How did we get here? Some version of this question

comes up in nearly every substantive conversation I’m

having these days. How did we get here?

I’d wager my experience is not unique. The contexts

are diverse, but the implication seems the same. For

starters, here is a place we’d rather not be, a place

we don’t want to be. It’s a place of anxious worry over

an uncertain future now under threat. It’s a place

of widening interpersonal chasms and deepening

institutional distrust. It’s a slow boil of frustration that

may erupt at any moment, a place of instability on the

global stage that parallels our personal precarities.

How did we get here? How? How did we get here? The

answers are, of course, complex. There is no single

throughline we can trace from there to here. Ours is

a multicausal dis-ease. But there are symptoms, and

these symptoms often include an ache for the loss of

something sacred, something stable. It is a universal

truth that none of us want to live in fear, or anger, or

contempt, or disgust, or shame.

However we got here, we agree we need a new map,

a way out. We’re at a crossroads. We can wallow in the

wreckage around us, lament where we are, or we can

chart a new course.

Way back in the First Century, writing to a budding

band of believers brought together by faith in Jesus

Christ and very little else, the Apostle Paul urged the

Corinthian Christians to move beyond their passivity

and their cynicism and get busy right now with the

work to which God had called them.

That work, that message, that word: reconciliation.

Now it might surprise you to know this is an odd word

to find in sacred scripture. In Greek, the term katalasso

comes not from the religious or spiritual realm at all, but

from the worlds of politics and the law. In that context,

the term katalasso describes redefined relationships

that result from the resolution of disputes. After conflict

and negotiation, there is reconciliation. Paul borrows

the term to insist that this is what has happened to us

through Jesus Christ. We are reconciled to God. We

are made new. New creation. Good news. But Paul is

equally clear that this redefined relationship is not just a

gift that we receive. What God has given us, according

to Paul, is a ministry, the ministry of reconciliation.

That is, having been reconciled to God, we must now

reconcile with one another so that (Paul’s words) God’s

grace toward us is not in vain.

The assignment is overwhelming. How do we even

begin to practice reconciliation? Paul has an answer to

that question. The first step: we must make a decision

to see differently. Now I will confess that I missed

this detail in every previous reading of the text. It’s

somewhat obscured by the English translation that

renders the word regard. But the word is to see. This

time it hit me with the force of truth that the passage

posits a pledge.

From this time on, from now on, we will see no one

from a human point of view.

We will see each other through the lens of God’s love.

Faith is a new set of glasses. Just imagine how this

could change us. The Apostle Paul believed that we

have eyes other than those in our head. In the Letter

to the Ephesians, he describes “the eyes of the heart.”

Do you know what it is to be seen with the eyes of the

heart, what it feels like to be seen as God see us?

When I was a freshman in high school, I was desperate

to fit in with one particular group of boys at school.

They all lived in the same neighborhood, Forest Oaks.

They all rode the same school bus. They all played

sports together, and they were all invited to each other’s

birthday parties. I so desperately wanted to be in that

circle. Since I didn’t live in the neighborhood or ride

the bus or play the sports or receive invitations to the

birthday parties, I decided I would use the gifts I had—

humor and wit—and that the cafeteria would be my

proving ground.

One Friday lunchtime, I sat down nervously. But I came

prepared, and I started cracking generic jokes. It was

working! There was laughter, muffled at first, but the

group warmed up over time until it became clear that

I would need to be more specific in my use of humor.

You see, there was a boy in our grade who was often

the object of teasing and sometimes far worse. Philip

happened to live across the street from me, in my

neighborhood. He rode my bus. And the truth is we

were friends. We played together after school. But in

that moment, my choice was clear, and it was stark. I

knew what I had to do to fit in, and I did it. Timidly at

first, but my confidence grew along with the laughter

of my new friends. I was so absorbed by the attention

I was receiving that I didn’t notice Philip get up from

his seat and slink out of the cafeteria. I certainly didn’t

notice our history teacher who was standing in the

corner, but when we got up to leave the cafeteria, he

walked over and asked me to sit down. From across

the table, I knew the look in Mr. Causey’s eyes. He had

seen and heard the whole thing. As my cheeks turned

red, I wondered what the consequence would be. But

what Mr. Causey said had far greater impact than any

punishment he could have delivered. Chris, I want you

to know why I am so disappointed with the way you

treated Philip at lunch today. You are a role model for

other students. I have high expectations of you. I think

you have high expectations of yourself as well. I’d like

you to remember that. You can go.

To be seen with the heart’s eyes is a blessing that

bears a burden. Mr. Causey’s words challenged me to

be the person he saw in me. What if we saw ourselves,

and each other, through the lens of God’s love? What if

we looked, really looked, for the image of God in those

we struggle most to love?

Paul says that we are ambassadors for Christ. That

is, we have been sent by God with the message of

reconciliation, that God sees more in us than we see in

ourselves or each other. But we can see with God’s eyes,

and Paul says this is the moment when reconciliation

begins. I’m also convinced that it is an urgent task for

the faithful in our time.

Early in the American experiment, the French diplomat

Alexis de Tocqueville observed a presidential election

in the United States. Writing about it, he described the

time as a kind of sickness in which the body politic

became dangerously feverish. For a time, emotions ran

too hot. The fragile forms of consensus essential for

democracy—what de Tocqueville called our “habits of

the heart”—evaporated.

I’ve been thinking about this observation all week long.

I’ve been wondering what might break the fever within

us, what might renew the habits of our hearts. Finally,

it hit me that we are the keeper of those habits, those

values, those virtues. We who follow Jesus. God expects

more from us. We who ground ourselves in God’s grace,

who seek the Spirit’s guidance in our words and actions.

We who have been given this charge to repair, to heal

and reconcile. We who believe that every human face

reflects the image of God, that every human soul is

precious in God’s sight. We are the ones who are most

needed right now because crossroads moments are not

rare. We make decisions every single day that determine

our character and shape our future. God sees more in

us than we could see on our own. Paul speaks to us,

“See, now is the acceptable time, now is the day of

salvation.” Because if not right now, then when? If not

us, then who? God expects more from us because God

sees in us the promise of new creation, of redefined

relationship, of bridges across the breaches between

us. It begins when we open the eyes of our hearts to see

neighbors instead of enemies, possibilities in the place

of pessimistic prognostication. We make a pledge:

From this time on, we will see no one from a human

point of view.

We will pray to see what God sees, to see through the

lens of love to see Christ in the guise of the stranger.

When did we see you? Every time you encounter

another child of God. Every time.

Marilynne Robinson always has the right words.

Listen to these. “Who might he not be? He told us

who he was—the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned,

the stranger. For Christians the incarnation of Jesus

changed the world in one great particular. We now

know whom we slight, insult, ignore, forget. The

parable that is our faith would tell us that he is…

always present, always waiting to be seen.”

And so, my friends, if there is to be a movement toward

reconciliation, let it begin here and now. If there is to be

a revival of compassion, let it begin. If there is to be a

renewal of civility, let it begin. If there is to be a repairing

of what is broken, let it begin with us. If there is to be

restoration of our streets, our relationships, our hearts,

our land, let it begin with us. Let it begin here. Let it

begin now. But, oh God, let it begin. Amen.