Exclusion to Embrace: Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Is there a way to cross the divide that separates us from others, that bridges the “us/them” dichotomy, which makes genuine reconciliation and community possible?

The primary barrier that stands in the way of this kind of reconciliation is self-righteousness.  We might assume this is just a psychological issue.  It is that, but even more so, it is a spiritual issue, that, along with greed, Jesus repeatedly labels as “sin.”  This is how the dichotomy gets started in the first place.  I think I am right, and the other is wrong.  Add to this a good dose of hubris, and you have full-blown self-righteousness.

We ended the last post with the need to move to confession, acknowledging as the man from Bosnia stated: “In a war like this, no one is innocent.”  Reconciliation can never occur as long as our focus is on morality.  Who is most right and who is most wrong ends up in a never-ending circle that leaves us dizzy, confused, vengeful, and self-righteous as the need to prove we are more right, and less wrong, becomes increasingly necessary (so we assume).  Exclusion is overcome through grace (relationship), not morality.

Bonheoffer famously stated that the ground is level beneath the cross.  That is, before God, we are all equally sinful, and equally in need of love and grace. “Whoever lives beneath the cross of Jesus, and has discerned in the cross of Jesus the utter ungodliness of all people and of their own hearts, will find there is no sin that can ever be unfamiliar.  Whoever has once been appalled by the horror of their own sin, which nailed Jesus to the cross, will no longer be appalled by even the most serious sin of another Christian; rather they know the human heart from the cross of Jesus.  Such persons know how totally lost is the human heart in sin and weakness, how it goes astray in the ways of sin—and know too that this same heart is accepted in grace and mercy.” [Life Together]

Volf explains: “Solidarity in sin underscores that no salvation can be expected from an approach that rests fundamentally on the moral assignment of blame and innocence . . . . Under the conditions of pervasive non-innocence [“since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," Romans 3:23], the work of reconciliation should proceed under the assumption that, though the behavior of a person may be judged as deplorable, even demonic, no one should ever be excluded from the will to embrace, because, at the deepest level, the relationship to others does not rest on their moral performance and therefore cannot be undone by the lack of it.” [Ibid. 84,85]

One of the ways Volf explores this theme is by reflecting on the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32.  The older brother’s focus is on morality, on rules.  He was the good son, who did all the right things.  His brother is the bad son, who does things wrong.  The focus on morality severs the brotherly bond [he refers to the younger brother now as “this son of yours”] and creates self-righteousness to the point that he resents the acceptance of the younger brother back into the family relationship. 

The father, on the other hand, cares only about the relationship.  The  prodigal returns planning to confess his sins not so that he could become a son again, but in the hope that he might be accepted as a hired hand.  However, as Volf explains, “no confession was necessary for the embrace to take place for the simple reason that the relationship did not rest on moral performance and therefore could not be destroyed by immoral acts.  The son’s return from ‘the distant country’ and the father’s refusal to let the son out of his heart sufficed.” [Ibid 159]  The son does confess his sin [v. 21], but this is now in response to acceptance and grace, not the basis for it.

One of the main things that stand in the way of reconciliation is the desire for revenge, usually couched in terms of “justice.”  How many painful days are people who have been wronged willing to sit in a court room reliving over and over again the way in which they were wronged because they are convinced they will only feel better if they get revenge (justice).  This is often an errand in search of “fools gold.”  Healing comes not through revenge, but through forgiveness.  Only a few are able to discover this at the beginning rather than at the end of the journey.  Amish parents in Nickle Mines, Pa.  (2007). African Methodist Episcopal church members in Charleston (2015).  Nelson Mandela in South Africa (1990).

Jurgen Moltmann explains this dynamic, commenting on Jesus’ prayer from the cross to his Father, asking him to forgive those who crucified him: “With this prayer of Christ the universal religion of revenge is overcome and the universal law of retaliation is annulled.  In the name of the Crucified, from now on only forgiveness holds sway.  Christianity that has the right to appeal to him is a religion of reconciliation. To forgive whose who have wronged one is an act of highest sovereignty and great inner freedom.  In forgiving and reconciling, the victims are superior to the perpetrators and free themselves from compulsion to evil deeds.” [Quoted in ibid. 122]

As I have read and reflected on this journey from exclusion to embrace, I, frankly, have repeatedly felt convicted.  I have tried to repress and ignore my desire for revenge, but its seeds are, I hate to confess, deep in my heart.  I am amazed at how, in the middle of a sleepless night, I can relive the wrongs I feel I have experienced and relish the fantasy of just “telling them what I really think!”  And I find myself wondering about the many ways the carrying of this (often unconscious) desire for revenge robs me of joy and sours me on life and on people.  How many times do the wise among us tell us to “just let it go,” but we cannot. 

St. Paul describes the battle in this way: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.  . . . . Wretched man that I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” [Romans 7:19-25]

Volf describes powerfully and accurately how Christ changes the dynamic:  “By placing unattended rage before God we place both our unjust enemy and our own vengeful self face to face with a God who loves and does justice.  Hidden in the darkness, hate grows and seeks to infest everything with its hellish will to exclusion.  In the light of the justice and love of God, however, hate recedes and the seed is planted for the miracle of forgiveness.  Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners.  But no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion.” [Ibid. 124]

This three-part reflection began by defining part of our original sin as  the desire to remake the world in our own image by excluding certain people.  Cain wants a world without Abel, David wants a world without Uriah the Hittite, and the older brother wants a world without his younger brother, the prodigal son.  Exclusion starts with our closest relationships and then seeps out into the world.

The answer to exclusion does not come from that vast world.  It comes from a place much closer to each of us: from our heart, a heart redeemed by the blood of the Lamb who comes to take away the sin of the world. 

It has become clique in our secular world to say about humanity that we are much more alike than we are different.  This actually speaks biblical truth. Once I recognize my own sin and desire to exclude, once I recognize the ways in which I have been a perpetrator of exclusion, as well as a victim, once I recognize how the desire for revenge destroys not only relationships but my own spiritual healing and growth, then we can let God be God and pray for a forgiving heart that begins to reconcile me to myself, my neighbor, and the world, and thereby to God.

Reconciliation Statue at bombed-out Coventry Cathedral, City of York, England