“The Church – A Ministry of Reconciliation” by the Reverend Michael J.
Heggen
Based on the reading found in 2 Corinthians
5:19-21 for September 11, 2005
For Pentecost XVII; I.N.I.; Hope
Lutheran Church, Park Forest, Illinois
Martin
Luther wrote: “Thank God, a child seven years old knows what the church is,
namely the holy believers and the lambs that hear their Shepherd’s voice. For the children pray thus: I believe in a
holy Christian church. This holiness
does not consist in long clerical gowns and ceremonies but in God’s Word and in
true faith” (Smalcald Articles, Part III, Art. XII). And Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the Christian
fellowship a gift of grace (quoted in Pulpit Digest,
9-10/81). As those gathered around
God’s Word and in true faith, as those blessed with God’s grace in this
fellowship, we have a responsibility to one another and to our community. Our responsibility is so important that I
would like to follow up on last Sunday’s message about the church as “family
pratice” with a further look at our life together in Christ’s Church today and
next Sunday. Today we’ll look at THE
CHURCH – A MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION.
St. Paul
writes, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.” The first step is that we need to recognize
our need for reconciliation, which
the dictionary almost understates by defining as “making friendly again.” There is a separation between the holy God
and the sinful world that needs to be closed again. In marriage counseling, if the husband or the wife are convinced
that they don’t need “no stinking reconciliation,” there’s not much chance of
progress. So we have to start with the
realization that we are by nature separated from God by our sins. Paul writes in Romans 3, “There is no one
who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is
no one who seeks God” (verse 10f). That
separation from God is reflected in our separations from people – our fights,
our grudges, our irritations, our gossip and backstabbing, the list goes
on. Someone has traced our separation
from God – and from one another – to three things. One is indifference. God
isn’t in our thoughts at all. He has
become what one philosopher called “the Void.”
And indifference to the needs or the spiritual health of others
obviously leads to separation. Second
is resentment. God “the Void” becomes
God “the Enemy” as we rebel against life and its conditions. And again it’s pretty obvious that my resentment
of others will certainly lead to separation.
But the third factor is simply guilt – whether we’re ready to admit it
or not, a sense of moral failure, of unworthiness. Of course that too leads to separation both between me and God
and me and other people.
But Paul
writes, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.” God has brought us back to himself in
Jesus. Jesus came to us, not as some
investigating committee, not as a detached judge, but as the One to take the
whole burden of our sin on his own body to the cross of Calvary. Paul wrote to the Colossians, “When you were
dead in trespasses…, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us
all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal
demands” (2:13f). In Ephesians 2 Paul
wrote, “Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by
the blood of Christ” (verse 13). And
again from Colossians: “Through [Christ] God was pleased to reconcile to
himself all things…by making peace through the blood of his cross” (1:20). Reconciliation means that God declares
amnesty or pardon to the world of sinners because of Jesus’ death and
resurrection. It means forgiveness of
sins is not a mere possibility, but an accomplished fact in Christ!
Now Paul
says God has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation, or as he says in
the verse right before our text (that I probably should have included in the
text), “has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” As one commentator put it, “God’s gifts always point to a task” (Interpreter’s
Bible 10:339). We are
ambassadors for Christ. God is making
his appeal through us. We know what
ambassadors are; so did the Corinthians.
Historians tell us when the Roman senate wanted to bring another country
into the fold of the empire, they sent several ambassadors to arrange terms of
peace, to determine geographical boundaries, to establish taxation to be sent
to Rome. Paul says we are sent as
ambassadors – with the authority, not of Rome of course, but of God
himself. But the biggest difference is
that we are sent, not to bring folks under the thumb of some conquering power,
but to proclaim that glorious freedom of blood-bought forgiveness in
Christ.
God has
entrusted to you and me this “ministry of reconciliation,” this ministry of proclaiming
forgiveness in Christ, this ministry of bringing people into what we last week called
the “family practice” of Christ’s Church, this ministry of reconciliation for
those who have become or are becoming separated from the family of the
Church. This is so important that God
doesn’t just send us forth with this ministry.
He equips us for it. A
church-growth writer said that when it comes to service or ministry in the
church, people expect, among other things, a personal invitation, to be
equipped for the job, the chance to make a difference in people’s lives, and a
chance to build relationships (Gary McIntosh, Growth Points, 5-05).
Here’s your invitation from God himself! We are equipped with what we Lutherans call “the means of
grace.” We’re equipped with God’s
Word. St. Peter writes, “You have been
born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and
enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23).
We’re equipped with the Sacraments.
Paul writes to the Romans, “All of us who have been baptized into Christ
Jesus were baptized into his death.
Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that
just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too
might walk in newness of life” (6:3f).
And we gather around the “family table” of the altar to receive our
Lord’s true body and blood for our forgiveness, life, and salvation.
We have
our Lord’s personal invitation, we’re equipped with “the means of grace,” we
have a chance to make an eternal difference in people’s lives, we have a chance
to build relationships. Do you know of
someone to whom God wants to make his appeal, his appeal to be reconciled and
brought into what Bonhoeffer called the fellowship of grace? Don’t let Satan’s tools of indifference or
fear block you from sharing God’s appeal to be reconciled.
The power
is in our Lord Jesus, the sinless one, who for our sake took on our sin on the
cross so that we might be forgiven.
God’s appeal must come from us.
Historians tell us that in 1262 A.D. two Roman Catholics, Niccolo and
Maffeo Polo, older brothers of the more famous Marco Polo, were granted a
meeting with the great Kublai Khan in China.
The two shared their faith with the Khan, who was impressed and then challenged
the Pope to send 100 men to his court.
If they could present their Christian faith to his court, then Khan and
all his subjects would be baptized. But
no one answered the challenge – not one!
The first Roman Catholic priest didn’t arrive in China until 32 years
later. Kublai Khan was dead and the
opportunity was gone. Again I ask, to
whom does God want to make his appeal through you – his appeal to be forgiven,
to celebrate and nurture that reconciliation at his table and in his
“fellowship of grace”?
Next
week we’ll talk more about the importance of being an ambassador today, of not waiting until the opportunity
has passed us by as it did in 13th century China. So I almost hesitate to say… Amen.
Amen.
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