jesus, it would seem that the same is also true. in discussing the topic of reconciliation with some of my imago Dei comrades, there were two perspectives that emerged that i found quite useful for thinking about the practice:

reactive

preventative

reactive

in my last post on reconciliation i made mention of the reactive approach to reconciliation. this type of peacemaking happens when Jesus followers insert themselves into situations to work for reconciliation between opposing sides. the obvious tell-tale sign is of a person attempting to diffuse a situation before things escalate to the point of violence. this of course is an extreme case.

however, i wonder if the heart of reconciliation is something more than simply trying to stop the bloodshed or to get those at odds to come to a compromise on an issue? i’m thinking so. the reason is that we can broker peace but if neither side cannot find the inherit value in the other than we have only delayed the fighting. the center of reconciliation resides in getting others to see the value of the other to the community and further to God. the church would call this the image of God in one another.

now it’s true that the stopping of bloodshed and the arrival of compromise are byproducts of achieving reconciliation, but helping others to see the value in the other, especially with those we are at odds with, is at the root of such lasting peace. for in it, we see the good news of Jesus who reconciles us back to the Father and then to each other. this is the message that we play the role of ambassador for. i don’t think its for temporary bandaid fixes.

preventative

admittedly, as i began to intentionally think about reconciliation and in being a peacemaker my mind seemed to naturally gravitate toward a more reactive lens. i became aware of this in my discussions with my community, where my eyes were widened to the nature of what i will call preventative reconciliation. this type of reconciliation effort revolves more so around my everyday actions that contribute to promoting peace by preventing discord.

it is likely that the reason my mind went to a more reactive lens in understanding reconciliation is because that form is easier to imagine myself living out as it places me in the role of neutral party like a hero standing between those who are feuding. but reconciliation from a preventative lens asks me about what role i’m playing to prevent the sowing of the seeds of divisiveness within my relationships.

so what about my everyday actions are promoting alienation within community?

how often am i using sarcasm or taking those supposedly “playful” shots at someone else’s expense so that i can have a good laugh? how quick am i to provide false witness against someone? or gossip? or encouraging others into unloving actions? how about withholding forgiveness? or repenting? what of my actions are contributing to communal discord?

i’m afraid that i’m guilty of not engaging in preventative reconciliation measures more than i would like to admit. and little sowed seeds of discord can go along way in promoting the ugliness of this world rather than the beauty of his kingdom. in the instances i catch myself doing this i’m probably more interested in protecting and promoting myself. of course this is easy to do when i’m able to dehumanize those with whom i’ve forgotten are made in the imago Dei. so how divisive am i being on a regular basis?

summary

at the heart of both lens of reconciliation is the forgotten imago Dei that is actually present in all party’s. if we are to be ambassadors of reconciliation than we need to be reminding others to embrace the imago Dei within the other. but we also need to be rooting out those bad habits that we contribute to causing discord and ugliness around us. the hard part is that those things are sometimes subtle and deeply rooted.

when we can see the beauty of the image of God within others, especially those that we are at odds with, we cannot only find compromise, but we can love one another. it’s not about necessarily finding agreement in issues but in finding mutual respect, which often leads to common ground.

i pray we weed out the seeds of discord in our lives and replace them with ones of life!

Read Full Post »

peace-making and reconciliation

“blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
(that Jesus dude, as recorded in matthew 5:9, esv

“and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”
(col. 1:20, esv)

so what does it mean to follow Jesus by practicing his ways of peacemaking?

there may be an inclination to immediately think of peace advocates as those who try to stop the bloodshed of war. images of men and women standing between warring armies comes to mind. and for those who would think this, they’d be right to do so. but honestly, i think that when we think about this question, we can do better than offering answers that only paint a picture of the extreme cases of such Jesus-like practice.

the opportunity to practice peacemaking in the everyday fabric of our lives is much more prevalent.

as followers of Jesus, we need to be embracing the chances we have to promote reconciliation and forge peace. i know within my own family, there are instances of family members who’ve broken off all contact because of the inability to reconcile. there are examples of unresolved conflicts that have been passive-aggressively “swept under the rug,” that continue to strain relationships. it would seem, for whatever reasons, that folks within my family are not good at resolving our disagreements and have chosen isolation instead.

i’m willing to bet that all of us are experiencing this or are close to those who are living in this relational turmoil. as anger, resentment, and a lack of trust build, we begin to invest in a life of isolation. left unchecked, these feelings fester and they begin to have affects that can reverberate out beyond those initially damaged relationships. as our hearts calcify we build walls to protect ourselves from others. at least one of the reasons that we are able to say that we live in one place, work in another, and play still in another is that we have perfected the art of isolation.

broken relationships can act as a catalyst, giving us permission, so to speak, to disengage from the people around us, which in turn leads to broken communities as folks keep one another at bay so as not to be damaged further. we don’t want to trust anyone or invest in others because we look at the potential disappointment as a foregone conclusion. we surmise that the only option is to go it alone. does this resonate with you?

quite simply, we as members of our society are not equipped to engage in conflict in a way that leads to the shalom that we all desire. and generally speaking, christians are no different. we too are enculturated to embrace the same isolation rather than working out our differences, practicing with one another the act of freely giving and receiving forgiveness. if we are to have a shared future, we must learn forgiveness.

in the midst of such pain and loneliness, where are those who can arbitrate by being present in the pain and growing alienation and share with us another path?

“therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. the old has passed away; behold, the new has come. all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
(2 cor. 5:17-20, esv.)

we need followers of Jesus who can be ambassadors of reconciliation. we need followers who live out our calling to promote reconciliation that leads to healing between families, neighbors, and communities. faithfully following Jesus means joining him in his work to reconcile all things. it’s not an optional practice.

honestly, i wrestle with how to be a peacemaker in the midst of all the pain and separation that exists within my family and in my neighborhood. i don’t have all of the answers. frankly, i don’t feel like i have even a few of the answers. yet, i feel compelled to pursue Jesus’ everyday work of reconciliation. so what does it look like? this is the question that i want to explore in the coming weeks and months.

Read Full Post »

proclaiming good news that’s actually good news

“therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.”
2 corinthians 5:20a

in exploring what it means to follow Jesus, i concluded earlier that the journey must begin within each one of us. we are to be His followers first. but this is not meant to be an exclusively introspective quest as individuals or as a faith community. we are instructed to make followers out of others. in a privitized climate, this indeed is difficult. but, faithfully following Jesus means we must be making followers because this is what it means to follow Jesus. followers make followers.

the prosepect of this is scary for many of us. we must live our lives in ways that go against the grain of the culture that we are all conditioned to follow. putting the ways of Jesus on display are difficult for a couple of reasons. first, because we are conditioned to do otherwise and so we must overcome ourselves. this is an ongoing project. practicing the ways of Jesus means breaking habits and creating new ones. secondly, practicing the way of Jesus is a form of resistence to the broken order of things within the world. this is often not received well. practicing Jesus’ ways then are an excercise in trying to live so free that we are not burdened by the chains of self-preservation. practicing His ways are tremendously difficult. and yet, making followers of Jesus by allowing our lifestyles to act as a demonstration of an alternative to the ways of the world is not all that it means to make followers of Jesus.

i hear what you’re thinking. there’s more??!! i know. i feel this intense pressure too. but it means more than putting our lifestyle on display for the world to see, which is difficult in and of itself. we are to advocate for others to follow the ways of Jesus in submission to the God that is revealed to us in the person of Jesus. and this means bold proclamation of the good news of Jesus and a call to swear complete allegiance to the king of all kings. as much as i love francis of assisi and the wisdom he shared about “preach[ing] the gospel always and when necessary, use words,” it does not let us off the hook from proclamation. i suspect his statement was meant as a corrective to folks who know all the right things and yet, their lives do not reflect such truth.

so what is meant by proclamation of the good news of Jesus? before i provide my (an) answer to this question, i want to state that i think that often, the answer for many is very narrow. put another way, it is portrayed in too simplistic of terms due to the fact that it is presented with broad brush strokes. when appropriated this way, it’s simply about shouting from the roof tops that Jesus is God and that He saves us from our sins and so we need to repent. while this is true and important, it tends to place importance upon the cognitive side of the gospel without really tapping into its emotive side. so instead of being specific and a provision of hope, it is general and inconsequential or not contextually applicable to the average person. so, when the good news is expressed in such vague terms, it lacks the necessary depth to truly make Jesus good news to the person who lives within the details of their life. the good news has to make sense.

the good news of Jesus is fully comprehensive. Jesus saves us from all the things that we need to be saved from. western christianity has primarily focused upon Jesus saving us from sin, where sin is viewed as strikes against the creator. in this understanding, Jesus must pay the penalty for such transgressions so that the cosmic balance sheet reads that we owe nothing. this sort of salvation is transactional. while i won’t dismiss what theologians call penal substitution (despite it being my least favorite lens), this theory lacks any sort of sense that Jesus heals us from our sin.

i prefer to define sin as the way things aren’t supposed to be. in some ways, penal substitution is more like saying Jesus covers our sins so that we don’t have to be punished for our wrong doing. but i don’t simply need Jesus to hide my errors from the eyes of the Father. what i need is the Jesus that saves me from continuing to make the same errors. i don’t need a bandaid. i need to be healed.

the good news of Jesus is that i’m forgiven for my sins and that Jesus can heal me so that i won’t continue to sin. what Jesus accomplishes by beginning to usher in His kingdom is holistic. so when we talk about proclaiming the good news, and therefore continuing His work, we don’t proclaim a rote message because the shape of the proclamation will depend upon the person, who has distinctive things from which they need to be saved. this is why the gospels, when speaking of Jesus proclaiming the good news, speak of how the kingdom of God is here and what the manifestations of it look like. the picture is all encompassing:

“the Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
~Jesus
luke 4:18-19

this sort of proclamation requires that we have relationships with those who need to hear the good news of the Christ. relationships where we have earned the right to speak because we have built a friendship in love. relationships where we have the sort of priviledged knowledge that makes us able to breathe the life of Jesus into the details of our friends’ lives. surely, part of what gives us the right to speak will be our observable lifestyle modeled after the ways of Jesus. we certainly can gain credibility through how we live. but we must remember that the ways of Jesus expressed in our lives are a product of the good news interacting within the details of our own lives. this is why transparency is important. we don’t do the saving. Jesus does. yet, the authority that we have to proclaim and participate in being good news is given to us by Jesus.

while i don’t want to belabor the fact that following Jesus begins with us, we must remember to practice His ways while we are being transparent about how the good news has saved us, is saving us, and will save us. it’s here then that we can boldly proclaim good news to a world of people that need good news that is specific to their own lives and not general religious platitudes.

so, be thinking about how the gospel has been good news for you and how it is still working itself out within you. in what ways, and to whom, can you be speaking words of life into the milieu of others’ lives that would be good news? as followers of Jesus, we must be proclaiming good news. so let us proclaim good news.

Read Full Post »