Reconciliation Begins With God
Monday is Valentine’s Day. And since I’m a pretty romantic guy, today’s column is about romance and love and mushy things.
Right? I don’t think so!
In fact, I could easily spend our visit talking about the current surge of contemporary Christian music that seems to imply a relationship with Jesus is a. … No, I won’t do that because the kind of love I want us to think about today goes beyond romantic love. Way beyond!
It goes way beyond romance because it starts way before romance. It begins with a primary act only God can offer: reconciliation.
A few people who responded to my last column on dark nights of the soul asked more about the sermon I preached called “Reconciliation Begins with God.” They wondered what I had said that had impacted me so.
I’d like to share a few of thoughts from that day’s sermon. But two warnings: (1) A warmed-over sermon text may be no more appealing than day-old French toast warmed up in the microwave; (2) I don’t dare share the whole sermon, because if I did, I’d have an overwhelming compulsion to take an offering. And I know you don’t want that!
So (a few of) you asked for it.
Remember, preaching is most effective in the context of the listener, not merely the preacher. What you listen for in your heart makes any sermon great!
Reconciliation doesn’t begin with any estranged relationship you may have experienced. It begins with the relationship God has with you!
Psalm 139 (my favorite) reminds us there is a world of difference between the Creator and the created. God asked Job, “Where were you when I created the foundations of the world?” The psalmist’s answer? “You knew me before I was even formed in my mother’s womb. You were there. You knit my parts together.”
God wouldn’t go to all the work of knowing us before he knit our parts together, re-forming us, only to let us go and have no further contact with him.
God knows us infinitely better than we can ever know ourselves - and still wants to re-connect with us, to put aside our rebellious, isolationist tendencies.
God wants to draw us into a friendship that goes deeper and wider than any kind of friendship we might ever imagine.
That’s called reconciliation. And it begins with God.
It isn’t easy for us to imagine that we are worth that kind of effort on God’s part. But we are!
It isn’t easy for us to imagine that the darkness we feel in our lives is not dark to God. But the darkness is as light with God.
And it is God’s deepest, most radical desire to draw us out of the darkness we see into the light God knows is beyond that darkness.
That’s called reconciliation. And it begins with God.
The psalmist is courageous to admit his vicious attitude of revenge. His courageous honesty comes from an intuitive awareness of God’s radical hospitality.
I believe this deeply, even when I don’t have the courage to act on it. My hunch is you know that same tension in your lives, too.
The psalmist intuitively knows that even his wickedness won’t derail the ever-faithful yearning of God to lead him on a journey of wholeness, of peace.
That journey is called reconciliation. And it begins with God!
Then we hear some familiar words from St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 5: “Be reconciled to God.” (NRSV) “Let God change you from enemies into his friends.” (TEV). And we nod our heads, maybe even our hearts, in agreement.
But then we go on “doing life” in our normal ways. Maybe because we don’t know what else to do. Or because we’re afraid of trying something that may change us forever.
Or maybe we have a bundle of excuses for just staying as we are.
Reconciliation is not a goal easily reached by most of us. The complications only begin with our own fears.
Who else we fear may be in the darkness of separation waiting for us is a further complication.
But once we say “yes” to being friends with God, and honestly, soulfully experience that friendship, we find ourselves yearning to make other friendships work more deeply.
Once we embrace the truth that reconciliation begins with God, reconciliation with another person - in whatever form - is not only more possible, it is more likely.
Ordinary acts of kindness, simple gestures of courtesy, even common elements like bread and a cup, may not seem like big deals. And they aren’t.
Unless your heart wants to experience life in a new way. Then it just may be called reconciliation.
And it begins with God!