Faith: Portraits of Reconciliation

Photographer Pieter Hugo went to Southern Rwanda recently, almost 20 years after the genocide that took nearly 1 million lives. What he captured in his tableaus, which he entitled “Portraits of Reconciliation,” goes so far beyond what most of us can imagine when we think about forgiveness. In one photo a woman’s hand rests on the shoulder of the man who killed her father and brothers. Karenzi and Nyiramana offer this testimony about the reality behind the photos: Karenzi, the perpetrator, said, “My conscience was not quiet, and when I would see her I was very ashamed. After being trained about unity and reconciliation, I went to her house and asked for forgiveness. Then I shook her hand. So far, we are on good terms.” Nyiramana, Karenzi’s victim, shares her remarkable response saying, “He killed my father and three brothers. He did these killings with other people, but he came alone to me and asked for pardon. He and a group of other offenders who had been in prison helped me build a house with a covered roof. I was afraid of him — now I have granted him pardon, things have become normal, and in my mind I feel clear.” As you can see, these photos don’t capture warmth between the reconciled, but simply that they are together. Each photo captures a Hutu perpetrator who was granted pardon by the Tutsi survivor.

            The non-profit organization, AMI, knew that these people can’t go anywhere else. They must live together. So they created a formal reconciliation training program to cultivate a measure of peace in the midst of an otherwise hopeless environment. “Hutus and Tutsis are counseled over many months, culminating in the perpetrator’s formal request for forgiveness. If forgiveness is granted by the survivor, the perpetrator and his family and friends typically bring a basket of offerings, usually food and sorghum or banana beer. The accord is sealed with song and dance,” the New York Times Magazine article reports. The forgiveness that is cultivated arises out of survival instinct, not benevolence. But this practical need for reconciliation doesn’t take away from the emotional strength it takes for them to live into it. Even more powerful is their willingness to be photographed together. This was a completely voluntary decision.

            John’s gospel for today (John 13:21-32) makes it clear that Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was something Jesus predicted, and something God would use for His glory. But the part of the story that we don’t hear today, but that we know is coming, is Judas’ overwhelming shame and grief once he realized the implications of what he had done. He hangs himself. When I saw Pieter Hugo’s tableaus of reconciliation, I immediately thought of Judas. In the time between when he betrayed Jesus and when he hanged himself, what could have been done? Beyond the common interpretations of this text lies a much deeper commandment to us. The clues to this commandment lie is one very crucial piece of the story. While Judas is Jesus’ betrayer, and Jesus knows this, Jesus still welcomes him at the table. Jesus feeds him. They are together. As we follow Christ this Holy Week on his heartbreaking road to the cross, we must wonder how things could have been different for Judas if he had been offered the opportunity for pardon and reconciliation.

We traditionally tend to focus on the betrayal here, and the ways in which we too have betrayed Christ by what we have done or left undone. And we must go there. We must recognize ourselves in the person of Judas if we are honest about our brokenness and serious about the gravity of what Christ has done for us—in spite of our brokenness. But I think we must go further down the road with Judas to find out what God asks of us in the midst of our brokenness. As the Body of Christ we are called to offer reconciliation, and to receive forgiveness. We are called to follow the Judases of our lives into reconciliation—for that is where Christ goes all the time. This is painful, uncomfortable, heartwrenching, and feels unfair sometimes. But it is what Easter day is all about. Let us meditate for a moment on these portraits of reconciliation. What are the portraits of reconciliation in your own lives? What are the portraits that have yet to be taken, but need to be taken? Nyiramana’s testimony could easily be Jesus’ mother Mary’s testimony, spoken about Judas, had he lived for such an encounter. “He killed my only son. He did these killings with the help of other people, but he came alone to me and asked for pardon. He and a group of other offenders helped me build a house with a covered roof. I was afraid of him — now I have granted him pardon, things have become normal, and in my mind I feel clear.” Every day we have the chance to build houses of reconciliation with sturdy roofs of grace. Here we can make a home for the Kingdom of God—a Kingdom in which hopelessness and destruction is transformed into new life. When we can do this, I believe that God seals it with a song and a dance.” Amen.

Feeding Abundance

 A Reflection on The Feeding of the Four Thousand

A friend of mine is the chef at a non-profit organization here in Kansas City called Safe Home. Their mission is to serve as a safe place for adults and children who are victims of domestic violence. They help them to break the cycle through shelter, counseling, education, and prevention. My friend shared with me that it usually takes about 6 cycles of 90 days at Safe Home before someone is finally able to completely cut ties from their abusive environment. These are incredible odds to overcome. It is an uphill battle. For my friend, the uphill battle is providing 3 meals a day, every day, for 27 people with a grocery budget of just $366 per week. Every week he makes his grocery list and meal plan knowing that his budget will not be enough. Some weeks he needs 10 more boxes of cereal than he has. Some weeks he needs 10 more pounds of meat than he has. Every week he worries about how to stretch things in order to feed these families. But he puts one foot in front of the other, makes the best plan he can, and begins working with what he has. When I asked him how his job was going, he began to tear up as he shared that what he has experienced has been nothing short of a miracle. He shared that, every week, just as he is scrambling to figure out how to make these meals stretch, what he needs always seems to show up. One day he walked into his kitchen and 20 pounds of meat had been donated and left there for him. Another week he walked in to find 20 boxes of cereal. He loves his job because every stressful day is a miraculous intersection between overwhelming odds and miraculous abundance.

This is no coincidence. At Safe Home,  in the desert with Jesus and the hungry thousands, and in the desert places of our own lives, we are faced with a choice about how to respond to overwhelming odds. The disciples raised very realistic concerns—there isn’t enough. “We can’t waste the little we have and end up with not enough later. We just can’t take this on right now.” Jesus responds to them, not with numbers and a bottom line, but with a call to compassion. He reminds the disciples of the pain and struggle the thousands are facing. He reminds them of how the people’s physical exhaustion is fast becoming spiritual exhaustion. Jesus understands that these people need a miracle, but that miracle is much bigger than a the number of loaves matching the number of bodies. Jesus understands that his people need to know that He cares for them, that the disciples care for them, and, most importantly, that God cares for them. Compassion is different than sympathy. When Jesus has compassion for them, he is not simply feeling bad for them. He is feeling hunger, pain, sorry, and helplessness with them. He has walked with them, talked with them, laughed with them, heard the stories of their children’s tummy aches and hurting feet. He has overheard them whispering to each other that “maybe God doesn’t care for us after all.”

So when Jesus rallies the disciples to gather everything they have and start to distribute it, God miraculously intervenes with the real miracle—the miracle of God’s compassion poured out through the hands, feet, words, arms, and eyes of all those who shared what they had that day. The real miracle is that the famine of both body and soul was met with compassion, love, service and thanksgiving. The disciples said, “there’s not enough.” We worry that there is not enough. Jesus proclaims that there is always enough when we open ourselves and feel with those in need. Christ calls us to participate in the miracle of God’s abundance. He calls us to surrender our fear and our focus on what we don’t have. He calls us to stop dwelling on what we can’t do. He calls us to set out in faith, preparing a feast with what we do have, fully expecting that God will meet us there and provide for us—not only for our physical needs, but for our spiritual needs as well.

The Good News is that when we look in the face of overwhelming odds and say, “how can I help?”, “What can I share?”, “What can I give?” it’s contagious. Compassion in action is catching. It transforms hunger into nourishment, fear into hope, and scarcity into abundance. So as we leave this place, let us go out and participate in the miracles of abundance all around us. Let us not ask ourselves, “Is there enough?” but rather “What can I give?” Let us step out in compassion, taking the risk of feeling others’ pain with them, and walking the desert places beside them. For it is not just the physical care we all need, but the soul care. We all need to know that people care for us, that the church cares for us, and that God cares for us. Go from wherever you are and be the hands, feet, arms, and eyes of God’s care, fully expecting God’s abundance to help you build a safe home for his Kingdom of love there. Amen.