Pastor Jill Russell
As I write this, we are halfway through the Season of Reconciliation and deep into Lent planning. It seems we are forever living in multiple seasons like this as worship planners. I’m actually grateful for this intermingling of themes as we live in one season and plan for the next, because that is pretty much what life is like. We may assign the theme of waiting to the season of Advent but find the wisdom of what it takes to live with the unknown and the not-yet hitting us in the middle of the summer. So I trust you’ll forgive me if I keep reflecting on reconciliation in what is to be the Lenten issue of Salt and Light!
In particular, I wanted to reflect on why a season that we call reconciliation has in recent years come to include so much emphasis on issues of justice and equity. On a superficial level, it may seem like these two themes are at odds. They can certainly pull from different emotional fields. For those who are comfortable with life as it is, it can feel upsetting and unsettling to venture into topics like mass incarceration as we did one year or race in America as we have done this year. Talk of justice and equity can call to mind the energy of a fiery prophet, whereas talk of reconciliation and restoration can call to mind the gentle spirit of a peacemaker.
You may recall that during my sabbatical in 2015 I did some reading and further reflection on the work of reconciliation. I wanted to understand how these themes of justice and reconciliation connected and why sometimes it felt like they were at odds even if the endgame was the same. I remember very clearly after I returned from my sabbatical and began preaching again that one of our elders commented to me that I was leaning more into the realm of the prophet after my sabbatical. I suspect it was because of that deep dive. We can sometimes associate the idea of peacemaking with making everything pleasant and comfortable, especially if we define peace as an absence of tension or conflict. Martin Luther King, Jr., speaks of this in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail when he says: “My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word ‘tension.’ I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.” [emphasis mine.]
Genuine peace and true reconciliation require an honest grappling with what has disrupted the bonds of connection in the first place. You can’t get to restoration without first probing the dynamics of injustice. We get this all the time when talking about restorative circles. People wonder how you can keep the conversation from escalating out of control if you invite participants to dive so deeply into what went wrong. “How do you keep it calm?” someone asked in our facilitator training last week. And our response is “We don’t!” We aren’t trying to keep a lid on the conflict. We are trying to open it all up so that people can really hear one another. Because only after we can hear and understand what is truly broken between us, do we have any hope of finding a path forward that can bring about genuine reconciliation. This work isn’t about playing nice or smoothing things over. These are often fierce conversations where hard truths are spoken and painful realizations are brought to the fore.
The Presbyterian Church USA has an observance they call Peace with Justice Sunday. When I think about what it takes to commit ourselves to the ministry of reconciliation, this is exactly what it includes: peace with justice. After all, Jesus’s teaching and healing ministry moved between these polarities all the time: calling the powerful to relinquish their privilege and inviting the vulnerable to claim their dignity. He preached with the fire of the prophet and he connected people with the spirit of a peacemaker and all of this was part and parcel of his work of reconciliation among us.
As we explore the theme of examination during this season of Lent in our preaching, I hope we will hold a similar tension that the season of reconciliation requires from us. Just as we need to probe what is broken in this world if we ever hope to be part of making things whole again, we need to be willing to risk examination if we want the joy of new life. We cannot have the one without the other. The revealing and addressing of injustice makes way for genuine peace and reconciliation. The probing work of Lenten examination makes way for the transformation and new life of Easter.
I look forward to this Lenten journey and the season of Eastertide that is to follow. I hope you will too.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jill