9/26/21 "There Must Be Truth" by Nancy Petty
2 Corinthians 5:16-20
Is there a person or situation in your life in which you long for reconciliation? For me, it is a person. I met Marie in the sixth grade. We quickly became best friends. We were opposites in many ways, but both of us had a healthy zest for life. We loved to laugh, have fun, and sometimes get into fun trouble together. We would often frustrate our teachers but it was hard for them to get mad at us because we were so playful they usually ended up laughing at us or with us or both. I played sports, Marie entered beauty pageants. Marie had a voice like a songbird. My only talent back then was bouncing a basketball. From that sixth grade year through high school, we were the best of friends supporting one another in our different interests and spending time together doing fun things when weren’t busy with our school commitments.
After high school graduation, Marie left Shelby for college and I stayed in our hometown and began my college career at Gardner-Webb. We stayed in touch and would visit when she was home on breaks. After college, Marie became engaged and married a young man she had met in college. I was in her wedding, and yes, I wore a dress. Six months into the marriage, Marie’s parents called me one evening. They said that Marie’s husband had left after only six months, and Marie was devastated, and they wanted to know if I could come home and be with them. I drove from Wake Forest, NC where I was in seminary at the time to Shelby that next morning to be with my friend. Several days later it was determined that the marriage was indeed over, that there would be no reconciliation. My friend returned to Raleigh with me and began picking up the pieces of her life.
During this time, I came out to Marie. For reasons I still don’t know, my coming out to her deeply fractured our friendship to the point that we didn’t see or talk with one another. Several times, I reached out to Marie for conversation, but the few times we tried to talk the visits ended with no reconciliation. For years, ever so often, I would try again to reach out, but the longed for reconciliation has never happened.
I tell this story as I begin this sermon on reconciliation because I want to acknowledge upfront that while we, as people of faith, always hold on to the hope of reconciliation, sometimes there is no path, at least in this life, to forgiveness and reconciliation. Sometimes, the hurt is too deep. Sometimes, it is not safe to seek reconciliation with another person if violence and abuse has occurred. In some situations, the only reconciliation that can happen is to reconcile within one’s self. And that can be the healing we need most. I don’t want anyone to walk away from this sermon who is struggling with forgiveness and reconciliation to feel guilt or shame for unresolved pain and hurt. The path of forgiveness and reconciliation takes time and is a lot of work that is hard, and even after the hard work there is grace and mercy that have to be allowed to heal us.
This week, I have been reading stories of forgiveness and reconciliation. It has been affirmed for me again that they are possibly the hardest parts of our faith to practice, not to mention the hardest parts of life to navigate. I read the story of Pope John Paul II going to see his would-be assassin and forgiving him. I wondered at the strength that must have taken. I read again the story of how Representative John Lewis, a black man who was beaten and insulted in the civil rights movement, argued that George Wallace, the bigoted segregationist and Alabama politician, deserved forgiveness. I sat in silence after reading again how Lewis spoke of such forgiveness, wondering what spiritual depth a man must have to live out such forgiveness.
And I re-read the history of “Operation Moonlight Sonata” which details the bombing of Coventry Cathedral in November 1940 during the Second World War. I read how Provost Howard, the Provost of the Cathedral at the time, in a national radio broadcast from the cathedral ruins declared that when the war was over he would work with those who had been enemies “to build a kinder, more Christ-child-like world.” It was that moral and prophetic vision that led to Coventry Cathedral’s development as a world Center for Reconciliation. A center that inspired this congregation and our partner congregations in Cuba and the Republic of Georgia, and people all over the world to work toward reconciliation in addressing ongoing conflict in contemporary society. As I listened to Orestes speak of the suffering in Cuba, I wondered how the Cuban people could ever forgive the United States for the harm they have endured from our government. What does/would reconciliation look like for Cuba and the United States?
In Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, he admonishes the people there to take up the ministry of reconciliation passed on to them by Jesus. If you look up passages about reconciliation in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 will be the very first reference you will find. Those two verses make sweet posters to hang in churches and feel-good themes for religious conferences. I have seen all too many flyers for religious events that boast a theme of “The ministry of reconciliation” or the title “God reconciling the world.” Those words, “the ministry of reconciliation” and “God reconciling the world” are simply fluff unless they are understood in the context of what comes before those two verses and what comes after them.
If we only read verses 18 and 19, we miss Paul’s intent for us to see the world in a completely new way so that our daily actions stem from a whole new understanding of the world. What Paul is actually saying to the people of Corinth and to us is that if we want to take up the ministry of reconciliation, and if we want to be a part of God reconciling the world, then we must be willing to become so thoroughly transformed that we become members of a “new creation.” Listen again. Paul writes: “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. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
What does Paul mean when he says that “we regard no one from a human point of view…?” Paul is saying that in this new creation we see no person as an object to be exploited, eliminated, elevated or worshiped but rather we see and treat every person as being in the image of God. We see and treat every person as an equal. Furthermore, in this new creation justice-love prevails, forgiveness is pursued, truth is the highest priority and then reconciliation is possible.
My friend and jail mate, Tim Tyson, in his book Blood Done Sign My Name writes: “If there is to be reconciliation, first there must be truth.” Let that soak in for a minute. “If there is to be reconciliation, first there must be truth.” I will say again the path of forgiveness and reconciliation is not an easy path. It requires the hard questions and the hard work of repairing relationship. It requires a willingness to admit wrong. It requires a courage to say that my way or our way is not the only way, or the best way. It requires risking a new way of thinking and living and sharing. Reconciliation, as Tim says, requires truth. If we are not willing to face the truth about our history of exceptionalism in the United States, or the truth about our greed as a country that is destroying the planet, or the truth about our nation’s racial brutality and yet we still seek forgiveness, we can’t claim a ministry of reconciliation. If we are not willing to tell the truth about economic inequality in our nation, or the truth that we could have economic equality if we stopped the war machine in this country and yet we still seek forgiveness, we can’t claim a ministry of reconciliation. If we can’t tell the truth about our own xenophobia, the prejudices and bias we hold within our own community and yet we still seek forgiveness, we can’t claim a ministry of reconciliation. “If there is to be reconciliation, first there must be truth.”
These are hard truths to face. I get it. I feel exhausted just thinking about the energy it will take. And, I also know the energy that will be gained if we dare to risk walking the path of truth-telling with one another. I have experienced the sustaining and freeing power of the Spirit when we unburden ourselves of the sins that hold us back. To become that new creation that God envision from the beginning of creation this unburdening will be required.
I want to end with a way for us to practice a ministry of reconciliation as a church right here in our own city. It is no secret that gentrification is a part of our city’s history. It is no secret that “progress” and “development” has been built on the backs of the poor. It is no secret that economic inequality is a direct result of racism and racial injustice. If you have been following the news, you have heard the plight of black and brown and low-wage homeowners in downtown Raleigh losing their homes because of the increase in property taxes in downtown. In many cases, generations of family have lived in these homes and neighborhoods, have been the backbone of the community, and now they can no longer afford to pay the property taxes on their home because of gentrification.
One way we can practice forgiveness and a ministry of reconciliation is to offer grants from our own monies and investments as a church to help families who have lived in downtown Raleigh for years, and been the core of our community, to pay their property taxes. I know, you are saying how would we do that? How would we decide who to help? What would the process be? I don’t know the answers to those questions. That’s not for a sermon to flesh out. But I do know this. We are a congregation of creative, intelligent and resourceful people. This, we can figure out if we have the desire. Those questions we can work through if we were to discern that this is one way we want to practice forgiveness and a ministry of reconciliation.
At the beginning of this sermon, I said that in order to understand verses 18 and 19 we had to understand the context of what came before those verses and what comes after them. I have addressed the verses before 18 and 19. Let me now read again verse 20. “So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making an appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” Be reconciled to God. Before we can ambassadors for Christ, before we can engage in a ministry of reconciliation, there is the invitation to “be reconciled to God.” What does that mean? To me, it means that first I understand and embrace that I am God’s beloved. To me, it means that I don’t deny the divine spark of God’s light that is within me. To me, it means that I embrace God’s vision of justice-love and that justice-love demands that I disturb my comfort to comfort the disturbed. This reconciliation is foundational. Be reconciled to God is the other bookend.
In our past, we have been a church that practiced forgiveness and reconciliation. I can sense the Spirit moving among us as we discern just how we are being called in the present to be a community of people practicing a ministry of forgiveness and reconciliation. Whether that is responding to the needs of people living in our city who are struggling with property taxes or some other worthy idea, I am confident that we will, indeed, be a part of that “new creation” that Paul is reminding us we are to be as God’s people in the world. May it be so!
