Brunswick Baptist Church 14 March 2010
Readings: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 15:11-24
Theme: Reconciliation
When I retired from Whitley College in 2007 I was asked to preach at the chapel service before the end-of-year college dinner as part of my farewell. It made me think deeply about what were the most important things in my understanding of what it means to be a Christian and a pastor. This is what I said:
Retirement is a life stage transition that has concentrated the mind powerfully and caused me to reflect on what is most important for me in life and ministry. After fifty years in the church, twenty five in pastoral ministry, fifteen on the Whitley faculty, involvement with the Melbourne College of Divinity ministry studies post graduate program as a student, board member and administrator for nearly twenty years, what is that one thing above all others that I would want to leave with you who have shared the journey with us? It is all wrapped up in one word – reconciliation.
For as long as people walk this planet there will be hostility, violence and war. I am not so naïve as to believe otherwise. But I also believe with every fibre of my being that there is no more vital human calling and ministry than the ministry of reconciliation. And for me it is not possible to talk about reconciliation between me and God apart from reconciliation between me and those with whom I have become estranged. I have to start with myself, with my family, with my community – you, with the society in which we live.
One of the highlights of my time in pastoral ministry happened in 1997 when this church and the Moreland church co-sponsored a Baptist Union of Victoria apology to the indigenous peoples of Australia for the gross injustices they and their forebears have experienced because of European colonisation. Terry Falla was pastor of this church in those days, I was pastor of the Moreland church and we worked closely and cooperatively as sister churches to play our small part in preparing the way for reconciliation between the indigenous and immigrant communities. There is still a very long way to go, an apology is just the beginning.
Reconciliation – the Greek word katalassow – was a big word for the Apostle Paul; he used it to talk about God making peace with humankind through the death of Jesus Christ, and about God reconciling the world – the cosmos – to himself. Paul wasn’t talking about the physical world, what we all the earth. He was talking about people (humankind), their relationships with each other and their relationships with God. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. Paul does not have a theology of a vengeful God needing to have his red hot anger with the sinful human race appeased by the sacrifice and death of his beloved Son on a cross. Rather Paul paints the picture of a loving God who takes the initiative in reaching out towards humankind and drawing it through the power of love into a new relationship with the Creator.
Reconciliation, says Paul, requires change; the root of the word that he uses means ‘to change’. And for Paul, it is God who brings about the change:
God was ‘in Christ’ reconciling the kosmos to himself
If anyone is ‘in Christ’ there is a new creation
Christ is the crux of the kind of reconciliation Paul was talking about; God was ‘in Christ’ doing the reconciling, and if we are ‘in Christ’ we are different, there is change, a change in attitude that leads to real reconciliation, the healing of old wounds, the restoration of broken relationships.
An apology to indigenous people is offensive if it is not accompanied by change; improved health and living conditions; land rights; recompense for stolen land and stolen generations. Reconciliation means change or it is not reconciliation.
The parable of the Prodigal Son could just as easily be called the parable of the Unforgiving Brother. The context of the story is Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees and the Scribes who were very unhappy with him because he was regularly eating with tax collectors and sinners, which you could translate as con men and prostitutes. It would have been just as shocking as the Archbishop of Melbourne having a counter meal and beer at the pub every Friday night then wandering around the corner to have a chat with the local sex workers. Some of his parishioners wouldn’t like it! And when Luke tells the story (he is the only Gospel writer who does) he is saying to his readers, ‘there are people in the church who are just like the Pharisees and Scribes and just like the older brother’.
So the story is told to teach the church about reconciliation and acceptance. We know the story so well don’t we. The younger son takes his share of his inheritance, in other words he treats the father as if he’s already dead, and wastes it on reckless living – wild parties, fast cars and faster girl friends. His motives for turning round (repentance) are motivated purely by self interest – he’s broke and starving. In a real life story the resentment of the older brother would have been simmering for years. He was the obedient son, doing all the right things, caring for his ageing father; his brother was the black sheep of the family – self centred, hedonistic, irresponsible, reckless. The kind who would wipe himself out driving a turbo charged V8 camel while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. He was a disgrace and really the old man should have disowned him as a son. And now this embarrassment of a brother was back in town. Not only that, the old man had run down the road and hugged him inn front of all the neighbours, and now he was throwing a party to welcome him home. Where is the justice in all that?
In families, it is usually the inheritance that brings out the true feelings between siblings; old resentments, jealousies, rivalries raise their ugly heads when a will is read. I have known sisters who have refused to speak to each other for years because one felt she was treated unfairly in the will; brothers who have taken out expensive law suits against each other to increase their share of the inheritance. Is it just about the money? Or are there much deeper reasons for the hostility and alienation that characterises the relationships within many families?
And what of the larger conflicts, between gangs, ethnic groups, warring tribes and nations, religious conflicts? What about conflict within churches, and there are some of those happening right now in some of our sister churches in Victoria. Claus Westermann comments that ‘Every war is in essence a war between brothers,’ so whilst the Prodigal Son is a story about a family, it was told to convey a truth to the church, and can perhaps be legitimately extrapolated to provide a model for reconciliation in the world.
I don’t want to trivialise the process of reconciliation by offering simplistic solutions. I think I take my lead about practical reconciliation from a cousin of Jenny’s who lives in Cornwall. Her daughter was murdered by her flatmate’s former boyfriend. There was no apparent motive, and no reason for the brutal killing ever uncovered. Lesley is a Quaker and needed to work on the devastation and bitterness that hovered over her. So she arranged to visit her daughter’s killer in an attempt to understand, and perhaps to forgive. Sadly the murderer’s counsellor interrupted proceedings when Lesley asked why he killed Ruth, so the reconciliation process was aborted. But Lesley has become a leading figure in the restorative justice movement in the UK and an activist against the death penalty, corresponding with people on death row in Texas.
She has found a way ahead through a willingness to engage the hard process of reconciliation because she believes passionately that this is the way of God. I can’t conceive of a more demanding challenge in life than coming face-to-face with your innocent and beautiful daughter’s murderer with the intention of being reconciled with him. And yet many of us harbour resentments over perceived insults from years past, real or imagined injustices. Lesley is an example of reconciliation at the micro level. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu are examples of reconciliation at the macro level, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa has become a model in which truth-telling can lead to reconciliation even after the most appalling injustices. The younger son told the truth, ‘Father I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer fit to be called your son’. I am sure he would have told the same truth to his brother given the chance, but his brother didn’t want to hear.
Reconciliation is God’s business, and God has entrusted us with His business. This is what I have learned more than anything else in my half century as a Christian, this is what I struggle to live, that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
Amen