Over the past several weeks, many in our congregation have participated in my Wednesday evening Lenten Series, “Being Reconciled in Christ.” For those who have not been able to attend, I wanted to highlight this topic further, since I think it is such an important one for all Christians to address.
            Here’s why.
            As Christians, we are called to be reconciled one to another in Christ (Matt 5:23-24). Yet in my nearly twenty years of ordained ministry, it has been my experience that individual Christians (clergy included) are ill-equipped to carry out this charge. As a consequence, they too often suffer through broken and strained relationships with family members, co-workers, supervisors and even fellow parishioners. These tensions, in turn, often lead to a deterioration of their spiritual lives, as well as a general erosion of their relationships with others. In fact, I’ve found no greater stumbling block to one’s spiritual growth than the inability to work towards reconciliation within a broken relationship.
            In pondering over this painful realization, an old friend came to mind. He is a former parishioner and family friend who served as Judge of the 101st District Court in Dallas, Texas. In that role, he presided over innumerable civil cases involving bitter disputes, not infrequently between parties professing to be Christians.
            While acknowledging the role of the civil court in our society, my friend nevertheless came to believe that his clogged dockets were symptomatic of a larger, systemic failure - a failure of our society and the Church to encourage and facilitate a more constructive means of conflict resolution than the oppositional approach taken within the courtroom.
            And so, he became involved in a ministry of Christian mediation. In it, he and other trained mediators worked with estranged parties, seeking to promote not just a resolution of their differences, but genuine reconciliation. They explored with them not just the “facts” of the case, but the underlying attitudes and feelings involved. Through prayer and reflection upon key passages of Scripture, they sought to foster a climate more conducive for the healing work of the Holy Spirit.
            The work was often difficult, especially in the early stages. But when breakthroughs came - and they often did - they were dramatic.
            My friend also believed that education was an essential component of this ministry. He spoke in one of my Sunday school classes about the topic and introduced us to PeaceMaker Ministries (www.peacemaker.net), founded by a lawyer named Ken Sande, author of the book The Peacemaker. The organization is devoted to a ministry of reconciliation, especially among Christians. I have drawn heavily from his materials in presenting my Lenten class.
            While there is no substitute for working through the materials in Sande’s book (partially available on the PeaceMaker website), they generally expand upon two crucial passages of Scripture that address this issue.
            The first is Jesus’ saying about removing the log from your own eye before attempting to remove the speck from your neighbor’s (Matt 7:3-5). In other words, before doing anything, examine your own conscience. Relatively few disputes involve blame on only one side. Ask yourself: in what ways do I first need to confess my sins to both God and my neighbor in this dispute (James 5:16)?
            The second saying is Jesus’ commendation of a graduated approach towards Christian confrontation, where we first go privately to the offending person before involving other mediating or authoritative parties (Matt 18:15-17). The prevailing tendency in our society is to short circuit this process and to escalate the situation immediately, either combatively or passive aggressively. Neither of these alternate approaches typically promotes constructive change or reconciliation. Often they do the opposite.
            There is doubtless a lot of work we can all do towards being reconciled one to another in Christ. Yet while we cannot solve all the world’s problems, we can begin with ourselves. As the old folk hymn from the 1960s goes: “let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with ME.”
            Through the mercies of our heavenly Father, this Lent we too can begin to find healing reconciliation within our lives- leading us to a more joyous and meaningful Easter than we have ever known!