The Ministry of Reconciliation: Crossing borders

Ephesians 2:11-22

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God…. Ephesians 2:19

In this letter to the Ephesians Paul talks of God reconciling two groups of people through Christ: The two groups are Jew and non-Jews, Jews and everybody else. To reconcile usually means to make amends, to make up after an argument. That’s the common understanding of reconciliation, and it is an important one. Every time we say the Lord's Prayers, we pray that we might be forgiven our debts as we forgive our debtors.  But, having overheard our treasurer Lisa Wigand working with our bookkeeper, I know that there is another understanding of the term reconciliation. To reconcile accounts is to make sure that they balance. The bank statement and the check register do not need to shake hands and say “All is forgiven!” At the end of the day they just need to be equal.

That’s another way to see the ministry of reconciliation. It is one of the churches ministries, according to the apostle Paul (2 Cor 5) the ministry of reconciliation. It is a relational ministry. It does mean to be reconciled, one to another, it does mean forgiveness and restitution. 

But the ministry of reconciliation is also a justice ministry. Consistent with the words of the prophets and the story of God’s intervention for the benefit of the poor, enslaved, and down-trodden, the ministry of reconciliation means that the church is called to declare God’s will for a just balance. The church is called to bear witness to the equality of all people under God.

There is a power on the earth that hates equality, that fears reconciliation, and prefers division. A History Lesson: In 1663, in the colony of Virginia, Irish and English indentured servants and African slaves together plotted rebellion against their masters. The plot was put down in the usual violent manner. But the unusual alliance between white indentured servants and black slaves shook the confidence of the land owning class. In order to decrease the likelihood of an alliance between black and white servants, Virginia’s House of Burgesses passed new laws which granted new rights to white indentured servants and further restricted the rights of African slaves. White privilege was born. It was very effective. The lives of poor white indentured servants were, at first, only marginally better than that of black slaves. But the margin became wider when the term of indentured servitude was limited by law, and the term of slavery extended infinitely, from one generation to the next. Black and white servants never again joined forces against their masters.

It is a very old strategy: in order to consolidate and maintain power, the ruling elites create division among people, lest they unite in rebellion against their rulers. In the Roman Empire, the privilege of citizenship was the reward for cooperative captives. Conquered peoples could buy citizenship for themselves and their families, and enjoy the protection of the empire. Uncooperative or rebellious peoples would be punished. The worst punishment, reserved for insurrectionists, was crucifixion.

Like most of us, the Ephesians to whom Paul wrote were probably somewhere in the middle strata. Some may have been Roman citizens, some may have been slaves, but most were probably neither elite, nor slaves. They were people who were subject to the peace of Rome. They each had their place in the new world order.

To these people Paul wrote, “you are no longer strangers or aliens, but you are citizens… members of the household of God.” Equal status is the reward and equal regard is the expectation of life under the peace of Christ. Now that’s different-- different from the peace of Rome and different from the domestic tranquility of these United States.

I am reminded of a quote that caught my attention when I was watching, but not really watching, a movie. The movie was on, Richard was watching it, I wasn't really paying attention until I heard the cynical old newspaper editor say to the young idealistic reporter, "The average Joe doesn't want to rock the boat, because he's hoping to climb aboard." Maybe there were people in the church in Ephesus who were hoping to climb aboard, hoping to someday rise to the status of Roman citizens. There is no reason to imagine they would be any different from us.

We are not without social stratification. Observe how the powerful seek to create divisions among the rest of us. What if we rejected those divisions? What if we reached down and up and out to claim each other as “equally citizens?” Imagine.

The cost of discipleship may seem higher for we who have the most to lose—we who have privilege. But the cost of remaining blind to our privilege is higher still, because we might miss out on the experience of reconciliation and the peace of Christ that comes from being part of something new: God’s reign, emerging here "on earth as it is in heaven."

It won’t be easy:

Power concedes nothing without a struggle.
 If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
 This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
 -- Frederick Douglass, speech at Canandaigua, New York, August 3, 1857.

As long as we accept the place that power has given us, we can live in peace. But we can't be free. We are free only when we are reconciled to one another, when we are equality citizens of the reign of God.

Choose this day whom you will serve.