Yet
this separation is not only about government, but more importantly about
all of our American people, and their un-reconciled differences. Within
church we speak of ecumenism as a noble undertaking, yet we hardly ever choose
to define it, and if we did, in most cases the outcome would sound universally
something like an invitation for all others to realize the virtues of my
church. And so, reconciliation must be about more than the expectation that
others need to hear it my way.
In
England on the 14th of November in 1940 a cathedral burnt to the
ground by Luftwaffe bombs, it was in Coventry and the Rector saw his Cathedral
burnt to the Glory of God. He saw it as a beginning. It was from this divisive
moment that these few English churchmen began to reach out in forgiveness to
Germans seeking unity. The notion of unity and the idea of reconciliation has
grown from the Cathedral of Coventry and lives today in the Community of the
Cross of the Nails
The community professes to be, “By its nature as a
community of reconciliation, the CCN is ecumenical in its composition, i.e.,
inclusive of all Christian traditions and open to dialogue with all the great
world religions. The original work of the CCN, the rebuilding of the bombed
hospital in Dresden, Germany, linked the Anglican Cathedral of Coventry,
England, with the Evangelical Church (Lutheran) in Germany. Later it was the
CCN’s association with the Benedictine Roman Catholic Monastery in Ottobeuren,
Germany, that led to the use of the Benedictine Rule of Life for lay people as
the basis for the Common Discipline. In work related to the ministry of
reconciliation in Ireland, the CCN was associated with both Protestants and
Catholics. While the dominant constituency of the CCN is found among
Episcopalians, members also come from Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist,
Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and United Church of Christ churches.” c.f. http://www.crossofnails-na.org/about/history/
This
ecumenical journey began between very divided peoples, suffering souls in
England and Germany; this path was paved by the grace God provided through the
Rule of Saint Benedict. It is hard to imagine that Americans possess more
hatred for one another, than that which raged in the burnt out remains of these
two nations after the Second World War. What should we take from this history?
Today
our American people need to seek reconciliation with one another and dream
about this election as a beginning of a time of healing, looking at ourselves
as peace makers, not as winners or losers, not as victims or victors, but as a
people coming together from secular and earthly kingdom divisions into the
kingdom as God intended. Ut unum sint.
This
work is now the work of the church, it is a time for all, regardless of faith,
to come together to hear the others and their thoughts, and to offer some gift
of mutuality in the listening, to become reconcilers. Saint Pope John Paul II
said, “There is no true ecumenism without interior
conversion and purification of memory, without holiness of life in conformity
with the Gospel, and especially without intense and assiduous prayer that
echoes the prayer of Jesus.” The interior
conversion America needs is a commitment to reconciling with others, not living
for self-alone. This Christian message must be ecumenically voiced so that all
people, regardless of faith, might feel the call for a peaceful reconciliation
of divisions.
Let
us consider the type of reconcilers that we might strive to be, Jesus said, “The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to
the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of
sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of
the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). If
this is to be
a year of reconciliation in America, we who seek His Kingdom must lead by
recognizing these true signs of the kingdom, and lead ecumenically together
among and with all churches, and all meeting houses, and all mosques and all
synagogues.
In America at Christ Church Cathedral on the 13th
of November in 2016, M. Douglas Meeks
Cal Turner Chancellor
Professor of Theology and Wesleyan Studies, Emeritus, of my Alma Mater
Vanderbilt University Divinity
School preached a sermon for reconciliation:
Whether we are
Republicans or Democrats or Independents we should testify to what God will do
to Jerusalem, even the profoundly divided Jerusalem of today, to Nashville, to
our nation, and to the world.
1) First. we should
testify to the newness God is seeking: “For I am about to create new heavens and a new
earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” Reconciliation means creating new
relationships with the ones we think are just plain wrong. We cannot use God to
separate ourselves from others because God is already reconciled to us, to our
political opponents, and to the whole world. That God in Christ is already
reconciled to the world is the sure ground of our hope. Our response, however
seemingly impossible it seems, is to become reconciled to each other by God’s grace.
2) Second, we
should testify to God’s delight in God’s creation by working for God’s justice.
“I
will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of
weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an
infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a
lifetime....’ They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for
they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD-- and their descendants as well.”
God is seeking to lift us out
of our post-election false sense of victory over the other and our
self-indulging pity over loss so that we may delight with God in the life of
the infant and the aged and God’s hope for the ending of weeping in our land
and in all lands. That means testifying to a new politics that looks for the
end of human suffering and the life of a new earth.
3) Third, we should
be unashamedly people of building up, not tearing down. “They shall build houses and inhabit them; they
shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another
inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat....” There are many views of
justice that divide us into different political camps. Bur for us reconcilers
it is God’s justice we are seeking, the justice that creates the conditions of
life for all.
For us, reconciliation might
well begin with simple hospitality and respectful listening. Hospitality is
established as a prime virtue in the Sixth Century Rule of Saint Benedict, “Let everyone that comes be received
as Christ”. This monastic rule for beginners demands hospitality of the brothers
in a manner that allows all visitors to no longer feel as strangers at the
Monastery. So it is ours to tell our story, as we listen, but not to cause
others to feel as strangers among us, and then “Let them prefer nothing whatever to
Christ,
and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.” (
Rule of
Benedict 72:11-12)
Today, In America it is time “to proclaim the
year of the Lord’s favor” and for each of us to take on the role of
reconcilers. These are the signs of the Kingdom,
the path to reconciliation and our work as church so that we all might be one.
E. C. Andercheck
