The Work of Reconcilation

Homily for February 23, 2025
The Seventh Sunday After the Epiphany
Luke 6:27-38

In the name of the loving, liberating and life-giving God, Amen.
Please be seated 

As I was preparing for the sermon this week, I found a younger version of myself in the mirror. This Allison was about two or three years younger-- finding her way in a new city, in a new state. She was not alone; her two best friends were with her-until they were not. In one moment, her world came crashing down as the frays of friendship strained, untangling until at last it was gone. Words such as love like Jesus,but it’s not fair and well wait maybe it is because of my sin flooded my thoughts. It was here, at twenty-four years old, that today’s passage called into question everything I once thought about it.

This Gospel reading is well known- is hard to miss the astonishing words of Jesus to love your enemies and turn your other cheek. But I wonder how many of us, myself included, have somehow avoided taking time to consider the implications- that is until life circumstances bring us to the brink of conflict.

We hear-“be willing to suffer for wrong, seek forgiveness…” but how much, love others…but only if we can love ourselves, seek healing in a painful world. The work of self-inventory-the work of asking in the deepest part of our hearts these questions, may unsettle us. But it may also bring us towards reconciliation.

Reconciliation. The Oxford dictionary defines it as “the action of making one view or belief compatible with another.” On The Episcopal Church’s website, we explain reconciliation as “the spiritual practice of seeking loving, liberating and life-giving relationship with God and one another, and striving to heal and transform injustice and brokenness in ourselves, our communities, institutions and society.” It’s a word that bears weight because it’s even in our baptismal covenant: "will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?”

Now I know you are probably thinking, what does “reconciliation” mean beyond a bunch of fancy words all put together?

First, reconciliation requires facing and telling the truth, no matter how painful it may be. To reconcile is to repair a relationship, and that means looking at what happened with humility. It asks of us in our vulnerability to acknowledge with honesty the truth. It’s unsettling. Take for example our reading from Genesis.  Joseph encountered his brothers after they caused him years of pain. He spoke to them honestly, telling the truth about what happened to him. Yet he also tells the truth of the dire situation of famine which impacts his family. While Joseph referenced the wrong, he did not dwell on how he had been wronged.

Second, reconciliation involves action, not just words. Instead of just speaking to his brothers, Joseph does his part to make things right.  He sends for his father, promising that he will provide for the entire family during the famine. When we offer reconciliation, we offer out of our own agency to repair the wrong.

Third, reconciliation is possible in even the worst of circumstances. Although his brothers wronged him, Joseph sought reconciliation with them. It was not an easy road, and it included some family drama you’ll have to stay tuned for. Yet, it was a journey he sought to be in relationship with his family once again.

And Joseph’s story isn’t an isolated one- time and time again in human history, reconciliation is a process that takes many forms. The journey towards right relationship is a process that exists since the earliest of societies. It’s easy to miss though because many people believe reconciliation means things going back to the way they were or forgetting what happened and moving on. But reconciliation is a process. It is not immediate.

Desmond Tutu understood this all too well. Tutu was an Anglican Bishop serving in wake of apartheid in South Africa. He was someone who stood up and said the way of love is needed despite the suffering around us. Taking his theology seriously, he was vital in the work of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. When asked why, he spoke these words...

Loving, forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies is not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back or turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness of the abuse, hurt and the truth. It could even  sometimes make things worse for awhile. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile because in the end only an honest reality can bring forth real healing.[1]

Reconciliation is a risky undertaking. In the wake of apartheid, love was not without forgiveness; a forgiveness that does not ask to forget, but involves trying to understand,dealing with all the past to make the future possible. For Tutu's community, much of the suffering was fresh in their memories. Tutu was responding to apartheid; to the political upheaval in a nation wrestling with racism, and inhumane suffering. It is not uncommon, as even our own nation's political unrest triggers much harm and questions of morality. Something Tutu learned in his work is the power in acknowledging being more deeply wounded than we first imagined.

Only then, can we start loving well, bringing the good, bad and ugly to a place of reckoning. Only then can we begin to reconcile. Loving well was what Joseph offered to his brothers. The reconciliation that happens at the end comes with hard truth-telling.  His brothers were astonished and terrified. It’s been years since they had seen Joseph, years since they had sold him into slavery and may had believed him to have died since. And now he appears before them with power, and they come as victims of famine, desperate to buy food for their families. What does Joseph do? He remembers how they hated him and sought his destruction, but he does not want revenge. In doing so, he opens the door to reconciliation. The reconciliation starts but does not fully occur in the encounter we hear today-it is a much longer road.

This is the way of love, the way of Jesus which always turns our world upside down, turning it right side up again. Through reconciliation we learn to love our neighbors, our enemies, ourselves. As former Bishop Michael Curry exclaimed:

At home and at church do unto others as you would have them do to you. That will turn things upside down. In the boardrooms of the corporate world, in the classrooms and academic world, on the streets, in the halls of legislature and councils of government, wherever human beings are do unto others as you would have them done unto you.[2]

The work of reconciliation leads us into an upside down right side up world. It is beyond a culture of violence or eye for an eye. When we bear witness of our God, when we live lives of love in the face of the world’s violence, we join saying to those who hate your voice will not be the loudest. Seeking the good of the other, we the followers of Jesus, can build up community in a world that desperately tries to tear it down.

Today’s Gospel challenges the disciples and us to break the cycle of a culture steeped in violence. Earlier in this chapter of Luke, Jesus spoke to those excluded on his account. He offered them blessings. And now he encourages all of us who hear him to live out of that same joy, regardless of what others are directing toward them. Jesus’ teaching is radical because he invites us into an active response to things which divide. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, and Joseph are examples of this radical living, seeking reconciliation in the way of love. And the Allison that I used to be two or three years ago, who lost some of her friends in the midst of navigating life transitions, can now move forward to find reconciliation and healing.

May we too find ourselves brought towards encounters which demand risky undertaking to bring forth real healing.

Amen.

[1]Desmond Tutu. “No Future without Forgiveness”

[2]“The Power of Love; sermons, reflections and wisdom to uplift and inspire,”[Former]Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, 2018

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