The Good Work of Reconciliation

Recently I was asked to speak at the national conference for the Association for Christians in Student Development (ACSD). The organizers asked me to give a theological account for the work of student development and to show how the themes of the conference connected to the good work of student life. Here is the third  installment of the six talks I gave on June 10-13. 

Session 3         The Good Work of Reconciliation

 Good morning. I hope the past two days have been encouraging for you; that you have a renewed sense of purpose and value in what you do; that you’ve been able to connect with your people, and perhaps even meet new people; and that you’ve had rich fellowship with God, and  have sensed God’s comfort and direction in your life.

Lectio Divina: Jeremiah 9.24

Over the past two days, we’ve been thinking about how our work is connected to the work of another—that of Jesus Christ, who has gathered us and called us to good works that he has prepared for us to participate in. Yesterday we reflected on the essential task of attentiveness. If we are going to orient our work around another, around the work of Jesus Christ, we must learn to pay attention to what he is doing in us, and through us, and before us, and around us. When we pay attention to God through prayer, Scripture engagement, and spiritual direction we come to see what he is up to in our midst.

Yesterday, we ended with a reminder of that it is Jesus’ delight to share the love that he enjoys with the Father. The triune God is an eternal life of overflowing love that he wants us to know and enjoy. Today we are going to briefly reflect on justice. Too often, love and justice are seen as competing aspects of the work of God, as if God is conflicted, and in some sense even afflicted, by the two.  But the truth is that justice is love. “Justice is what love looks like in public (as Cornell West has said).” Justice is what it looks like when God’s love is received and given in a community; justice is what happens in a community when people have been reconciled to God’s life of love and join in his work—when they are attentive to what God is up to in the world.

 When we are reconciled to God in Christ, we come to know, to receive God’s love for us. But we also come to see, we come to realize that the love that he has for us is the same love he has for others. When we pay attention to what God is doing in us, we come to see that he is doing that for the sake of the world as well. We come to see that he is not only working for my wellbeing, but he is working for “our” wellbeing. God’s good work in Jesus Christ makes us rethink what we mean when we say “we”; and it confronts us, in our increasingly tribalized age, to reconsider who “they” are.

 Since God is a gatherer of all kinds of people, and since God gathers in order to pour out his love, God is about justice, steadfast love, and righteousness. This is what his love looks like when it is enculturated, when it is worked into systems, institutions, and patterns of life. This is why, as our text reminds us, that the LORD delights in steadfast love (hesed), justice (mishpat), and righteousness (tsedaqah) in the earth (Jer 9.24). Justice is not an add on; it is not an accoutrement to the Christian life—it is another name for love. These three words (steadfast love, justice, and righteousness) encapsulate not only what God is up to in this world but also what we are called to participate in if we are going to share in God’s life of love as we engage in the world with others.

 When Paul, in 2 Cor 5.17-20 for example, talks about us being given the ministry of reconciliation, what he means is that relationships are being restored through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. But it is important to underscore that he is not just talking about individuals being made right with God. Instead, he is talking about all kinds of broken relationships being restored because of our individual and corporate rebellion against God.

 In the opening chapters of Genesis, we learn that humans are designed to exercise power on God’s behalf over our earthly environment. We are called to represent God as image bearers, to orient our work around his work. We are called to use the power given to us by God to transform the world into a complex culture that bears witness to God’s rule, love, and pleasure. This is our sacred calling—and it requires that we engage with and for the sake of others.

 But the early chapters of Genesis also remind us that we have—individually and corporately—forsaken this sacred calling. And as a result, all our relationships have been twisted and distorted: our relationship to God, our relationship with others, our self-understanding, and our relationship to the rest of creation has been corrupted and deformed. As a result, we have been conditioned to use our power to seek our own self-interest, our own security—more often than not at the expense of others. This is what the Bible refers to as injustice.

 The ministry of reconciliation is intended to heal all of those broken, distorted relationships. It starts with being reconciled to God—but it can never end there. So as we join God in his ministry of reconciliation, as we orient ourselves around his work in this world, we must expect to be called into the messy, challenging, hard work of being reconciled to others. As we pay attention to God in us, through us, around us, and before us, we must expect that what God is up to is reconciling all kinds of relationships—personal relationships, relationships among various groups with particular identities and interests, and our relationship with non-human creation.

 Therefore, if we are going to orient our work around the work of Jesus Christ, if we are going to join God in what he is doing in this world, then we are going to have to love in public, love in community, love for the sake of others. In a word, we are going to have to engage in justice and righteousness. In today’s keynote address, Justin Giboney is going to flesh out what this looks like in our current cultural moment. As we prepare for what he has to share with us, take some time to reflect on the following questions:

 

What are the ways that our cultural moment has distorted the biblical notion of justice?

 

What are the ways in which we are tempted to use our power for our own self-interest?

 

How does your work in student development intersect with God’s work of justice (love in public)?

 

Arise, O LORD! Let not our rebellion prevail! Reconcile us to your life of love, and make us instruments of your justice—that your name may be glorified, and your creation be healed. In Jesus’ name. Amen.