Be Ye Reconciled!

Matthew 22:34-40
Rev. Kristi Denham
Congregational Church of Belmont
October 26, 2008

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all agree – the Law of Love trumps all the other laws found in scripture. It fulfills the best of them and challenges the worst of them. If it doesn’t look like love or feel like love or act like love, then it probably isn’t love. But let’s get practical: How do we live out this commandment to love our God, our neighbor and ourselves? It so often feels like we need to make a choice between them. How do we come to a reconciliation of all these forms of love?

Reconciliation is the key to how love looks in action. We are called to ministries of reconciliation, to be reconciled within ourselves, with our neighbors and our world, and with God and all of God’s creation. What does that look like?

After this upcoming election those who are disappointed in the outcome will be expected to reconcile themselves to the results. It will be time to put aside the acrimonious venom of this political season and begin again to work together for the healing of our nation and our world. Some may threaten to move to Canada if the vote don’t go their way, but they’ll probably stay and somehow be resigned to the outcome.

But the ministry of reconciliation we are called to is much more than resignation to what is. Reconciliation requires forgiveness and transformation of will so that we align ourselves with a power greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity.

Reconciliation requires inner spiritual work. Learning to love ourselves, our whole selves (including the shadow side that we’d rather deny exists) is foundational to loving others. For too long too many religious leaders have focused on our sinful natures to the exclusion of the goodness of God that resides in each of us. We need to acknowledge that spark of the divine in ourselves and cultivate it with compassion and care.

We are only able to be as good to others as we are able to be good to ourselves. We may deny this reality and think we are doing good when we sacrifice our own needs to the desires of others. But doormats do not fulfill the law of love. On the contrary, they create negative patterns and examples for the very people they hope to serve. The results are ultimately unloving and irreconcilable.

Self love and inner reconciliation will lead naturally and by definition to love of others, our family, our neighbors, our community, nation and world. If we don’t put love into action and literally challenge ourselves to love others as we would love our own children, we are living in a vacuum, creating a void around us that denies the spark of the divine in all of creation. We are interconnected by the web of life and loving others is loving ourselves when rightly understood. This is a mystery that wise ones in every great tradition have taught. As we align with our inner wholeness we will be drawn to love others through action. Charity is one hand of love. Justice is the other. Together they call us to work toward the Beloved Community envisioned by the Prince of Peace.

Love in action will call us to stand for justice, to work for peace, to feed and clothe and house our brothers and sisters less fortunate than ourselves. It will also call us to prayer. Devotion to God, to the Great Spirit of Oneness that goes by so many names but is the ground of all being, is essential to sustaining our love of others and ourselves. We need to put that love in action by committing quality time to our relationship with the Holy One. Solitude, silence, reading sacred text and spiritual books are all essential. And so is coming together with others to celebrate the divine, sing songs of praise, and to dance in the joyous light of God’s love. We renew our souls and encourage others by our commitment to live together in peace, to practice our faith in communities of faith.

Reconciliation is the essential call of our faith, of all faiths. The model of forgiveness practiced in South Africa at the end of apartheid challenges us all to a higher standard of justice.

In Coventry, England, St. Michael’s Cathedral stands as a powerful monument to the work of reconciliation in our world. In November, 1940, all but one wall and the altar of this magnificent medieval cathedral founded in 1095 and completed in the 15th century, was destroyed by German blitzkrieg.

Two burnt wooden boards from the rubble were erected as a new cross on the site of the old sanctuary. This prayer of reconciliation was placed at the foot of the altar:
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class, God forgive. The covetous desires of people and nations to possess what is not their own The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others ...

Our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the homeless, the refugee
The lust which dishonors the bodies of men, women and children ...
The pride which leads us to trust in ourselves and not in God,
God forgive.
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Amen.

An international ministry of reconciliation was built out of that devastation. A new modern cathedral was completed in 1962 but the old burnt cross and altar continue to stand as a reminder to all visitors that even this can be forgiven. Didn’t Jesus say, “God forgive them, for they know not what they do.”?

Today our community continues to work for reconciliation. Last Sunday evening members of our faith community gathered in our fellowship hall for conversation over dessert. With us were Muslims, Jews, Greek Orthodox, Catholics, Episcopals and other United Church of Christ members and faith leaders. We talked about what brings us joy, what we value in our individual faiths, the importance of educating our children to those values.

We listened, we laughed, we shared. And as the evening was coming to a close we asked individuals from each of eight circular tables to report on their experiences. Two young people had come with their family and each was chosen to report for their different tables. Their sense of wonder and excitement to be a part of a gathering that was inclusive and loving was a palpable gift to us all.

One of the last people to share expressed it this way: We realized that our faith is like a strong underground river that nurtures all of life. Our individual religions are like wells that dig deep into that ground of being that sustains us all. The wells are different in design but all tap into the same river.

A friend of mine, a member of a local synagogue, took me aside at the end of the evening. She had gone to Jerusalem last year and was shopping in an open market near an ancient Christian site. She bought a Jerusalem cross from a kind Muslim merchant for her Christian friend – me! I wear it now proudly. It is a humble reminder of the power of reconciliation to bring peace to our wounded world. May it be so. Amen.