Sermon quotes on reconciliation
Wendell Berry
I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.
Dolores Huerta
Walk the street with us into history. Get off the sidewalk.
Mark DeYmaz
Lament, repentance, reconciliation and justice are not peripheral to the gospel but intrinsic to it.
P.T. Forsyth
On this interpretation of the work of Christ (sc. the Pauline doctrine of reconciliation) the whole Church rests. If you move faith from that centre, you have driven the nail into the Church’s coffin. The Church is then doomed to death, and it is only a matter of time when she shall expire.
The Work of Christ
Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice
[Reconciliation] is God’s language for a broken world.
Justin Martyr
We used to hate and destroy one another and refused to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies.
“A Love without Condition,” History of the Early Church (blog)
John M. Perkins
My argument is that friendship is the way across and through the lines that have separated us for so long. Friendship is discipleship in action. God calls us into a deep friendship with Himself and with all His children that is in sharp contrast to how we talk about “friends” today.
He Calls Me Friend: The Healing Power of Friendship in a Lonely World, Moody, 2019.
Robert J. Schreiter
Reconciliation is an intensely sought but elusive goal. Part of the difficulty is the sheer enormity of the task, so great that it seems well-nigh unachievable. For it is not only a matter of healing memories and receiving forgiveness, it is also about changing the structures in society that provoked, promoted, and sustained violence. Reconciliation is also elusive because people sometimes seek the wrong things from the wrong people at the wrong time. When should repentance be required or forgiveness sought? Can a reconciliation program be put into place? How and when should the perpetrator of violence and the victim be brought together? Our impatience at getting beyond the sometimes unbearable burdens of the past may actually impede any possible reconciliation process as much as support it.
Reconciliation : Mission and Ministry in a Changing Social Order. Orbis, 1992.
Charles Williams
Many promising reconciliations have broken down because, while both parties came prepared to forgive, neither party came prepared to be forgiven.
Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice
The problem with individualistic Christianity is what we call “reconciliation without memory,” an approach that ignores the wounds of the world and proclaims peace where there is no peace (see Jer 8:11).
Taken from Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing by Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice Copyright (c) 2008 by Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice
Reconciliation is indeed an invitation into a journey. It is not a “solution” or an end product, but a process and an ongoing search.
Taken from Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing by Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice Copyright (c) 2008 by Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
David Bentley Hart
Christ’s sacrifice is a miraculous reconciliation between God, who is the wellspring of all life, and his people, who are dead in sin. Sacrifice, in this sense, means a marvelous reparation of a shattered covenant, and an act wherein is accomplished again and again, that divine indwelling, within the body of his people, that is God’s purpose in shaping for himself a people to bear his glory.
‘Thine Own of Thine Own’: Eucharistic Sacrifice in Orthodox Tradition,” in Rediscovering the Eucharist: Ecumenical Conversations , ed. Roch A. Kereszty (New York: Paulist Press, 2003), 143.
Brenda Salter McNeil
Most of us need this type of push to help us start the [reconciliation] journey. We need someone or something to push us out of our comfort zones and the isolated social enclaves that keep us alienated from other people and their differing perspectives.
Taken from Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice by Brenda Salter McNeil (c) 2020 by Brenda Salter McNeil. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
Brenda Salter McNeil
Therefore, I’m proposing a new paradigm …that involves the following three core principles: 1. Reconciliation happens by repairing broken systems. 2. Reconciliation happens by engaging power. 3. Reconciliation is not just focusing on relationships and feelings.
Taken from Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice by Brenda Salter McNeil (c) 2020 by Brenda Salter McNeil. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
John M. Perkins
My argument is that friendship is the way across and through the lines that have separated us for so long. Friendship is discipleship in action. God calls us into a deep friendship with Himself and with all His children that is in sharp contrast to how we talk about “friends” today.
He Calls Me Friend: The Healing Power of Friendship in a Lonely World, Moody, 2019.
Robert J. Schreiter
Reconciliation is an intensely sought but elusive goal. Part of the difficulty is the sheer enormity of the task, so great that it seems well-nigh unachievable. For it is not only a matter of healing memories and receiving forgiveness, it is also about changing the structures in society that provoked, promoted, and sustained violence. Reconciliation is also elusive because people sometimes seek the wrong things from the wrong people at the wrong time. When should repentance be required or forgiveness sought? Can a reconciliation program be put into place? How and when should the perpetrator of violence and the victim be brought together? Our impatience at getting beyond the sometimes unbearable burdens of the past may actually impede any possible reconciliation process as much as support it.
Reconciliation : Mission and Ministry in a Changing Social Order. Orbis, 1992.
Brenda Salter McNeil
Reconciliation is about how to relate even after forgiveness and justice have occurred. It’s about how to delve even deeper into relationship with one another. An absence of hostility is possible without a spiritual dimension, but reconciliation is not. Reconciliation is possible only if we approach it primarily as a spiritual process that requires a posture of hope in the reconciling work of Christ and a commitment from the church to both be and proclaim this type of reconciled community.
Taken from Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice by Brenda Salter McNeil (c) 2020 by Brenda Salter McNeil. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
Brenda Salter McNeil
Among those who seek to follow Christ, it is generally understood that in order for reconciliation to occur, there must be repentance, justice and forgiveness. A wrong must be acknowledged and the cause for the lack of unity identified. There is no sustained peace without justice and no sustained relationship without forgiveness.
Taken from Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice by Brenda Salter McNeil (c) 2020 by Brenda Salter McNeil. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
Brenda Salter McNeil
Reconciliation is an ongoing spiritual process involving forgiveness, repentance and justice that restores broken relationships and systems to reflect God’s original intention for all creation to flourish.
Taken from Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice by Brenda Salter McNeil (c) 2020 by Brenda Salter McNeil. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
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