Two reconciliation stories (true, non-snarky and raising an honest question)
Yesterday my wife and I met with a health insurance representative. Long story short, the Episcopal Church medical plan is anti-family, and our church is helping us seek other coverage for my wife and dependent kid.
Anyway, we agreed to meet the rep at a coffee house here in town. We were wondering how we would recognize her when a woman walked in and focused her eyes on my wife, who focused right back, both faces registering surprise.
“Wait, you’re Melissa?”
“And you are Michelle.”
Melissa embraced her and they had a whispered conversation. I didn’t know what was going on at that point so I sat and tried to look like I was forming informed, intelligent evaluation of my coffee’s aroma.
It turned out that the two of them had worked at the same place not long after we moved to Sioux Falls. And they did not get along or part on friendly terms. I remembered Melissa’s horror stories at the end of some work days, but I never knew the last name of her antagonist, so no flags went up when I made the appointment to meet about insurance.
In very few words, they owned what had been, laughed a bit, and then built a new connection. The meeting about insurance was fruitful. Michelle made it a point to ask good questions and personalize the plan options to our needs. Then we visited for a good while, and got to know one another better. (There’s a prequel, in which God’s grace is clear: for several days before the meeting, Melissa had found the years-ago conflict with Michelle popping into her thoughts “for no reason,” stoking a desire to let it go.)
See, when I look at what Melissa and Michelle did, with God’s grace, that strikes me as “reconciliation.” Two people had two stories of the same conflict, and put that behind them to be in the same place with a common purpose.
Before my question, I’ll share some reconciliation work in progress.
I have a division in my parish. It isn’t about faith, it is about personalities and styles. I have a good bunch of “doers” or “actives,” who are happiest (and quite effective, actually) when they are busy with “projects.” Most of them are older or retired, with time and energy to share. They do a lot of good for the church, but they will do stuff like take over space without considering who else might be using it. They once carpeted and painted a room that really needed it, but never spoke to the Sunday School leader who needed to use it that weekend.. It took a good deal of pastoral work to keep her in the congregation. And the group is not shy about claiming, “We do EVERYTHING around here.”
My other group tends to be younger, more interested in getting a Biblical and prayerful foundation before leaping into action. Some of them are fiery, some are introverts. In many cases they are raising kids and/or working, so coming over to the church to do grunt work isn’t a big draw. Worship and teaching fire them up. And so they do not make the dramatic, visible, material stuff happen at the church (although some of them are very quietly our most generous givers). They are slow to “jump on things” until relationship impacts are thought through.
As you might imagine, these two groups can grate on each other. They can form bad opinions of each others motives, devalue each others efforts, and generally not play together well in the sandbox.
My pastoral work is to struggle with my own biases and guide, exhort and sometimes warn both groups to value each another and work together to build up the one body into which Christ has joined them.
This, too, strikes me as reconciliation. They are telling two different stories of our one congregation, and the work is to help them find their way into a common story that lets them work together toward shared goals.
So, my honest question: Isn’t what the Archbishop of Canterbury calls “reconciliation” more aptly called “peacemaking”? It is one thing to get a cessation of hostility - and that is a holy thing that our Lord blesses and that a conflicted, violent world certainly needs.
But reconciliation means moving beyond the conflict and its sustaining narratives to find a common story, leading to common purpose and effort. And that simply isn’t something that can be achieved between groups like TEC and orthodox Anglicans, who tell two different stories and work to spread the influence of those narratives to others.
This is not a snark. Jesus tells us to be peacemakers; he also tells us to reconcile with our brothers and sisters in him. It just seems to me that the Archbishop has picked the wrong word for what he’s doing and that the noble task he’s about - being a peacemaker - is better served by accurate use of the words Jesus gives to the church.
May we all be blessed to know the Word more fully as we walk through these Three Sacred Days with him.
Anyway, we agreed to meet the rep at a coffee house here in town. We were wondering how we would recognize her when a woman walked in and focused her eyes on my wife, who focused right back, both faces registering surprise.
“Wait, you’re Melissa?”
“And you are Michelle.”
Melissa embraced her and they had a whispered conversation. I didn’t know what was going on at that point so I sat and tried to look like I was forming informed, intelligent evaluation of my coffee’s aroma.
It turned out that the two of them had worked at the same place not long after we moved to Sioux Falls. And they did not get along or part on friendly terms. I remembered Melissa’s horror stories at the end of some work days, but I never knew the last name of her antagonist, so no flags went up when I made the appointment to meet about insurance.
In very few words, they owned what had been, laughed a bit, and then built a new connection. The meeting about insurance was fruitful. Michelle made it a point to ask good questions and personalize the plan options to our needs. Then we visited for a good while, and got to know one another better. (There’s a prequel, in which God’s grace is clear: for several days before the meeting, Melissa had found the years-ago conflict with Michelle popping into her thoughts “for no reason,” stoking a desire to let it go.)
See, when I look at what Melissa and Michelle did, with God’s grace, that strikes me as “reconciliation.” Two people had two stories of the same conflict, and put that behind them to be in the same place with a common purpose.
Before my question, I’ll share some reconciliation work in progress.
I have a division in my parish. It isn’t about faith, it is about personalities and styles. I have a good bunch of “doers” or “actives,” who are happiest (and quite effective, actually) when they are busy with “projects.” Most of them are older or retired, with time and energy to share. They do a lot of good for the church, but they will do stuff like take over space without considering who else might be using it. They once carpeted and painted a room that really needed it, but never spoke to the Sunday School leader who needed to use it that weekend.. It took a good deal of pastoral work to keep her in the congregation. And the group is not shy about claiming, “We do EVERYTHING around here.”
My other group tends to be younger, more interested in getting a Biblical and prayerful foundation before leaping into action. Some of them are fiery, some are introverts. In many cases they are raising kids and/or working, so coming over to the church to do grunt work isn’t a big draw. Worship and teaching fire them up. And so they do not make the dramatic, visible, material stuff happen at the church (although some of them are very quietly our most generous givers). They are slow to “jump on things” until relationship impacts are thought through.
As you might imagine, these two groups can grate on each other. They can form bad opinions of each others motives, devalue each others efforts, and generally not play together well in the sandbox.
My pastoral work is to struggle with my own biases and guide, exhort and sometimes warn both groups to value each another and work together to build up the one body into which Christ has joined them.
This, too, strikes me as reconciliation. They are telling two different stories of our one congregation, and the work is to help them find their way into a common story that lets them work together toward shared goals.
So, my honest question: Isn’t what the Archbishop of Canterbury calls “reconciliation” more aptly called “peacemaking”? It is one thing to get a cessation of hostility - and that is a holy thing that our Lord blesses and that a conflicted, violent world certainly needs.
But reconciliation means moving beyond the conflict and its sustaining narratives to find a common story, leading to common purpose and effort. And that simply isn’t something that can be achieved between groups like TEC and orthodox Anglicans, who tell two different stories and work to spread the influence of those narratives to others.
This is not a snark. Jesus tells us to be peacemakers; he also tells us to reconcile with our brothers and sisters in him. It just seems to me that the Archbishop has picked the wrong word for what he’s doing and that the noble task he’s about - being a peacemaker - is better served by accurate use of the words Jesus gives to the church.
May we all be blessed to know the Word more fully as we walk through these Three Sacred Days with him.
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