Reconciliation

 Matthew 18:15-20; Romans 13:8-14

Talking, this is how we resolve things. Jesus outlines a way for us to be in community with one another. To try our very best to reach out to each other when we are hurt or have hurt each other. It is one of the hardest things to do. To explain to someone else how you feel when you are hurt or angry and say how it happened. Then for the other person to listen and be reconciled. 

First the encounter is a one on one. If someone has wronged you go to them and tell them. Talk with them and try to understand. Then if it is resolved, this is the end of it. Here is the way this usually goes wrong. Someone wrongs us and we feel as though we have to bring someone with us or we tell someone else and not the person who wronged us. This way we avoid the confrontation or avoid having to admit our own mistake in the encounter. We can tell it to someone else and feel justified for not talking to the person, have our own right-ness reinforced by someone who will agree with us. 

This is not the way we are told to handle it. Probably because this keeps the hurt ever before us and resolves nothing. We are avoiding the issue for whatever reason we may have. Sometimes it is because we don't like conflict, other times it is because we want someone to validate our hurt, but none of this goes to the source of the hurt. Now let me be clear though, if this is an abusive wrong going alone is dangerous. This is not a good plan in those cases. In all other though this is a way we should try to be doing the naming and reconciling with the one who hurt us. 

This is also hard because we are usually not taught well how to have a one on one conversation about hurt. It makes us vulnerable, and we're to be strong. It means we lay out our heart and sometimes other things about ourselves as to why we were wronged. This is never easy. It requires both people be vulnerable. As I said abusers are not vulnerable and the abused is always blamed so it doesn't work in those cases. 

Second, if the person doesn't take the wrong to heart, say they are sorry, try to work on making amends by explaining why they acted in such a way, then you take a few other people with you and restate the case. Make sure you do the talking to the person who hurt you, but the others are there to listen. Maybe listen to both sides. Sometimes when we are wronged we have our own idea of what will constitute us being forgiving. Our friends can recognize and tell us if the person who caused the hurt has said they were sorry and we didn't hear it, or receive it because it didn't come quite the way we wanted it to. Also, they are there if the person doesn't think they did anything wrong. They are there to witness the other person does not want to reconcile, or has unreasonable demands.

This is an important step. Sometimes once we have tried to talk with the person we immediately skip to the last step and tell everyone the problem. Another time where we are more concerned about airing our hurt and not about truly reconciling with one another. The whole set up of this process is we will hurt one another being in community with one another. How are we going to resolve these times? By following this way of dealing with it. When we go around in secret telling everyone but the offender, we only add to the hurt, we aren't dealing with it in the right way. This leads to further separation and we have seen communities who shut one another out and divide off. This only leaves hurt feelings because no one spoke with one another. No one tried to listen to the Spirit in the midst of the hurt. No one heard the attempts at apology because they didn't hear exactly what they wanted to hear. This is not the way of resolving anything. This is the way to cut off one another.

The last step when it is not resolved is to bring it to the whole church. Let's face it, this step would be used rarely and really is used when it is a communal concern. Usually the first steps resolve the issue. Someone who can hold out to their right to offend when it is brought to this step hasn't understood or wanted to work out and resolve the issue. 

The apostle Paul had to do this actually. The church in Jerusalem did not agree with the Gentile way of running the church. They thought you had to first become a good Jew then you could be a member of the way. Paul even went as far as doing the demands the church had for him to repent of this because first and foremost was keeping the church as one even when you don't agree. He listened and decided to do the things required to come back into community with Jerusalem (Acts 21). 

Reconciliation is the work of the church. We have the outline of how to do it right and yet most of the time we don't act any differently then others. This is a hard outline to follow. It means being vulnerable. It asks us to have difficult conversations. Lastly it asks us to confront one who hurt us, and some of us like to avoid confrontation. It is important we be this example. It is a way of healing to all who encounter it. Let us try to do this work so we might bring hope where a world does not see it.