Reconciliation

A theological meditation on 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
by
Thorwald Lorenzen

from
St Marks Review - Autumn 1997
St Mark's National Theological Centre
15 Blackall St, Barton, ACT 2600, AUSTRALIA

Relevance

As Australia moves toward the years 2000 and 2001 there can be no greater challenge to the Australian people, and especially to those who find themselves in positions of leadership, than the challenge of reconciliation: reconciliation with the indigenous people of this country, reconciliation with the stranger in our midst, reconciliation with those who are cast to the margin of society. Will Australian identity be inclusive or exclusive; will it be partial or holistic?

Let us be quite specific: The call of the moment, the kairos, is for reconciliation. When in the year 2000 the world will look “down under”, their primary concern will be what we are doing to show respect to the native people of this land; what are we doing to help them protect their culture, to grant them equal opportunities in our midst, and to empower them to shape their own future.

They - the world media - will know the past. They will know that for too long we have not recognised Aboriginals as human beings; they will retell the stories of how indigenous people were herded together and shot; how they were placed in chains and treated as slaves; that their women were raped, that children were taken away from their mothers, and that no respect was shown for their cultures and traditions. They - the world media - will know (especially now after the 1966 secret documents have been released) that the white Australia policy is so deeply entrenched in our society that changes have never been changes in principle or in our consciousness, but they have only been changes in administration, window dressing to make facts more palatable.

Such deep seated convictions and fears come immediately to the surface when the status quo is challenged or when the truth is named, as in the recent 1996 race debate or the even more recent 1997 Wik decision of the High Court. Political leaders exploit such deep seated fears by suggesting that people’s backyards are threatened or by challenging the perfectly sensible decision of the High Court.

The Prime Minister can do no better - for himself and for his country - than to place reconciliation with the indigenous population on the top of his political agenda. It may cost him some votes and some popularity but it will secure him a place in the judgment of history. When the world looks upon us in 2000 and when history writes its own evaluation, then reconciliation with Aboriginals and commitment to liberate the oppressed will feature much higher than economic growth, trade advantages and the other values that seem to be the sole interest of many of our political leaders.

Urgency

The matter is urgent. We can wait no longer. A change of consciousness, a conversion to accept difference as a promise rather than as a threat, would be the best preparation to meet 2000 and 2001 with joy and anticipation. The presence of people from Europe and Asia and Africa is a fact - will we accept that fact and intentionally shape a multi cultural society? Aborigines, who were here long before us, have every right to get impatient. The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs is still “white”; death in custody among Aboriginals is still going on; their life expectancy is considerably lower than ours; they have no equal chances in the halls of learning and in other avenues of our society. The problem has been with us for too long. Can there be a qualitative jump in the right direction?

The voice of the Church

Christians are still a significant part of our society. Too often it seems to be the case, however, that the Christian conscience is informed by the dominant cultural values and interests, rather than by the first commandment and the story of Jesus. It is the purpose of this brief contribution to ask what the voice of the church has to offer to the challenge for reconciliation.

Conflicts

Conflicts are part of life. None of us can get away from them. Wherever you look, there are conflicts. Conflicts between husbands and wives, between parents and children. There are racial conflicts that result in atrocities that are difficult to imagine. Religious conflicts are functionalised to intensify or justify political, economic and ethnic conflicts.

Indeed, lest we as Christians point our fingers at others, let us not forget that conflicts - paralysing, life-draining and debilitating conflicts - have accompanied the life of the church from its earliest beginnings. The apostles Paul and Peter struggled as to what the Word of God was demanding of them in Jerusalem and Antioch (Gal 2). The Gospel of John sees it as a major need to call the Johannine church to “unity” and “love for the brethren”, presupposing of course that there was disunity and lovelessness in the church. In nearly every city around the Mediterranean sea where Christian churches came into being, Paul had to face the antagonism of opponents who in the name of the same Christ, with the use of the name of the same God, and by invoking the power of the same Spirit, wanted to lead the churches into a different future.

The history of the Christian church is replete with conflicts, of which the burning of so-called witches and heretics, the inquisition, and the division into separate denominations are only a few examples. Indeed, many of our present denominational traditions have their genesis in ecclesiastical, theological, social and political conflicts of the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

There is no denying it: conflicts are part of our experience of life, in our homes, in our churches, in our nations, in the world. There is no virtue in denying that fact. The challenge is whether we are prepared to face this fact and deal with it creatively and constructively.

Human nature

Conflicts are there, and they are real. There can be no question about that. What needs to be asked, however, is, whether they are essential for human life together. Is the passion to destroy as strong or even stronger than the passion to reconcile? Is the passion to hate as strong or even stronger than the passion to love? Is there perhaps even an innate human tendency to destroy the “other” in order to rule over them or to ascertain one’s own survival?

For us it comes down to the question: how do we as Christians understand human nature? The creation of humanity was part of that good creation of God upon which the creator looked with satisfaction and considered it to be beautiful (Gen 1:31). God has created the human being as a relational being (as “male and female”) so that in their over-againstness and their complementarity they could live their life together. They were created in the “image of God” (Gen 1:26f.).

God related himself unconditionally to his creation. He made covenant after covenant to underline his unconditional love, and finally he made a new and unique covenant with his creation by raising Jesus from the dead. These covenants, rooted in the very being of God, manifest God’s being as love. God is in being for us. We human beings are in allowing God to be for us; in allowing God’s unconditional love to determine our nature.

For the Christian then, human essence is not destructive. Human essence (the imago dei) reflects God as the living community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit who in their mutual togetherness, their mutual affirmation and their mutual complementarity provide the basis for a life in which “difference” and “otherness” does not necessarily lead to conflict but can add colour and promise to life.

It has nevertheless become necessary to distinguish between human essence and human existence; between the way we have been created and the way we in fact are. We were not created to be destructive, cruel and violent. However, by using our limited freedom to shift the focus from God to self, by functionalising God for our own interest, by arrogating divinity to ourselves, humanity had to leave paradise for an existence “east of Eden” (Gen 3:24). Having shifted the focus from God to self, the human being has become estranged (not separated!) from the source of life. We experience not only aloneness but loneliness. Existential anxiety overtakes us because we feel that we now have to create our own vision of life. Paradise with the promise of life has become a jungle where everyone wants to create and protect their own little kingdoms. The Bible calls this “sin”; a life in which God’s purposes have been distorted by our unbending self will.

But since God’s covenant is unconditional (“God is love”) therefore God’s creative being provides ever again the possibility for a change of heart, for a new way of living. Selfishness, conflict, violence are not to have the last word. And just as God provided the possibility of liberation from the slave masters in Egypt (Exod 3 and 6), just as God wanted his people to sing again after having been sad and despondent at the rivers of Babylon (Psalm 137), so God provides ever new possibilities to solve human conflict.

The reality of reconciliation - What God has done

God’s answer to human conflict is the event and the ministry of reconciliation. We need to hear that! We are reconciled with God and therefore with each other. Reconciliation is a theological fact. Psychology, sociology, politics, and conflict resolution experts can help us to become what we are. They can bring to light what is already there. But they cannot create reconciliation. And they don’t need to create reconciliation because God has already done it.

The apostle Paul describes the gift and the task of reconciliation in an admirable way to the church in Corinth (2 Corinthians 5:17-21):

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 (deo/meqa) 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.

This text is a summary statement of the Christian message of reconciliation. It makes clear, first of all, that in our Christian understanding of reality God has reconciled the world with himself. Given the human fact of estrangement and selfishness, and the resulting conflict and violence, God has laid the foundation of reconciliation.

In the life of Jesus, God opened himself up to those who were thrown to the margin of life and provided them with space and with a future in God’s world. When conflict, opposition and finally violence came and took over, God did not flinch from his passion to make human life whole. He took the resulting death of his Son into himself, and thereby defeated the estranging power of death. This became historically manifest as God raised Jesus from the dead and let him appear to the first believers. Our text therefore emphasises that reconciliation is grounded in Jesus Christ: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

By raising the crucified Jesus from the dead, God has spoken a new reality into the world. It is the reality that death and its estranging powers, that violence and conflict, will not have the last word. God will have the last word. And this final word is the word of reconciliation which is spoken into our world and which can modify our living and our dying. That is why our text can say: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

And since God is the “creator of heaven and earth”, therefore the reconciliation that he has established in Christ is universal. That is emphasised in Colossians 1:19f.:

For in him (Christ) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him (Christ) God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

This brings us to a second emphasis in the reality of reconciliation. An emphasis that is often overlooked and misunderstood. Please remember: reconciliation is a divine reality, established by God in raising the crucified Jesus from the dead. As a divine reality, the God who in his very being is “for us” - “God is love” - includes us in the reality and the task of reconciliation. God who “through Christ” reconciled the world with himself, includes us in this reality of reconciliation through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Our text therefore emphasises that God establishes the reality of reconciliation and as part of that reality God also established the ministry of reconciliation. We read: the same God who established the event of reconciliation “has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ... So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us ....”

Reconciliation must be lived to become what it is. Reconciliation must be implemented, otherwise it does not fulfil its divine aim. Any talk of reconciliation without actively engaging in the process of reconciliation is an offence against the rules. If we affirm that God through Christ has reconciled the world with himself, then implicit in this confession is our firm resolve and commitment to open ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit, to accept the “ministry of reconciliation” and becoming “ambassadors for Christ”. It is God who has willed that God wants to make his “appeal through us”. Shall we accept God on God’s terms or shall we make God into an idol who has to dance according to our tune? It ultimately comes down to the challenge whether God is God to us or whether we create our own gods.

We notice, thirdly, that our text also addresses the question as to the method of reconciliation. The method of reconciliation must of course correspond to the reality and the content of reconciliation. The reality and content of reconciliation is bound to the story of Jesus. “In Christ” God has reconciled the world with himself. This is a “new” reality in which we are invited to participate through faith in Jesus Christ.

To recognise this inter-relationship of reconciliation with the story of Jesus our text says: “... we entreat/beg (deo/meqa) you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” It is difficult to find a proper translation for deo/meqa. The translators are struggling. The KJV: we “pray you”; the RSV: we “beseech you”; the NIV: we “implore you”; the NASV: we “beg you”; the NRSV: we “entreat you”. They are struggling to find a word which makes clear that the method of reconciliation must correspond to the reality and content of reconciliation. It must correspond to the story of Jesus.

By binding reconciliation to the story of Jesus and not to the story of Caiaphas and Pilate, reconciliation can therefore not be achieved by violence because Jesus shows his power in weakness and therefore helps us to distinguish between the power of weakness and the weakness of power.

Reconciliation can also not be commanded in an authoritarian fashion. It must be brought to people and it must grow in them so that they themselves can see the need for reconciliation and therefore manifest the costly commitment for reconciliation to take place.

Furthermore, there is no reconciliation without pain. Commitment to truth and justice is tested at the point of pain. The story of Jesus is one of pain, because he did not shirk from his vision of reconciliation when the road became steep and stony. He implemented his vision by accepting the burden of the mediator whose life is ground up by trying to bring two sides together. During the cold war in Europe a mediator had to crawl through a sewerage pipe to mediate between parties on either side of the iron curtain. In the attempt to mediate an acceptable compromise it often ended up with both sides saying: “you stink”. There can be no reconciliation without pain.

The story of Jesus is God’s non-violent but very passionate, non-coercive but very persuasive plea to tune into his passion for the world and thereby become part of the great process of reconciliation that he has established with Jesus Christ and that he seeks to drive forward in the power of the Spirit.

The task of reconciliation - What we have to do

We have said much about what God has done. God has set the table - will we sit at it? God has provided the meal - will we eat it? Although we have already emphasised that God does not live in splendid isolation, but that God includes us in his passion for the world, we must now ask what there is for us to do.

The first thing that we have to do, is to hear and understand what God has done. God does not by-pass us in doing his work in the world, but God lays the foundations, he provides the reality of reconciliation. Do we hear that? Are we listening to what God has done? Do we believe - faith comes from hearing! - that God in Christ has reconciled the world with himself? We don’t have create reconciliation; it is our task to claim and implement what God has done!

What happens when we hear, really hear? In light of what we have heard - and this is our second point - we will be led to repentance. Repentance means turning into the future of God. It means turning from our own ways of scheming and thinking and doing into the new possibility that there can be reconciliation because God has provided for it. Repentance is not a morbid feeling of guilt. It is part of the freedom that we experience when God becomes God in our lives: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

Repentance as the way of turning from a fascination with the past into the future of God results in prayer - that is our third point. In prayer we are opening ourselves to God’s ways. We listen to his word; we ask for the creativity of the Spirit to teach us the promise of affirming “difference” and “otherness.” We pray that God’s shalom rather than our ambition becomes the determining centre of our lives.

God’s ways include - fourthly - the concrete concern and engagement for justice and reconciliation. By listening, we hear the story of Jesus as God’s story of liberation; in repentance, we admit the folly of our own ways; in prayer, we turn from self to God; and now as we come to know God as God, we begin to participate in his passion for reconciliation. To know God means to do justice (Jer 22:15f.), and doing justice includes a concrete commitment to reconciliation.

Conclusion

As Christians we have tuned into and experienced the unconditional acceptance of God in Christ; we have received the promise of God’s presence in the power of the Spirit. God has shared and is sharing his life with us. He has reconciled the world and us with himself. It is all there.

It is now up to us to claim what is there; to become who we are. At this point we need to be quite honest. Let us not domesticate sola gratia (by grace alone) and sola fide (by faith alone) into cheap grace and easy faith. God is known “on the way”, and therefore to know God means to do justice.

Conflicts are real and they will remain a continuous challenge to human life together. But let us not forget that it is at the “point of pain” where the reality of our faith is tested.

God in Christ has reconciled the world to himself. In Christ we are “a new creation”. This reconciliation is a God-given fact. We don’t have to work for it. But we have to claim it and implement it. Therefore the gift of reconciliation includes the task of reconciliation. The God “who reconciled us to himself through Christ, ... has given us the ministry of reconciliation .... So we are ambassadors for Christ, ... God is making his appeal through us.” Let us make room for God to do his work of reconciliation! Then we can face the years 2000 and 2001 with joy and anticipation.