Reflection:
The church is her true self only when she exists for humanity.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
~ Iris Murdoch (1919-1999)
Jesus seems to have been working with a completely different set of presuppositions about what is necessary to be a community of peace, of how people love one another. It seems that peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather peacemaking is that quality of life and practice, engendered by a community that knows it lives as a forgiven people. Such a community cannot afford to overlook one another’s sins because they have learned that such sins are a threat to being a community of love.
Never forget, you are incapable of naming your own sin. You are able to only know your sin by being told by another. … When we think our brother or sister has sinned against us, such an affront is not against us, but against the whole community.
~ Stanley Hauerwas, (1940- ), ‘learning to love the enemy’
Lord, I praise you because when I was your enemy, you lovingly drew me to yourself. How can I respond any differently to those who are making my life difficult? Help me to forgive those who mistreat me from the heart, and then seek their good, even if and when I tell them things they don’t want to hear. Amen.