Passing the Peace of Christ: More than ‘Meet & Greet’

Apparently it’s a hot topic of late on church blogs and elsewhere where churchy things are discussed: whether or not to have a time during worship for what most call ‘meet and greet’, but what in the church I serve we call the exchange of the peace of Christ.

Checking in to one of those blogs, I read this comment:  Once the service of worship of the Triune God has begun, that is my purpose for being there.  Not to fellowship with others. . . Once worship begins, that should stop.

I was, I have to admit, stunned at the idea that fellowship could be seen as something having no place in worship.  After all, I reasoned, what is communion?  Is Jesus our only boyfriend when we come to the communion table?  In my tradition the answer is as simple as it is clear: no.  Thus there is never a time when someone has communion alone – not even just them and the pastor.  An elder is always in attendance, for example when serving to the home-bound, as a representative of the entire body.  In our way of understanding, communion is, by definition, a communal event we participate in with the whole body of Christ across time and space.

Thus the very idea of a collection of islands, each alone and surrounded by their own particular sea, seems odd indeed to me when thinking of worship.

And then I remember how I was when I first started attending church.  I went church shopping.  And just like Goldilocks (without the larcenous intent), I had a difficult time finding a place where they got it ‘just right’ (meaning to suit me).  

One church never greeted me.  Another church-stalked me (with the best of intentions, I know) at work with a plate of cookies.  The church where I finally landed, however, taught me by example and I returned, in substantial part, not because of how they greeted me, but because of how they greeted each other.  

I didn’t think about it that clearly at the time, but the fact is that I was an outsider as someone new to their community.  How could I not be?  And that’s not about cliques.  Or about being welcoming or unwelcoming.  All of those things can matter.  But even when a church gets it ‘just right’, as a newcomer, I am exactly that – new to the experience.  

It’s just not realistic for me as newcomer to expect that I’ll experience worship like I’ve been there all my life, for the simple reason that I haven’t.  

It is realistic to hope and expect that I will be treated like what I am: a visitor, a guest; that I’ll receive hospitality; that ‘they’ will be good hosts.  Of course, it’s also reasonable to expect from myself that I act as a good guest.  And that includes being open to the experience of what they have to offer me, whether it’s what I’m used to or not.

Being a good guest is how I learned that I actually do like asparagus.  I’m a very picky eater.  Always have been.  Probably always will be.  But my mother did teach me that when at another’s home, I eat what’s before me.  So there came the day at a friend’s house when they had asparagus as their vegetable.  And it was a small enough gathering that what I ate (or didn’t) would definitely be noticed, even with all my usual tricks.  So I swallowed my distaste and took a bite.  And turns out it was good.  It was fresh (rather than the canned I had known as a child) garden asparagus and it was delightful to my palate.

Now it could have turned out that I still didn’t like it.  My eating really didn’t have expectations, for I was doing the part of being a good guest and partaking of what was on offer.  The bonus for me was that I actually did like it, which I would have never known had my mother not taught me the good guest rule.

So to the folks visiting a church that meets and greets far outside your comfort zone, you might consider a few possibilities for what’s happening, rather than presuming that it’s done in disregard of your feelings as an introvert, or done thoughtlessly, or as an interruption to worship rather than as a part of worship:

1. Some people – as a pastor, I would say lots of people – in church on Sunday morning (or whenever their usual time is) are lonely.  They live alone.  They may not get out as much as they used to.  Their families may have moved away or died.  And they are lonely.  Fellowship before and after worship matter, but does nothing to alleviate the loneliness of sitting by one’s self alone again during worship.  The passing of the peace of Christ offers a unique point of contact, done in the context of the worship of God, serving as a physical reminder of the real and comforting presence of Christ in our midst.  It is a comfort.  And the Gospel promises us God’s comfort.

2. Some people are carrying burdens of resentment against others, at least some of whom are in the room with them on Sunday during worship.  Jesus’ call to reconciliation was so strong that he enjoined us to actually leave worship to go and work out our differences with others before coming before God’s altar.  Passing the peace can and does operate as a place, a space, within which to mend those relationships with something as simple as a handshake.  I know it works because I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes.  

3. The peace of Christ is that thing which, while true, surpasses human understanding.  The Word is conveyed by preaching, but proclamation comes from our actions as well as our words.  We proclaim Christ’s peace with our greeting of one another in Christ’s name (whether we say it literally or not) whenever we pass the peace.  And in the doing, something holy happens.  It may not always ‘feel’ like it.  But Christ is present in the exchange.  And we could all use a little bit more of the real presence of Christ.  Or so I’m thinking.

4. We worship God in the act of caring for one another.  When it comes to passing the peace of Christ, as in all other human endeavors, we will never, all of us, do it perfectly all the time.  So some may be too enthusiastic in their greeting.  Some may wander off task.  Some may feel their particular cocoon of safety threatened because some of those coming to them have less pastoral awareness than others.  There may be days when we simply cannot find it in our hearts to be at peace with anyone.  I am one who believes that Christ’s peace is big enough for all of our shortcomings and so much more.  

5. As part of a church’s liturgy, passing the peace of Christ is a public work of the people and as with all worship, is an offering to God.  Thus do we offer to God not only our time, our attention and our resources, but also our relationships with other people.

6. In the words of Paul Ryan, passing the peace “trains ours hearts, hands, and tongues in the ways of peace. . . [There is a] cumulative impact of weekly passing of the peace.  By regularly practicing this gesture, our hearts are shaped in the form of the words.  Consider the daily practice of training toddlers to say “please” and “thank you.”  Though at the beginning the toddler mechanically repeats the words, eventually her heart fills the words with grace and gratitude; indeed, her heart is shaped in the form of “please” and “thank you.”  In the same way, passing the peace gives us the vocabulary for expressing peace as we mature in faith and, in fact, shapes our hearts and minds in the form of peace.”  Reformed Worship  In other words, over time, we become what we do.  Becoming Christ’s peace is a call in the life of every believer.

To the gentleman writing that worship does not include what he conceives as fellowship, my own take is that fellowship (as in a body of believers worshiping together) is actually a part – an integral part – of worship.   Worship is not something we do alone, but in community. 

In the order of worship in the congregation I serve, we exchange the peace of Christ immediately following the prayer of confession and assurance of pardon – I understand this in the movement of worship as a way of extending to others that which we have ourselves received - the very peace of Christ himself. 

I have always understood worship to be participatory rather than observatory. The passing of the peace is an obvious aspect of participation in the work of the church that we call worship. 

On a less liturgical note, I often imagine worship as I'm planning it as a conversation around the kitchen table – focused on the topic/purpose at hand, but open enough to allow for the comings and goings we humans do when in our kitchens, with children a part of the family as opposed to strangers to the process, helping and participating as they can. 

When a visitor comes into my kitchen, they're usually given a task to do – it's a form of welcome,  as in 'can I help?'; 'sure, cut this onion for me, would you?'  

The idea of standing and moving around as disruptive of worship, it seems to me, conceives worship as only possible in quietude, in orderliness, in structure. All of those can and often are part of worship.

But for me, envisioning the whole, the ebb and flow from sound to silence and back to sound, from standing to sitting to standing again, from moving to stillness to back again, is integral to worship, which I understand more as a movement (think symphonic here) as opposed to a singular event. 

And may the peace of Christ, which surpasses all human understanding, be with you all, now and evermore.  Amen.

Down to the Hard Work of Reconciliation – Part 4

There is great responsibility to being a follower of Jesus Christ – the responsibility of binding

and loosing, the responsibility of heaven itself.  Yet this responsibility comes with an accompanying promise: the very presence of Christ himself.

In one of the most evocative verses on what it means to be church, Jesus tells his followers that when even a very few – as few as two or three – are gathered in his name, there he is among us.

Jesus has just been speaking of gathering in the cause of restoration where there has been sin and now he speaks of being there with ‘them’ – even with the one doing the breaking . . . as in my body broken – for you . . .

Now we are come full circle to the beginning – at the start of Matthew 18, the disciples are quibbling about who will be the greatest in the coming kingdom of heaven.

Jesus replies that the change that must happen is to become as children and admonishes his followers not to put a stumbling block before another – and perhaps this has been his point all along – after all, Jesus is speaking to his disciples – to the ones he entrusts to carry his gospel message to all the world.

It’s a big job, being a disciple.  It is crucial that they, that we, get it right.  Jesus makes clear what it is not about:

It is not about getting the first prize blue ribbon in some sort of race and if they/we insist on thinking of it that way, they/we would do better to try for last place rather than first.

It is not about being recognized for one’s power and dignity of office – it’s more like being a little kid with nothing to offer.

It is not about setting up gates and entrance exams and tests and setting bars higher and higher to get in.

It is not about setting ourselves as the example unless we are prepared to be the perfect example.  It is about pointing always and only to Jesus, who actually is – the perfect example.  

It is not about valuing station, position, or wealth.  It is about seeking the lost.  Always.

Maybe Jesus was speaking about as well as to the weak ones standing right in front of him, full-blown sinners themselves.  Maybe he was reminding them that their squabbles about who gets in first are just nonsense – harmful nonsense.  Maybe he was telling them that they had to first work this out among themselves before they had anything of value to bring to the world.

Maybe he was reminding them that their journey – our journey – is one of humility, where they, where we, must always be prepared, no matter how old, how advanced, how knowledgeable in bible studies, how closely aligned to Jesus himself, they, we must always be more prepared to be corrected than to correct . . . to be chastised as to chastise . . . to be put right as to put right.

Maybe he was teaching them that correction is a gentle thing that takes great care of the one being offered the correction.

Maybe he was suggesting that when sin and sinners and sinning come up, the one in the room I must first be concerned with is myself.

Maybe he was suggesting that if a sinner be ejected, we’d better leave too. 

Maybe he was suggesting that if a penalty needs to be paid, I should be willing to pay it for you, because we are family and brothers and sisters always take up for each other.

Maybe Jesus was suggesting that unity looks like family – sloppy, messy, mistake-making, feeling-hurting, wrestling-til-we-get-it-right family.

Maybe Jesus wants us to come to those who have done wrong as Christ comes to us – in humility rather than in judgment . . . in great desire for their good rather than for our right . . . in the willingness to take on the burden of their sins as our own that they might be reclaimed.  

Maybe.

Down to the Hard Work of Reconciliation – Part 3

Regardless of the precise meaning of Jesus’ instructions on how to progressively confront the unrepentant sinner in the body of believers, we are still left with the tax-collector-gentile conundrum: what on earth does Jesus mean when he says to treat the unrepentant one as a tax collector or Gentile?
The traditional interpretation over the centuries is that Jesus is instructing his followers to shun, to have nothing to do with, the one who will not repent.  

Is this what Jesus means?

Consider earlier in Matthew, as in Matthew 11.19, where Jesus is reproached, accused of being a drunk and a glutton who was a “friend to tax collectors and sinners” and in Matthew 9.10, where it is noted that “many tax collectors and sinners” came and ate with Jesus and his followers.  The Pharisees objected and Jesus replied, “those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

Maybe treating the unrepentant has nothing to do with shunning. 

It seems to have to do with expecting more rather than less from fellow believers (as we do with family).

But to treat the unrepentant as ‘tax collectors and Gentiles’ might well mean to treat them more gently rather than less. . . especially if we consider Jesus’ earlier statement that they are to be viewed as the ‘sick’ – as those with additional need for care, as those who require the help of a physician rather than the condemnation of a judge.

In practical terms, it might mean that you don’t put that person in a leadership position simply because they’re not up to the job.  But at the same time, you do continue to care for them. . . for as long as it takes – just like we do with the one who suffers a serious illness.

In 12-step programs, members learn a helpful slogan: I’m not a bad person trying to get good; I’m a sick person trying to get well.  Maybe Jesus is talking about going the distance with someone in great need of him – someone whose need is so great they cannot see it for themselves.

And maybe there does come a time when someone must be ejected from the fellowship with the hope that such an extreme measure will bring them to their senses, turn them around.

But I keep coming back to the witness of the desert fathers and mothers – early Christians who went into the desert and away from the cities in order to pursue more closely the life Jesus had called them to live.  Their stories are stories of extreme living, extreme sacrifice, extreme love – extreme Jesus.

Consider the time when a brother who had sinned was turned out of the church by the priest.  Abba Bessarion got up and went out with him, saying, "I, too, am a sinner."

In one monastery, if any committed a fault, many of the other brothers would seek the offending brother’s permission to take the matter to the abbot and to accept both the responsibility and the punishment.  When the abbot found out that his disciples did this, he inflicted easier punishments, in the knowledge that the one punished was actually innocent.  And he made no effort to discover the real culprit.

One brother leaves with the sinner, knowing himself to be a sinner too.  Others take on the punishment for the offender – like brothers and sisters do for each other all the time.

Maybe the tax collector-Gentiles among us are not the ones kicked out, but rather the ones held all the more tightly to, the ones we walk with because we recognize ourselves in them.

Maybe they’re the ones we make room for at the table for we are them.

Maybe as Jesus sees us, so we are to see them.  

Down to the Hard Work of Reconciliation - Part 2

In his sermon, Resentment and Forgiveness, Orthodox Priest Hieromonk Damascene says, “The Holy Fathers tell us that, in order to be reconciled to someone with whom we are at odds, the first thing we are to do is to accuse ourselves, not the other person. If we do not accuse ourselves, we will never find rest, and we will never make true and lasting peace with our neighbor. We will always be holding onto our pride.”

This is Jesus’ ‘step 1’ to reconciliation within the church body: if someone commits a wrong – against you or another*, go to them.  Speak privately.  Try to work it out between the two of you – and here’s the twist – beginning not with their wrong, but with your own.  In 12-step programs, that’s called looking at my part.

This is humility.  This is integrity.  And this is crucial to true reconciliation.

Only if that doesn’t work do you invoke the 1-2 other witnesses ‘clause’.  What do you suppose the point of the ‘witnesses’ is?  It certainly ups the ante to involve other people.

But it does something else as well that often gets overlooked: other people may have more objectivity.  They may actually see the other person’s point of view.  If there’s more to the story, the witnesses can bring that out.

Maybe both of you need to do some repenting.  Maybe not.  But having others present means this is no longer simply between the two of you and that has consequence for both parties.

What if even that does not work?  Well, then, you take it to the church – to the body as a whole.  Most interpret this to mean some sort of judicial process is initiated to excommunicate the offender – to kick them out of the body.

But is it?  Why else might we bring a matter to the attention of the entire body?

John Wesley sees Jesus’ method here as the means to avoid committing an offense in the first place: Wesley reasons that if we know this is the process and that it will occur regardless of our station in life, it operates as a disincentive for us to do wrong – much as knowing the fine for speeding and knowing that our local cop (yes, Duane, I mean you) always sits in that one certain place will prevent us from doing the speeding in the first place.

And maybe the invitation to take it to the body as a whole is driven by the body’s work of prayer – that is the very next thing Jesus mentions – recognizing that when the body prays, minds and hearts and lives are changed, truly changed.

Regardless of Jesus’ original intention, what both Wesley and the Genevan Reformers grasped that we seem to have forgotten is that the kingdom of heaven is not a courtroom drama.  Rather, it is a herculean effort by the God of All to reconcile humanity with God’s self – by avoiding human vengeance, by seeking to prevent sin before it has the chance to gain root.

And this God of loving restoration invites us to do likewise.


___________________
*Some mss. say ‘against you’ while others simply say if a brother/sister ‘sins’

Down to the Hard Work of Reconciliation - Part 1

Matthew 18.15-20 (NRSV)   If a brother (or sister) sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the brother (or sister) listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.  If the brother (or sister) refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.  Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.  Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

Down to the Hard Work of Reconciliation – Part 1

Throughout scripture, it is recognized that sin, the breaking with or turning away from God, is a harming, real, lasting, living thing that brings with it . . . broken relationships, broken people, hurt within and hurt without . . .

In this passage from Matthew, Jesus is recognizing the impact of that broken being on the body of believers as a whole.  In a very real sense, this is about unity.

The Genevan fathers read this text as a command from Jesus that within the body, we strive for agreement rather than seek for revenge.  It is the recognition that wrongs will happen even within the body and that we must address them.

We are not to simply do nothing, to pretend as if nothing happened, allowing our wounds to fester.  We are not to plot out our own course of getting even.  We are not to withdraw our affection and support from another within the body because they wounded us.

We are to make the effort to restore right relationship between us. And the responsibility rests as much with the one wronged as it does with the one doing the wrong.

This, then, is the Jesus twist: the one wronged has as much responsibility for dealing with the wrong as the one having done the wrong.

The reason is obvious: if it’s about unity rather than about staying even (what we think of as justice) – if it’s about unity, it does not matter who makes the first move.  

What matters is that the move – the move towards restoring relationship – be made.

In Leviticus 19.17-18, God instructs as to what the unity of family – the kind of unity Jesus speaks of – looks like:  You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself.  You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

When it comes to family, I don’t know about yours, but in mine, we are seldom, if ever, all in the same place at the same time.  In fact, most of the time we’re so out of step with each other that we couldn’t even walk in a parade together.

But that’s all right, because family isn’t about that.  It’s about the quicker ones waiting for the slower ones because we were made to walk together . . . it’s about knowing ourselves to be linked across time and space . . . it’s about welcoming each other home . . . every time . . . it’s about simply being – in family, you don’t have to prove who you are or that you belong – you simply are.  Some families are better at it than others, some are worse.  But no family looks at you standing at the door and asks who you are.

In Matthew 18, Jesus’ use of kinship language of brother (and sister) is important – it matters to these ‘rules’ and how they work.  This is a family affair.  

When it comes to family, we approach each other with an intimacy seldom found anywhere else.  Jesus’ point is that this level of intimacy – the closeness of what we call family – is to be found in the gathering, in what we call church.

Reconciliation: The Fruit of Forgiveness

2 Corinthians 5.17-21: . . . anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. . . All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. . . God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.  (The Message)

Reconciliation: The Fruit of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is

1. A gift – it is not deserved or earned.  It is given.

2. A sacrifice – forgiveness costs the giver.

3. A humbling – to receive forgiveness is to be humble.  So too giving forgiveness can be humbling.  Hubris will not do it.  Pride cannot receive it.

4. A work – something we do rather than something we think.

Knowing what forgiveness is – a sacrificial gift humbling to receive, costly to give, the work and the will together, the question remains, what is the fruit, the result, of forgiveness?

We forgive and receive forgiveness, is because God has so commanded.  This is obedience.  Have no doubt about it: if you are refusing to forgive, you are disobeying God.

Next, we forgive because it is in our own best interests to do so.  In his Yom Kippur sermon, a rabbi spoke about the importance of forgiveness – of seeking it and granting it: “Jewish law requires a person to ask for forgiveness three times—it must be genuine, heartfelt and inspired by true remorse. If the wronged individual does not forgive after three sincere attempts, then the person who did the wrong is forgiven and the one not forgiving becomes guilty and now needs to ask for forgiveness for not forgiving.”  Forgiveness is so important, so crucial, to the community of humanity, that to refuse to extend it when asked for is to take on the sin of the one seeking the forgiveness.

We forgive and are forgiven because it is in the interests of the one doing the harm to be forgiven.  It is an act of freeing from bondage and captivity – theirs as well as ours.

Ultimately – the very reason God commands forgiveness, is that we may be reconciled – to God, to ourselves, to the world.

Forgiveness is the agency of reconciliation –  cosmic rather than individual or even collective –  the work of heaven and all creation.

We are creatures made to live with others.  God has created all of this in such a way that what we do affects heaven as much as what heaven does affects us.

We are all in this universal boat together.  Reconciliation, the fruit of forgiveness, is the essential grease to the machinery of our lives together.  Without reconciliation, someone’s going to get kicked out of the boat.  Equilibrium is lost.  And the boat sinks.

Sometimes reconciliation looks like two estranged people coming back together into a relationship better than ever before.  Sometimes it means mom and dad stay divorced, but they quit fighting and start caring about the feelings, needs and desires of the other parent as much as their own.

Sometimes reconciliation means visiting the one who murdered your loved one in prison.  Or loaning your most bitter enemies money in order to rebuild their countries, as in the Marshall Plan following World War II.

Sometimes reconciliation means sharing your very best secret deer stand with the brother who never shared a single toy with you.  And being glad to do it.

It isn’t easy.  But it’s necessary.  Our world is crumbling in on itself for the want of some reconciling hands reached out in the hope, the dream, that things might be otherwise.

Beginning with ourselves, recall basic commonalities to all the possibilities of reconciliation:

1. Reconciliation means seeing the other person as a human being who is as loved and cherished by God as are you and treating them – broken, hurt and hurting them – accordingly.

2. It means being open to the possibilities of a new relationship beyond your wildest imaginings – which also means being open to the possibility of being hurt again.

3. Reconciliation means understanding, accepting and even embracing as good that we are all in this boat together and that we are all essential to the boat’s not sinking – none are expendable, not even those who have done me the most harm.

4. Reconciliation means living in to the reality that redemption is the way – the only way – for humanity to survive and thrive on this planet.  As Abraham Lincoln once famously said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand”.  To be unreconciled is to live in a permanently divided house, which is to say, no house at all.

As Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians, we are made new . . . we have been given a fresh start . . . that start comes with a challenge: don’t bring the old hurts, the old wounds, the old grievances with you into this new life. . .

God has entrusted God’s message of reconciliation to us!  It is an extraordinary gift.

Isn’t it time and past time to drop our  differences . . . roll up our sleeves and get busy doing the work – the work of making things right between us?

That, after all, is why we are here.

Forgiving Others

Colossians 3.13 (NRSV)  Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 

When it comes to forgiveness, the questions for us in the doing are many.  Here, then, are but a few:

1. Is it necessary that they ask for our forgiveness?  No.  In Luke 23.34, Jesus’ first words from the cross were, Father, forgive them.  They don’t know what they’re doing.  Full reconciliation or restoration may require some acknowledgment on the part of the other person.  Or it may not.  But in order to forgive someone the harm they have done me, it is just not necessary, biblically speaking, to wait for them to say sorry.

2. May we withhold our forgiveness for any reason?  No.  In Matthew 18, Peter famously asks Jesus how many times he should forgive someone – the proverbial problem of the repeat offender.  Jesus’ answer is clear – if you expect forgiveness from God, you’d do well to be prepared to forgive others as often as forgiveness is required.  Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a decision.  We may have to make the decision over and over again, but make it we must.

3. For whom do we make the decision?  For ourselves first.  And for the other.  It has been said that refusing to forgive someone is like drinking poison ourselves and expecting the other guy to die.  We forgive because bitterness, anger, resentments, grudges, eat us alive from the inside out.  But forgiveness also benefits the other person, whether they seek it or not, recognize it in that instant or not.  It is a gift we give – the same gift that was given to us – by God’s own self.

4. How do we do it?  There is lots of good advice in the Bible and elsewhere about how to forgive.  There is no one blueprint, but there are some common features:

a. first, we decide – as an exercise of our will rather than an experience of our emotions, we forgive.  It is both a choice and a commitment, for the act of forgiving does not end with our decision.

b. sometimes we have to pray to even be willing to be willing to forgive.  When we’re stuck in not being able to exercise our will to forgive but know that we should, simply ask God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.  Pray for a heart, a mind, a spirit, made willing to forgive.

c. we don’t minimize the hurt, the harm, the need for forgiveness.  Accept the reality of your past is how Rabbi Falcon puts it.  This thing happened.  It shouldn’t have.  But it did.  We need to admit to ourselves that this unforgiven thing done to us matters and it matters a lot.

d. we include the living and the dead – we may be holding grudges and hurts against people who are long dead and well beyond the need for our forgiveness for what they did, but we may still need to do the work of forgiving them.

e. we do the work, whatever it takes.  No one else can do this work for us.  We have to do it ourselves.

f. don’t judge ourselves harshly if it comes up again We may think we’ve done the work, that we’ve actually forgiven.  And then something happens and it all comes back up again.  That’s okay.  Forgiving is not forgetting in the sense of not remembering.  Forgiving is forgetting in the sense of not holding it against someone into the indefinite future.  So when we find the old resentments, have come back, we simply need to do a refresher.  When Jesus told Peter that seven times of forgiveness wasn’t enough and that it might be as much as 70 x 7, he might have meant to keep forgiving repeat offenses.  And he might have meant that it’ll take us a long time to complete our own forgiving work.  Both are true.  And both require leaning on God’s grace a great deal.

g. we must finally understand the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.  God desires that we be reconciled to each other.  But this side of heaven, that is not always possible or even desirable, principally because it depends on both parties being equally willing, equally healthy, equally able.  And that isn’t always true.  Consider repeat patterns of behavior, like domestic violence or child sexual abuse.  The work of both forgiveness and reconciliation is as practical as it is spiritual.  It requires addressing what is the best for all concerned.  And God always desires the best for each and all of us.  It is not best to place someone sexually attracted to children in the company of children.  It is not best to place one’s self in the physical sphere of someone who represents present physical or psychological danger.  It is not best to enable someone to continue their own self-destructive patterns.

Forgiveness is an act of strength, not weakness. Forgiveness is ours to give, not the other’s to demand.  One may ask for forgiveness, but one may not demand it.

It is our job to forgive.  It isn’t easy.  But it is necessary.

To forgive is to first understand that what happened is not okay.  Never was.  Never will be.  To forgive is to first understand that what happened is not okay and then to say, I will love you anyway.  Just like God loves me.

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Perhaps the best prayer I’ve ever read/seen/heard about the important work of forgiveness, from Rabbi Falcon, May no one be punished on my account.  Amen.

Bomb, Bomb, Bomb . . . Iraq?

What’s the problem?

One of the problems with our current course in Iraq is that it is a continued circumvention of our own rules of governance in the United States and it’s gone on so long, we – all of us – including Congress itself – seem to have forgotten that we actually have rules for this sort of thing.

a. it’s called a declaration of war.  That function belongs solely and only to Congress and not the president.

b. whether we’re ‘invited’ by the Kurds or not is beside the point.  If ISIS is no nation state, neither are the Kurds of northern Iraq.

c. whether we’re ‘invited’ even by the Prime Minister (is there one?) of Iraq or not is also beside the point as we have no treaty with Iraq for the provision of such military assistance (think NATO).  In fact, efforts to negotiate such an agreement failed.

d. President Obama described ISIS as ‘our enemy’.  Exactly when did they go from being the enemy of Syria and Iraq to being an enemy of the United States?

The problem is that we have had no national debate, discussion or reflection on this.  It further underlines how far we have drifted in our national consciousness from using the machinery of war only when the representatives of the people (Congress) say we should for our national defense to using our guns and bigger guns pretty much whenever the President (whoever that person may be) decides that we should.

Given that ISIS’ incursions in Syria and Iraq have been going on for months, if not years, it’s not as if there hasn’t been time to have that discussion.  And it is not okay that we haven’t.

We the people have abdicated our responsibilities to one person.  Is there a word for tyranny by default?

Why does this matter in this particular instance?  Aren’t ISIS bad guys?  Really bad guys?  Don’t they need killing?

The truth is that we don’t know.  We know what’s been told that they’ve done.  But we don’t have any idea about context.  And we don’t know, even if they’re bad guys, whether they’re our bad guys or not.

Maybe they are.  But the machinery of government already gives the executive branch great latitude in conducting our foreign affairs.  The line was drawn at the waging of war.  When did we allow ourselves to forget that?  To forget that the waging of war in this country is a collective decision because it is our collective responsibility?  That our system demands much from us as citizens, including our input on the big decisions.

Going to war, formally declared or not, is always a big decision.

I decry the death of James Foley.  But make no mistake – if we go to war (and it seems we already have) against ISIS, it will not be because of James Foley.  He will be the rallying focal point.  But he won’t be the reason.

And much as I love my Kurdish friends, I don’t know that going to war in order to promote Kurdish independence is a reason either.  Maybe we as a nation think otherwise.  But the fact is that we as a nation haven’t really thought about it at all.

Instead, as a nation, we are drifting into yet another war without much, if any, reflection, thought, direction, or purpose, save killing those declared unfit to live.

I don't pretend to have answers.  But I still have lots of questions, including this, which will not leave me:  are the people of ISIS (and they are people too) really beyond any hope or possibility of reconciliation?  Did we not believe that of the Japanese and the Germans at one time?  And yes, there was military victory first and perhaps that's what needs to happen here as well.  But do we in these United State not now in fact consider the Japanese and the Germans to be some of our strongest allies and friends among the nations of the world?  And that in a generations' time?  The people who fought those wars most likely thought such a turn of events to be impossible.  And what of South Africa?  Did the indigenous peoples as well as their European imports not have cause to believe reconciliation would be impossible?  Did not one side have cause to cry out at the cruel injustices visited upon them and do likewise?  And yet they refrained.  Still a work in progress, and yet, by and large, they refrained in order to try and write a better narrative, live a better life together.

Wasn't that, too, a pipe dream at one time?