The persistent call for reconciliation
Thumbnail image: John Everett Millais: The Unjust Judge and the Importunate Widow (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ)
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
October 20, 2019—Proper 24C
Jeremiah 31:27-34; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8
What a beautiful vision Jeremiah casts: the future redemption of Israel, an end to the long years of God plucking them up and casting them down, and the promise that God will now “watch over them to build and to plant.”
But the images the prophet spins out are not of palaces or harvests; the first sign given of this new reality speaks instead of justice and personal responsibility. “In those days they shall no longer say: ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.’ But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.”
Which is to say: in this new era, a people will no longer be punished for the sins of their ancestors. They will only be held accountable for their own wrongdoings.
Which seems sound. But it raises the question of how this moral mathematics might function within current conversations about reparations for African Americans … or (since we just had Columbus Day) ones that grapple with the historical facts of the founding of our nation and how that affected Native Americans.
Some suggest that these conversations contradict the vision of Jeremiah.[i] But I disagree. I think Jeremiah still holds true. Because when we discuss reparations, or consider questions about how this nation acquired this land, it’s not a matter of our needing to be punished for what our ancestors did. It’s not actually about some kind of inherited guilt for white people.
Instead, it’s an insistence that all of us look around at the current reality, and see the ways in which our nation is hurting. The long-term social and economic damages from slavery, and Jim Crow, and tribal displacement are complicated and real. And until we take that seriously, the reality of it will keep coming back like that persistent widow. Demanding that we listen. Never letting us forget that justice asks us to hear her case, and consider what can be done.
She asks it of us: the whole nation, which includes people of all races, creeds and backgrounds. It is our collective task to hear the case, to examine the damages, and to seek ways to mend and repair.
In other words, as the Rev. Mike Kinman puts it, what we need is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We do. We all do. This fuller version of Confession and Absolution is one of the great healing ministries of the church, but we don’t talk about it enough, which is a great shame. Because it isn’t just something we need on a societal level; it’s something we need on an individual level. So many of us have something. Something that comes to us, over and over, like that widow. Telling us that we have done wrong. Telling us we have wounded someone else, or are wounding ourselves. Telling us that our sin is warping our life and our future.
Reconciliation can help untangle all that. It shines light into those shameful places and cuts through the snarl of secrets. It explores the damage done, and helps us to get past our guilt (or denial!) to recognize what the damage actually is. And then it both invites and requires our effort to repair that damage. By doing all that, it sets us free. By doing all that, it heals us and reconciles us to each other and to God.
It begins with self-examination. On an individual level, this is the willingness to examine what we have done and left undone. At the societal level, another version of the Confession asks us to repent of “the evil done on our behalf,” which points us toward systems we have participated in, benefited from, and perhaps perpetuated.
That’s hard work. It’s painful to acknowledge that we have done wrong. It often comes with a sharp stab of embarrassment, a sickening lurch of shame. We might well want to shy away from it, deny it even. Perhaps because it violates our image of ourselves to admit it.
But Reconciliation asks us to be brave. Assures us that this wrongdoing is only intolerable if we believe it to be a permanent part of us. Reconciliation urges us on, promising that we can be freed of it; but only if we admit it and continue.
So, much as we might hate and fear it, confession is a crucial step. But it doesn’t stop there! If we stop at this point, all we have is shame, guilt, and self-flagellation. And that doesn’t improve the state of our soul or the world one bit.
We have to move on to the next step: to the stage of repentance and repair. Once the sin has been named, we can finally assess the damage, and ask how it might be repaired. How might we make up for what has been done, whatever it was? The question is whether something can be mended or made right, which takes us beyond punishment (the classic penance model) and into a deeper exploration and imagining. It invites us further into relationship with those we have wounded, allowing them to tell us what can be done to ease the damage we have caused.
Sit with that for a moment, and imagine what it would be like to ask the person you have wronged how you can help to mend what you broke…
And then imagine doing it. Imagine working with them as you fumble your way through it, doing what can be done, undoing what can be undone. Trying to make restitution, as you both work through into a newly re-formed relationship.
And in that new space, you find yourself (we find ourselves) living out the fourth step, which is amendment of life. It’s a fresh start, in which we find a new way of living, so that we don’t commit this sin again. It’s a deliberate, intentional way of living differently, so that we are finally honoring the divine in ourselves, in each other, and in creation.
This, then, brings us to absolution. This, then, is atonement: restoration of right relationship. This, then, is healing and freedom.[ii]
Sin is real. Damage is real. We hurt each other, as individuals and as a wider society. The goal of acknowledging this reality is NOT to mire us down in guilt and shame. The purpose is to put us all (wounded and wounders, and we’re all both at different times) on the pathway to healing. Because ignoring the sin, denying the sin will not free anyone from the burden. The sin, the wounding, the injustice will just keep coming back, like that persistent widow. Keep coming back until we are finally brave and honest enough to hear her case.
She’s inviting us onto the path of reconciliation. Which does not, as we fear, lead only to self-flagellation. Rather, it is the pathway to liberation and joy. May we, like the unjust judge in the story, finally give in and allow her to lead us there. Amen.
[i] Sermon Brainwave podcast, #685 – Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 29), posted 10/12/2019
[ii] The Rev. Mike Kinman, comment on his own Facebook post, October 14, 2019