October 17, 2021 Reflection and Worship Link

This morning’s reading is part of what is known as the sermon on the Mount. This section is about discipleship as well – but is more about instructing how to live for the good of the community – how our own personal actions matter and that we are accountable to the community through those actions.

This particular passage goes so far as to say that reconciliation is a prerequisite for coming before God at the altar. It seems to be suggesting that broken relationships among neighbors, family, and friends are not just social obstacles among us but also obstacles to our relationship to God too. In a world that favors and rewards individualism, autonomy, and independence, Jesus’ message to us is about the necessity of connectedness, community, and dependence on each other. The promise of this text is that to be part of a community means that we are not alone. Working out how to be disciples and partners in reconciliation is not a solitary affair.

For me this passage is a key one in understanding that part of our responsibility as Christians is to actively engage in reconciliation with those we have personally wronged and with those we have systemically wronged, as members of the privileged in society. Part of reconciliation is to open our minds and our hearts to learning new ways of being in a world and in a society where this can be acknowledged and where new paths can be created, particularly with our Indigenous neighbours.

This morning we are so grateful to be able to welcome Flavio Caron, who has been with us before, and does this kind of teaching to corporations and organizations and businesses, to help us in expanding our learning and understandings as we, as a community, take steps toward reconciliation and living out our faith as a community, following Christ’s way of reconciliation.