Non Theological Reconciliation

Reconciliation is a big word.  Reconciliation is (among other things) a gift.  To be reconciled with someone means to give the gift of trust exactly where you have very good reason not to give it.  Reconciliation is also not a first step.  You can't short circuit the process of grieving through the pain caused by evil.  You can't short circuit the real loss and the real anger.  If you do, than what you arrive at isn't actually reconciliation -- it is a fairy tale land in which we pretend to be at peace.

Our faith claims to offer reconciliation.  More than that though, our faith claims to actually be reconciliation.  The whole drama recounted in the Scriptures, continued in the life of the church today, and (we hope) completed in the bodily resurrection of all is itself a story of reconciliation.  The drams is a story of humanity being reconciled with God, of humanity being reconciled again with creation, of humanity being reconciled with each other, and of personal reconciliation -- a healing of the internal divide that sin causes in each of us.

This reconciliation, we profess, happens in and through the work of Christ.  Somehow his incarnation, life, crucifixion, descent into hell, resurrection, and ascension make possible all of this reconciliation.

Unfortunately for us, while everything I have just said is true, it doesn't make things any clearer.  What we usually end up doing (in Seminary anyway) is arguing about just how this reconciliation happens.  We have a tendency to say that if you are arguing wrongly, you don't believe rightly.  And, if you don't believe rightly, you may not be reconciled.  It is easy enough to clarify the different ways of arguing -- and for the most part they fall under denominational differences -- although here yet again some would argue that they don't.

What interests me here (and this really is the point of my post today) is trying to find ways of getting at reconciliation without doing so using any of the theology we argue about.  I'm certainly not trying to collapse the very real differences of opinion we have on how reconciliation is achieved through God in Christ.  But I think there is much more to our very real lack of reconciliation with each other.

I also think that not all reconciliation has, first of all, to do with our relationship with God.  I know that that is a fairly controversial thing to say, and is probably even wrong.  But bear with me.  It needs to be said.  We Christians need to hear that there is so much more to what makes us people than our relationship or status of reconciliation with God.  We are more than our beliefs about God, we are more than our spoken message (to non Christians!), we are more than our effort to follow Christ.  

I'll close this with this slightly tangential story.  Luther (those of you who know me know that Luther isn't my favorite theologian... hopefully me using him can be seen as an act of good faith.)  When he finally got it -- when his reading of Romans made the story of man's reconciliation with God make sense for him at a very visceral gut level, do you know what he did?  He went outside and planted a tree.  He created new life.  Can we do that?  I like to think that if we do do that, it will aid us in our journey towards reconciliation.