The Great Commandment as roadmap

The road to reconciliation can be long, fraught and filled with uncertain moments along the way. The challenge we have in making the commitment to embark on that journey in the first place is that the precipitating events necessitating the journey have pain, injury, heartbreak, anger and helplessness as just part of the mix created through people’s actions or inactions toward one another.

Our Scriptures witness to the reality that human relationships are often subject to intractable division brought about by the sin of the world, rendering us blind to injustice or complicit in its foment. But Scripture does not simply leave us with problems that are easily identified, clearly articulated and bereft of solution. Scripture always goes on to provide us the light to illumine our path and to guide our feet on the way as the Psalmist writes.

Jesus provides us with ample direction that is underpinned by the Great Commandment to love one another. When Christian love is at the core of our being and we find ourselves in the midst of conflict, it is clear to me that we have to go over, above and beyond the usual paths to forgiveness. 

Jesus instructs us that If we have sinned against another, we are told to “leave our gift at the altar and go and be reconciled and then return to offer our gift.” Jesus is telling us here that deep self examination and action go hand in hand in order to face our own sin and its effect. It is so important in his teaching, that the central act of our faith, offering ourselves as a reasonable, holy and sufficient sacrifice through our worship of God, needs to be set aside against the imperative of being reconciled with our neighbour.

Jesus also reiterates this “over and above” importance of reconciliation in those times when we have been wronged. Peter comes to him with the question: “How often shall I forgive one who has sinned against me, seven times?” Jesus’ reply is quick and clear: “Not seven times but seventy-seven times.” The hyperbole in this directive again underscores the central importance of reconciliation for the disciple of Christ.

Jesus even provides us with a framework for achieving reconciliation when, just before Peter’s question in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 15, he lays out a step by step process for reconciliation. Go to the person one on one, if that doesn’t work, take a friend with you, if still no result, come before the assembly and finally, treat the person like a tax collector and Gentile. We all know what Jesus did with tax collectors and Gentile’s don’t we? He ate with them, called them and never ceased in reaching out to them.

We are following the one who looked down from the cross, the sinless one dying for the sins of all, who endured the hurled accusations of the crowds and the violence of the Roman authorities. From the cross, Jesus uttered the words: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” If anyone doubts the centrality of reconciliation to the Christian message, the words of our Saviour, “who came into the world to reconcile the world to God, not counting their trespasses against them”, remove any doubt at all.