Reconciliation (xviii)

FPC, Lowville, NY

This is the eightteenth posting in a series working on what it means to be a church, based on eight criteria the Mars Hill Church uses to define its branch congregations as churches. The series began (here).  We are still on the sixth criterion in the Mars Hill list of criteria for being a church, which is, "The church is a holy people. When they sin, they repent of their sin. If [a professing Christian] should fail to repent, the church and its leaders lovingly enact biblical church discipline in hopes of bringing the sinner to repentance and to a reconciled relationship with God and his people."

The goal of repentance and of church discipline, according to the Mars Hills criteria, is reconciliation. In the 1960s, the then United Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (UPCUSA) wrote a new confession of faith, The Confession of 1967, which restated the Christian faith for a turbulent era in American history.  The theme of the confession is reconciliation, which it describes as both the work of Christ and the particular need of humanity in the 1960s.  The confession goes on to state:

"In Jesus Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. Jesus Christ is God with humankind. He is the eternal Son of the Father, who became human and lived among us to fulfill the work of reconciliation. He is present in the church by the power of the Holy Spirit to continue and complete his mission. This work of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the foundation of all confessional statements about God, humanity and the world. Therefore, the church calls all people to be reconciled to God and to one another." (Confession of 1967, 9.07)

While the confession doesn't define reconciliation as such, in a section entitled "Reconciliation in Society," it describes reconciliation as meaning in the 1960s the overcoming of racism and discrimination, the expansion of international understanding and cooperation, the end of poverty, the end of sexual exploitation, and the renewal of family life.  Reconciliation brings down barriers.  It fosters justice.  It builds a new order, which fulfills God's creative intentions for humanity.  And, as the Mars Hill criteria suggest, it is the experience of individual Christians and congregations in their walk of faith.  It is an important part of what we are all about.  Amen.