Hear Our Prayer: Lamenting Together

The desire to fix things falls on hard times in the ministry of reconciliation. Neighborhoods are not problems to be solved. Communities of people are not work projects. This is so because reconciliation assumes equality. Two individuals, two communities, two cultural groups (or three, four, or more) cannot experience reconciliation until the problems are not with him, her, it, or them. Brokenness is not one-sided; neither is reconciliation.

Paul describes the ministry of reconciliation not as one that was given to him in particular, but rather, “to us.” “And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation,” he writes. Reconciliation comes alive and, of course, bears its fruit in relationship—in relationship with God, and with others, especially those who are unlike us.

It is also sustained in relationship. Peace is not a destination, but rather a state of being that must be cultivated, maintained, and—very often—restored. The glimpses of reconciliation witnessed to at this institute bear witness to the fact that peace is organic and living. But like all things living on earth, it is also frail.

Emmanuel Katongole’s morning meditation cast light on a discipline that fuels reconciliation: lament. For him, it is a means “of learning how to narrate what is going on, a way to move beyond clichés.” The fact that brokenness precedes reconciliation means that the church will always need to cultivate lamentation. And it will always need to do so together.