Reconciliation

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift [Matthew 5:23-24].

For the past several weeks, the Gospel readings assigned by the Revised Common Lectionary have come from Matthew’s narration of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The text moves from the Beatitudes [5:1-11] to last week’s discussion of salt and light. This week’s reading, Matthew 5:21-37 [Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A] is often referred to by scholars as “the Antitheses.” Repeated multiple times is the formula, “you have heard it said …, but I say to you ….” The use of the term “antitheses” has been criticized by some since it implies that Jesus is promulgating a new list of rules, a new formulation to replace the old. “You’ve heard one thing, but I say another.”

That’s not what He’s doing. We know this because just a few verses earlier, in Matthew 5:17-18, Jesus has stressed that He has come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. He adds:

For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

Jesus words speak not of replacing the old law, but rather of intensifying it. Consider the following: It is relatively easy, for example, to obey the sixth commandment. Just don’t murder anyone. But in this week’s reading, near the conclusion of His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus intensifies that sixth commandment considerably. It isn’t sufficient that we refrain from murder; we must not harbor anger in our hearts against others. He goes still further. Once we’ve banished anger from our own lives, we must patch together our estranged relationships. Reconciliation—the healing of broken relationship among friends and family—it is so important to the Kingdom that it becomes a prerequisite for approaching God at the altar. That, my friends, is a weighty commandment.

One Sunday, long-ago, in the late Spring of 1987, I was nervous. It was my first Sunday as a Duke Divinity intern at Saxapahaw UMC. The church was a small, rural congregation in what was then a sleepy little town in rural Chatham County. I’d been posted there as part of my required “field ed” experience. For almost four months, I’d be under the expert tutelage of a delightful and caring pastor, the Reverend Susan Allred. We shared a number of theological interests, particularly a love for the writings of C.S. Lewis.

My assigned duties that first Sunday were minimal. I read some scripture, offered one prayer, and announced some hymns. That day, we were to celebrate the Eucharist as the last act of worship. We were serving the elements by intinction—that now relatively common practice of receiving the bread at the altar from one person and dipping it into the cup held by another. We had served all but one of the fifty or so in attendance.

That last worshipper, a gentleman who appeared to be in his mid-60s, shuffled forward with his head down. I gave him a small piece of bread and as he took it, his hands began to shake. I thought to myself, “This gentleman must have Parkinson’s or some other sad malady.”

As he moved his hand holding the bread closer to the awaiting cup, the hand began to shake even more, I thought, “Oh my, we’re going to have an accident up here at the altar. But sweet pastor Susan, apparently accustomed to this scenario, gently placed her free hand upon his, and the shaking subsided—but did not completely go away. Their two joined hands completed the dipping movement. He put the bread and juice to his lips and turned to walk away, tears streaming down his face.

I had office hours in my small office at the church the following day. Midmorning, the gentleman appeared at my door and asked if he could come in. “Certainly,” I said, with not a little unease in my voice.

“I need to tell you what was going on yesterday at the altar during Communion.”

I replied, “Sir, you needn’t feel an obligation to tell me anything.”

“Nawl, I do.” He continued, “See, many years ago, my Daddy was one of the most powerful men in Chatham County. He was a strong man, and very strong-minded. He wouldn’t listen to anyone. I suppose I’m somewhat like him. When I came back from the war [i.e., WWII], I refused to work for my Daddy. Instead, I went to work in the textile mill here. He and I argued and argued about it for several years. Then, about 30 years ago, he got together with his lawyer, his doctor, and a county judge. They had me committed to Dorothea Dix Mental Hospital in Raleigh for 60 days. While I was there, I wrote him a letter telling him how much I hated him. I also told him that I’d never speak to him again.”

He added, “I never did. I never spoke to him again. He died more than 10 years ago. I didn’t go to his funeral. I was still so consumed by my hatred of him. Well, you see, Tom, about five years ago, I was reading the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew’s Gospel. I came to the passage in chapter 5, where Jesus says that if you’re angry with someone, you are liable to judgment [Matthew 5:22]. Our Lord says that when you come to the altar, you should remember that anger, and then leave, first make it right with the person, and only then return to the altar with your offering.”

At this, I said something marvelously intelligent, like “Uh, right.”

He added, “Now, of course, I can’t go to my Daddy. There were times that I wished he was dead. And now, of course, he’s long dead and I can’t take it back. I can’t reconcile with him because I told him I hated him. I went years without speaking to him. While he was alive, I never forgave him, and I’m concerned now that our Lord might appropriately mirror my own lack of forgiveness. And so, when I come to Holy Communion, when I think of the body that was broken for me, the blood that was shed for me, I’m ashamed, and my hands start to shake. And I just wanted you to know why.”

Then, I said to myself, “And I thought they only taught theology in Divinity School.”

The older gentleman—I’m now, of course, older than he was that Summer of ’87—taught me something important about reconciliation. He taught me that the reason Jesus tells us to avoid approaching the altar if there is disagreement or a lack of forgiveness in our heart is not to protect the altar. Instead, it’s because time is short and precious. Jesus wants wholeness. Jesus wants unity. Jesus loves forgiveness so much, and He understands that we need it so badly, that He tells us to drop what we’re doing and seek reconciliation with those to whom we are estranged.

It isn’t that you commit some sort of blasphemy in approaching the altar with an unforgiving heart. It’s that Jesus knows the effect that such an unforgiving heart has on the rest of the person. Jesus wants to combat that effect and He wants to do it now—not tomorrow, not when you feel better or more forgiving—but now.

An unforgiving heart is a cancer that eats away at a person. It’s a debility that keeps a person from transmitting Christ’s love. It’s a crutch that allows us to nurse our sense of vulnerability, to nurse our sense of victimhood. It allows us to concentrate on the wrong and not on the right.

Jesus knows all of this. He knows that there is no better time to communicate forgiveness than now. That’s why He places the burden for reconciliation on the one who has been wronged [see Matthew 18:15], rather than the one who did the wrong. If we must delay reconciliation until the wrongdoer repents and asks for our forgiveness, we may find ourselves in the predicament faced by the Saxapahaw gentleman who had refused to reconcile with his father.

Some say that Jesus’ requirement fails to take seriously the wrong that was done. How dare a father have his son committed to an insane asylum! To the contrary, Jesus knows exactly what it’s like to suffer innocently because someone nearby has the power to imprison. That’s what they did to Him. And then, they nailed Him to a cross. Jesus takes the wrong so seriously that He refuses to allow that wrong to rule over us.

Jesus takes the wrong seriously because He knows that those who refuse to forgive will—like the gentleman from Saxapahaw—eventually find themselves in a kind of hell. They become trapped by their refusal to lay down the sword and embrace the wrongdoer. It saddens Jesus because He knows that the hell that so many people live within is a hell of their own making. As C.S. Lewis once wrote, “The door to hell is locked from the inside.”

Sometime in early 1988, I saw Susan again at a pastors’ conference at Duke Div School. We hugged and chatted excitedly. She asked me how I was doing. “Wonderfully fine,” I said. “I learned so much in Saxapahaw.”

At one point, I interjected. “How’s Sam (not his real name)?”

She smiled and said, “He’s finally unlocked the door.”