This passage from 2 Corinthians is talking about what you
may call a “paradigm shift.” In life, this typically happens to us a couple of
times. We are living life one way with a certain perspective. Then, whether
because we discover a different perspective, or we realize our perspective is
limited, or we learn new information, or something else happens and our
perspective changes. With it, the entire way we view the world may change.
I’ll give
you an example. When I was in high school, I didn’t know there were any
different kinds of Lutherans at all. Like many young people, I assumed the
world was basically full of people just like me. I was vaguely aware that our church was part
of the Minneapolis Synod of the ELCA, but I assumed that that was simply a
geographic designation and that Lutherans were Lutherans. So, I was in high
school when I learned that some Lutheran churches did not ordain women. This shocked
me, because I had grown up with the assumption that women could and would and
often should be pastors. So, I learned a new perspective on the world, but that
wasn’t a paradigm shift because I simply disagreed with those “other”
Lutherans—even if I didn’t have the perspective yet to understand why.
As I began
undergrad, I learned all the more what made me different from these other
Lutherans, and, pretty quickly, I had a fairly negative view of the other
Lutherans. After all, they didn’t seem to value the things I valued.
Fast forward a couple years and I found
myself working at Camp Lutherhaven in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, which was (and is)
a pan-Lutheran camp, meaning it is jointly representative of both the ELCA and
those other Lutherans. This is something that doesn’t happen much anymore.
Now, I want
to pause here for a second. There are plenty of things I disagree with the
Missouri Synod about and even more so with the Wisconsin Synod; clearly, I am
also ELCA by choice and not LCMC or NALC or any of the other alphabet soup
variations on Lutheranism in the country. I am who I am and I don’t apologize
for it. However, what I experienced at Lutherhaven was an attitude that
emphasized we were all in this together. I saw ELCA leaders cheerfully working
alongside LCMS leaders with whom they disagreed on pretty much every issue. I
saw LCMS leaders who didn’t personally believe women could be pastors nevertheless
inviting female ELCA pastors to teach. That gesture went a long way to the
paradigm shift I experienced in what it means to be Lutheran, what it means to
be Christian, and ultimately what it means to be community.
We are one
in Christ, and I get the practical challenge in that statement, because,
frankly, there are plenty of churches who do not value, support, affirm, or
celebrate many of those in our church that we value, support, affirm, and
celebrate. My wife would not be welcome to lead worship in many of those other
churches, and that is a huge problem. I’m not saying that our disagreements
should all be smoothed over, but I am saying that the hard work of
reconciliation is a responsibility that is ours nonetheless. What is described
here in 2 Corinthians 5 is a paradigm shift that should inform the way we
believe. God reconciles with us through Christ, so that we can do the hard work
of reconciliation with one another.
There are a
few caveats, however. Abuse is not the same thing as disagreement. You are
under no obligation to reconcile with an abuser, whether that abuser is a
person or a church. Power dynamics are real, and you cannot come to the table
in equal terms when one person has lorded power over another, or, for that
matter, a church that lords power over individuals by virtue of their identity.
Yet, in spite of the difficulty and in spite of the practical caveats, this is
work we are called to nonetheless. Reconciliation is still valuable.
In these
COVID-19 days, perhaps reconciliation begins by acknowledging our shared desire
for assurance and well-being. It’s too easy to imagine the worst of one
another; we need a paradigm shift to imagine one another at our best. As Martin
Luther writes in his explanation to the 8th commandment, one of our
obligations to others is to “explain their actions in the kindest way.” Our
leaders need to lead this way. Those who have power must raise up those who do
not. That is what this letter to the church in Corinth is getting at with the
language of equality. True equality is those with a voice using their platform to
give voice to those without—to point to the oppressed and the victims of all
sorts. Leaders don’t punch down but instead lift up.
In all
these things, we take God’s lead. This isn’t simply some philosophy thought up
by wise guys; it is the very heart of God’s relationship with us. God would be
well within God’s rights to beat us on the head for our shallowness, our
inconsistency, and all the ways we are selfish, and yet God chooses not to
punch down but to lift us up. In fact, Christ went to his death on behalf of
all of us who didn’t deserve it. With that grace in our back pocket, the
question is how then shall we live?
We can’t
punch down. That’s the judgment that should have fallen on our heads, and what
would we be if we follow suit by doing the very thing God should have done to
us? Instead, we lift up one another; we reconcile our differences. In fact, at
our best, we celebrate our differences as a window to a paradigm that may well
reveal God to us in startling new ways. We lift up our brothers and sisters who
are oppressed, not concerned with what is politically expedient in the moment,
or even whether they will return that gesture should they ever find themselves
over us. The grace of God does not demand repayment, even if payment could be
made, because grace is only grace if it is free and freely given.
We never
punch down, but instead we lift up because of this grace. That is
reconciliation. It is the perpetrator lifting up the victim; it is the neutral
acknowledging the need to run to those who are oppressed; it is a church and a
people that side with the vulnerable; it is all these things that don’t often
work in the real world, because we are too proud, too selfish, and too power
hungry to change.
Still, God
refuses to punch down at us; God continues to lift up those under us. It is
Mary’s Magnificat in action. Reconciliation is hard work, but it is free
work having been saved by grace. So, it is possible—if we just get ourselves
out of the way. Reconciliation is a paradigm shift we desperately need.
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