Reflection for November 2025
Leaving Our Gifts, Moving Towards Reconciliation
In Matthew 5:21-26, Jesus speaks about the importance of living in right relationship with our sisters and brothers, that is, with all humanity. In these verses, Jesus speaks to the importance of practically and tangibly living out a faith that proclaims reconciliation: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” I would humbly add, “or if you have something against them, leave your gift and go be reconciled also.”
I remember a sermon illustration that my father would often use. Say I go into a store and steal a candy bar. As I’m walking away from the store I have a change of heart. I realize that what I have done is wrong. I turn around, walk back into the store, walk up to the store owner, and say, “I was just in here. I stole this candy bar. It was wrong. I’m very sorry.” Now say that the store owner sees my sincere apology and says, “That was honest and mature of you to own up to what you did wrong. I forgive you.” My dad would pause with a grin and say, “I apologized. The owner forgave me. Do I have to give the candy bar back?”
Of course the answer is yes. That’s what reconciliation means. It’s not just a verbal concession of guilt. It’s a commitment to changed behavior. Unless we set things right, our continued behavior demonstrates that we were never truly sorry in the first place – we were only sorry we got caught. “A man does not believe,” Thomas Fuller said, “who does not live according to his belief.”
This lesson applies not only to individual relationships, but to societal issues and historical sins as well. We must acknowledge that our world is still dealing with the sin of racism – not only in its present form that is often overt yet just as often insidiously subtle – but also in the loud echoes of its historical forms. The ways that institutionalized racism evolved from slavery into financial, legal, and cultural prejudicial and discriminatory practices such as redlining, forced assimilation, mass incarceration, manifest destiny, xenophobia, and the doctrine of discovery had and have far-reaching effects that have significant impacts today. Historically, the church at best did nothing to stop this and at worst was complicit in these racist and destructive ideas and actions.
As many sages and contemporary guides have reminded us, we as a church and as individual Christ followers must now take up the mantle and commit to the work that undoes these evils. This will and must involve a change in our lives. We must not worship comfort over compromise, relaxation over reparation, or past continuity over new community. Let us leave our gifts at the altar and go do the work of reconciliation.
The Rev. Jason Andersen is the president of the Western District Executive Board and a member of the MCNP Racial Justice Team.
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