Building on rock

Saturday, September 12, 2020                       (today’s lectionary)

Building on rock

I am speaking as to sensible people.

Restorative justice is in the news. Richard Rohr says “many of us are turning away from law as coercion (zero sum: I’m right and you’re wrong). Instead we are looking to restorative and reparative principles. More and more we are asking, can we help victims?”

The cup of blessing that we bless,

Is it not a participation in the Blood of Christ?

Why do you call me “Lord, Lord” – but not do what I command?

How does one person or group repair (make reparations for) a broken relationship? In the fourth step of the Twelve Steps, I “make a searching and fearless moral inventory of my sins, uncovering all sins and wrong-doing.” In the NANCY acronym, I “notice, acknowledge, name, confess my sin and say yes” to forgiveness. But this is only the beginning.

Steps five and eight of the Twelve Steps instruct me to “admit the exact nature of my wrongs,” first to God and one other person, and then go to those I’ve harmed, tell them what I’ve done and “be willing to make amends to them all.”

Every tree is known by its own fruit,

And from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.

Fr. Rohr sees this as “a direct encounter with God’s love. It is never about punishing one side, but always about liberating both sides.” This is peacemaking in the oldest and best sense.

How shall I make a return to the Lord

For the good he has done for me?

The Navajo Nation term, hozooji naat’aanii means “talking things out in a good way.” Gather the victims and the perpetrators, and follow these steps:

1. Pray.
2. Express your feelings (everyone gets a say about what happened and how they feel about it).
3. Listen together to “The lecture” – an Elder, naat’aanii or peacemaker, shares his or her wisdom.
4. Discussion, getting to the causes of what happened and why from every side.
5. Reconciliation. “If you operate a winner-take-all system of justice, expect ongoing problems. Rejecting the idea that one person is bad the other is good is an important move toward restorative justice and away from than punitive justice.
6. Consensus. After prayer, venting, discussion and teaching, consensus is easier to come by. In what Rohr recognizes as “a central Navajo justice concept, the people plan a practical resolution to the problem.” The Quakers do this too, and they call their group a “clearness committee.”

I have had acquaintances and friends arrested recently. They each await being processed by a system of law that is rarely restorative. And besides languishing in our individual plights, none us quite understands how to make reparations in America for slavery, which “ended” in the 1860s but … not really.

Are we provoking the Lord to jealous anger?

Are we stronger than him?

We don’t know as much as we think we know. We aren’t as strong as we think we are.

(1 Corinthians 10, Psalm 116, John 14, Luke 6)

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