Reconciliation is the Center of Our Work

Summary

Today is the final installment in our series on the three foundational beliefs of Anabaptist-Mennonites. They are:
1. Christ is the center of our faith.
2. Community is the center of our life.
3. Reconciliation is the center of our work.
What does it mean to say that reconciliation is the center of our work? That’s what we want to poke around in today, and to begin our poking, I wish to lay out three ways in which reconciliation is the center of our work.
First, we strive for reconciliation with God. Actually, we ought to say that the other way around: God strives for reconciliation with us. Whatever reconciliation happens between us and God always comes at God’s initiative. In biblical literature it is God who makes the first move toward us. We are the ones who messed up the relationship, who pushed God away. And so God in great mercy and passion and love pursues us, trying to do everything possible on God’s side to reconcile with us. We can still push God away, but God keeps pursuing us. God is always ready for us to reconcile, no matter how horribly we pushed God away. When we strive for reconciliation with God, our striving merely responds to the moves God is already making toward us.