Healing and Reconciliation by Reverend Godfrey Hilliard

Let me begin by telling you something about myself so that it may help you to put my remarks into context. I was born in that place down the road that we do not speak about in Portsmouth and when I was three my parents emigrated with me to Australia where I grew up in a land of sunshine and hope.

All that changed when at the age of twelve I was uprooted and went to live in Northern Ireland where my father was a parish priest in a rural part of the province. I was sent off to boarding school in Armagh, an experience that has marked me for life. It was during the 1970s when the troubles were at their height. I remember vividly having a conversation with some of my classmates about the ongoing situation and was asked what I thought the solution would be. I replied by saying that I didn't understand what the problem was which was met with a stony silence to which one of my classmates replied, We don't care what you think because you're not one of us. We had been in school together for six years at this stage and I was shocked by their reaction. Healing and reconciliation could not have been further from their minds as they did not care to face the reality of their situation or the best form of solution. We all await with bated breath to see if the Windsor Framework is accepted by the type of people I went to school with.

I left Northern Ireland, never to return never to return, only as chaplain of 40 Commando, Royal Marines, serving for six months on the border in south Armagh, having previously lived in Wales before joining the Royal Navy which brought me to Portsmouth. I think I know from my experience something of how the Israelites may have felt in the wilderness as we heard in the Old Testament reading.

“From mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Eden but the people became impatient on the way the people spoke against God and against Moses why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?”

The Israelites wandering in the wilderness were facing adversity and challenge.

God uses difficult times to train and prepare us for what He knows is coming into your life in the future. God is building character and strengthening faith.

What did God expect? Perhaps God expected them to persevere; to master the wilderness before it mastered them. Yes, the wilderness was difficult; it was adversity. But life is full hardship and adversity.

Reconciliation involves a change in the relationship between God and man or man and man. It assumes there has been a breakdown in the relationship, but now there has been a change from a state of enmity and fragmentation to one of harmony and fellowship. In Romans 5:6-11, Paul says that before reconciliation we were powerless, ungodly, sinners, and enemies; we were under God's wrath (v. 9). Because of change or reconciliation we become new creatures. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" ( 2 Cor 5:17 ).

Reconciliation has to do with the relationships between God and man or man and man. God reconciles the world to himself ( 2 Cor 5:18 ). Reconciliation takes place through the cross of Christ and the Resurrection of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:18 says that "God reconciled us to himself through Christ." God reconciles us to himself through the death of his Son ( Rom 5:1 ). Thus, we are no longer enemies, ungodly, sinners, or powerless. Instead, the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit whom he has given to us ( Rom 5:5 ). It is a change in the total state of our lives.

Reconciliation is the objective work of God through Christ ( 2 Cor 5:19 ). But it is also a subjective relationship: "Be reconciled to God" ( 2 Cor 5:20 ). Thus, it is Christ through the cross who has made reconciliation possible, for "God made him to be sin for us" ( 2 Cor 5:21 ).

Reconciliation is also subjective in that the sinner is spoken of as being reconciled. If a person is about to offer a gift at the altar and remembers that he has something against his brother or sister he should leave his gift and be reconciled first to his brother or sister and then come and offer his gift. Reconciliation is something done by the one who offers it; it is not just something that happens to the estranged people.

This message of reconciliation or salvation that has come from God through Christ has been passed on to us. "God gave us the ministry of reconciliation" ( 2 Cor 5:18 ); "he has committed to us the message of reconciliation" (v. 19). The ultimate aim is that we are not only justified, but that we might become the righteousness of God (v. 21).

The whole message of reconciliation is based around the love of God and the death of Christ. Paul reminds us that "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" ( Rom 5:8 ). This brings peace with God, access to God through Christ, rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God, making us rejoice in suffering, and having the love of God poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit ( Rom 5:1-5 ). We rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation ( Rom 5:11 ).

In today's world reconciliation is more important than ever. The need for understanding forgiveness and healing between individual groups and nations has never been greater but how do we go about reconciliation and healing?

At its core reconciliation means restoring broken relationships to a form of state of harmony. It often involves making amends with those who have been hurt or wronged in some way. It requires honest dialogue forgiveness and sometimes self- sacrifice from those involved in order to understand peace and reconciliation.

Differing circumstances will probably influence our understanding of reconciliation and healing depending upon where we are. I'm sure that the idea of healing and reconciliation would have a totally different view in Ukraine than it does within our own society because of the unique experience that they are currently experiencing.

But that doesn't mean that we put reconciliation and healing on the back burner within our own society within our own world. In a divided world it is more important than ever that we understand the true nature of our differences rather than just tolerating them without really trying to understand them at a deeper level.

Healing and Reconciliation comes after a genuine desire to confess of our wrong doings, or to use another word sins, and to seek forgiveness which comes after absolution.

Our most common form of confession in Anglicanism takes place during the regular Sunday liturgy. Some are surprised to learn that the Anglican  Church also offers private confession with a priest for those desiring it.

There is no requirement for private confession, but a common understanding that it may be desirable depending on individual circumstances. An Anglican aphorism regarding the practice is "All may; none must; some should".[ I asked what the policy for hearing Confession was here at the Cathedral and was told that there is a notice that goes out in email circulation nearer to Holy Week saying that those who wish to talk to one of the Ministry Team for spiritual advice and Confession and if the Holy Week preacher is willing to talk to people and make time for penitents, then this is made known as well. Perhaps this is something that we should think and pray about this Lent.

We all have lessons to learn within our society. We should be doing all that we can to address social inequality. The divide between the haves and the have nots within our society is becoming more extreme and it is all our responsibility to do all in our power to bring about an end to that inequality.

But it's not just in society that we see inequality. We see it in the church. Never has healing and reconciliation been more imperative within the Church of England, in my opinion, than it is today. Our church is more divided than it has been for many generations as witnessed by the conclusions of the last meeting of General Synod. Many fear that the relationship with the rest of the Anglican Communion could well be called into question but that is no reason for not facing up to the issue of relationships and sexuality that confronts the Church of England today. Never has there being a greater need for healing and reconciliation within our church.

Perhaps we can learn from the experience of Paul, the great persecutor of the church, who experienced true healing and reconciliation.

Writing in Romans chapter 5 Paul says;

“But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9 Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.[e] 10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11 But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

In Ephesians 1 7 to 10 Paul writes;

“In him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace which he lavished a upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known the mystery of his will according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him things in heaven and things on earth.”

In the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

In his book, Finding forgiveness amidst a pile of bones, John Rucyahana, a Rwandan Anglican bishop, wrote about healing and reconciliation in the post genocide days of that heavily divided country;

“I knew that to really minister to Rwanda's needs meant working towards reconciliation in the prisons, in the churches, and in the cities and villages throughout the country. It meant feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for the young, but it also meant healing the wounded and forgiving the unforgiveable.

I knew that I had to be committed to preaching a transforming message to the people of Rwanda. Jesus did not die for people to be religious. He died so that we might believe in him and be transformed. I'm engaged in a purpose and strategy that Jesus came to earth for. My life is set for that divine purpose in Jesus Christ. I was called to that--proclaiming the message of transformation through Jesus Christ.”

Those words may well be true and appropriate to post genocide Rwanda but they do have a certain ring of truth for us today particularly and the church which faces challenges about its role within a fractured and challenging society.

Finally, those words from 2 Corinthians;

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

May our ministry this Lent be one of healing and reconciliation.

Amen.