I assume in this post that all parties are Christian believers. Reconciliation with an unbeliever can, of course, happen, and should, but it is done a little differently and I don’t intend to write about that.

By the command of Jesus, when we sin against someone or someone sins against us it is not enough just to seek our own healing. At some point we must be truly concerned about the other party as well. When we are, the measure of healing when it is achieved can often be multiplied beyond our best imagining, and we see the grace of God working powerfully.

Seeking forgiveness from God is comparatively easy. Even a sacramental confession, scary as it can be, has a dependable outcome. One can always trust God to love and forgive, and (in this life) we know that we don’t really have to face him directly. Seeking forgiveness from another person, however, immerses us in a thorny real-life application of what we claim to profess. This can be very risky because (1) we DO have to face someone directly and (2) there is no guarantee or assurance, as there is with God, of a “happy outcome”.

I must add quickly, though, that whenever I have sought reconciliation with another person, or another person has done so with me, it has invariably been an easy and rewarding experience. The only hard part is thinking about it first.

I think there are four main reasons why people may choose a course other than reconciliation whenever they have sinned against another person, or been sinned against: pain, fear, anger, and pride. All of these are very powerful and can influence even devout believers, causing a detour from the way that Jesus has commanded us to follow. They must be overcome before reconciliation can take place.

For example, this is how pride affects those who are sinned against: there can be a kind of sweet, contrary pleasure in being wronged, because it creates an illusion of power over another and produces a false sense of “rightness” in oneself at suffering an injustice: it is easy to think, “I am better than the person who wronged me.” I confess there are times that I have felt this masquerade pleasure and have given it up only reluctantly. When I did so, a genuine pleasure immediately followed.

Reconciliation does not, cannot, and should not mean that a relationship will go back to the way it was. The past can be redeemed, but not changed or treated as if it didn’t exist. “Forgive and forget” is a secular saying; it is not Christian. “Forgetting” is not part of genuine forgiveness. The saying becomes Christian when it means “forgive and then allow the sin no more power to continue a rupture in your relationship”—i.e., “forgive and let it go.”

Reconciliation can mean either resolution or closure with a measure of peace. That is, in reconciliation a relationship that has been damaged by sin can be renewed with greater strength and power than would have been possible before, or it can come to a peaceful, if poignant, end with the assurance that there is no unfinished business.

Forgiveness and reconciliation are processes; they often take place over a span of time rather than in an instant. Sometimes the span of time needs to be long. One can ask for, or grant, forgiveness too soon. Doing so may mean that one wants an illusion of peace without allowing oneself or the other party an opportunity to do the necessary work. For forgiveness to be full, it must be freely, completely, and knowingly given. To ask for it, or grant it, too soon is not really to know it in its richness; it is to settle for an “easy fix”. Sometimes it can take fifteen or twenty or more years to ask for or grant forgiveness.

Sometimes time is needed just because one or both parties need to mature to the point where they are able to address the process of forgiveness and reconciliation sufficiently and properly. Adults who were abused as children, for example, need adult maturity to process and understand the issues involved before any forgiveness they offer can have full richness.

I remember being told of a woman who had been severely abused in childhood for years by her mother. Eventually the woman came into contact with a certain Episcopal Bishop (who told me the story himself). Through the Bishop’s ministrations the woman eventually chose to release the harm done to her by her mother and forgive her. As soon as she did so, her mother—who had long been estranged from her daughter and lived across the country from her—suddenly felt a great burden lifted from her. In the power of the abrupt lightening in her soul, she sought out her daughter and the two were movingly reconciled.

The one who asks for forgiveness may need a long time to prepare for the request, but the one who is asked to grant it may be taken by surprise and therefore be unprepared to do so. I have sought out people against whom I had sinned twenty years before, and others have sought me out after many years. In these cases asking for or granting forgiveness has invariably been a rich and exhilarating, liberating experience, but it took those years for both parties to be ready to do what needed to be done. A delay longer than necessary, however, can multiply hurt, sorrow, and damage more than necessary. It is always sin that is messy— forgiveness and reconciliation are just about always simple, deep, energizing, and powerful.

There was a time when I took a severely injured party to meet with the offender more than two decades after the offense, when even two therapists strongly counseled against it. The offended party, however, decided to follow my suggestion and as it turned out, there was gratifying reconciliation—not perfect or complete, by any means, but a good beginning that eventually involved others. The injured party decided to risk much for the possibility of much greater reward—and got it.

Sometimes it takes the immanence of death to bring about the right opportunity. I know personally of someone who had caused grief and sorrow to her family for many years. When she was dying, she hung on until her husband said, “I forgive you.” A tear fell and a peaceful death followed shortly afterwards.

In this blogpost I have not considered the effects of ancillary relationships that parties in a broken relationship have. They also heavily influence the course of sin, injury, forgiveness, and love. That is, whenever a bond between two people has been damaged by sin, all the other relationships both parties have, both past and present, influence the course of what happens next. “Family of origin” issues, past hurts and present fears, the counsel of friends and advisors, all contribute either to further estrangement or to reconciliation.

Even a brief glance at the personalities in “Romeo and Juliet”, just to pick a well-known example, shows the truth of this quite handily. And these observations are just the barest beginning of real-life complications that I have seen all too frequently, or been a party to. I will not take the time here to share my reflections on the complexities of these issues. It is beyond the scope of this blogpost to look further at this element in dealing with sin and forgiveness, but it is important to point out that, regardless of the influences other people have in our lives, ultimately each individual must decide personally what he or she is going to do about the estrangement that a sin has brought about, and only the individuals who are most affected by the sin have the power to tip the scales—friends and advisors do not have that much power unless we give it to them.

Over all, in the universe of glory and the boundless ocean of God’s love, is it not obvious that even the worst sins are like dust motes? What will the relationship be like in heaven between Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and the persecutor Paul who consented to his murder? It is inconceivable that there would be bad blood between them. Do we not see from this that any sin can be forgiven—not only by God but by the offended party as well? —that what is complicated on Earth becomes the easiest and most natural thing when we do things God’s way? Can we not see that the sole “unforgivable” sin—the “sin against the Holy Spirit”—is eternally refusing the unutterably consoling and life-giving love that God endlessly offers his people, of which forgiveness of sins and the reconciliation of sinners is an essential facet?

I have gone to the Hermitage every year or two for a decade or more, and had been there less frequently than that since 1975. I picked the dates of this retreat back in February when I made my reservation because of a total eclipse of the moon that was to take place on August 28. I only found out a few days before my departure that the eclipse would occur between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m.! Still, I woke up for it.

The sound of cicadas was everywhere. The full moon was a bit south of directly overhead. The view could not have been better. A little after 2:00 a.m. the disk of the earthshadow had bitten a noticeable chunk out of the moon. An hour later, the moon was fully engulfed by the shadow and had become the color of blotchy, drying blood. It was definitely worth getting up in the wee hours of the morning to see, but there was an added blessing I hadn’t anticipated.

I could see the Milky Way—the great spangle of stars that spreads across the night sky as if it had been sprayed. Unfortunately there were bright night-lights in the proximity of the retreatants’ rooms, but I only had to walk fifty yards or so to get away from them. I lay on my back on the top of a low brick retaining wall and looked up. The view of the stars was dazzling. There were so many it was even hard to identify common constellations.

Is this what Abraham saw? I wondered. “The Lord took Abram outside and said, ‘Look up at the sky and count the stars if you can. Just so shall your descendants be’” (Genesis 15:5). Abraham probably saw even more stars than I was seeing, for he had no artificial lighting of any kind to wash out the light of the stars.

As I stared upward, I was unexpectedly brought back fifty years or more when I could see the Milky Way from the back yard of my home in Northridge, a little town in the San Fernando Valley twenty miles northwest of Los Angeles. For decades now light pollution has been so strong there that one can see few stars at all, much less the Milky Way. I’ve heard reports that when there is a power failure in Los Angeles, frightened people call up the police station to ask what all the dots of light are in the sky. How incredibly sad!

I remembered that it was looking up at the night sky in the early 1950s when I was a small child that first piqued my sense of wonder and inspired a love of astronomy. From that, through many stages, came my love of orthodox Christian theology, which is itself throbbing love poetry for God. My sense of wonder has never been slaked—rather, it grew into worship.

It was well worth waking up at 2:00 a.m. Although, being on retreat in a hermitage, I was in silence, I was also in a place where “The morning stars sang in chorus and all the sons of God shouted for joy!” (Job 38:7)

I answered, “Just about anyone can kill somebody. It is better to be in a state where aggression of any kind cannot overcome you—when you can endure and survive an attack without causing harm in return, and even work toward healing your attacker.”

When I was growing up, advertisements for martial arts classes often showed a picture of a little guy at the beach getting sand kicked in his face by some pugnacious lummox. The headline for the ad read something like, “TIRED OF GETTING PUSHED AROUND?” The ad promised that those who trained at so-and-so school would quickly be able to respond to violence with even stronger violence.

Isn’t it usually the case that people who use violence are weak in some way? Emotionally, spiritually, relationally, etc.? More often, it is the strong who can endure injustice and even violence and come through okay. When Jesus was arrested, a large group of armed soldiers came to apprehend one man in the presence of eleven men who were fishermen and other non-soldierly types. Yet they were afraid, and came with swords, cudgels, and torches to cover their fear. When Peter swung his sword (impetuous as always but also pretty courageous), Jesus rebuked him and said, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:53)

Sometimes I think about what it would have been like to see that happen! I don’t know how many a legion is, but it’s got to be a lot. It would have been really cool to see twelve of them appearing to drive off the arresting party. Of course, that would have meant no crucifixion and therefore no redemption, and that would have been bad.

Sometimes letting oneself be assailed, treated unjustly, and the like is a necessary part of ministering, teaching, and loving. It is within the will of God. Many times one or few stood alone for the sake of fidelity to God: Elijah against the 850 prophets on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18), Paul bearing witness to Jesus before Felix and Agrippa in Caesarea (Acts 23-26), Athanasius “against the world” holding forth for orthodoxy against powerful and popular but erroneous belief, Hilary likewise boldly standing up for orthodoxy alone in a council of waverers and opponents, Francis and Catherine of Siena walking away from their earthly-minded families for the sake of utter dedication to Jesus, Teresa of Avila maintaining the course for a return to basic Christian living in the face of opposition from her comfortable superiors. There are many, many others.

Numbers and popularity apparently mean very little to God. Only rarely, if ever, has he depended on numbers to win a battle. Usually, it’s the contrary. We are called simply to believe in him, trust in him, hold fast, and when called to do so uphold the truth. This is strength, the only strength that matters and is reliable.

Blessed Sacrament’s Discernment Committee, which I called together last January (see this post), has been doing careful, prayerful, and effective work to look at the trends, issues, and possibilities. The Committee has a huge charge, though it may be simply stated: make a recommendation to the Vestry about what is best for Blessed Sacrament in this time of realignment.

The Discernment Committee—and two of our Lenten programs as well—began by learning about the Anglican Communion, which consists of 38 independent provinces throughout the world, with about 75 or 80 million Anglicans. We have learned that the Communion overall is healthy and robust. The strength of the Anglican Communion is in the “Third World”, mostly in Africa, if one may measure by vibrancy of faith in the pew, number of converts, and strength of commitment to commonly-understood Biblical orthodoxy. Almost 25% of the Anglican Communion is found in Nigeria alone. African Anglicanism is strongly evangelical rather than Anglo-Catholic in preference. Western Anglicanism appears to be in decline. Membership and attendance in the Episcopal Church, for example, have declined a little bit each year for a long time.

The Anglican Communion came into existence almost at random, with its greatest period of expansion in the latter half of the nineteenth century with the spread of the British Empire. There was no intention at that time to “centralize” the Anglican Communion or come up with a way to make decisions on a worldwide basis. There was no need to do so. Anglicans generally have considered the independence of the provinces and a decentralized form of governing to be a strength. It has often been said that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a “first among equals” and has no juridical authority outside his own diocese.

For the past generation or more, however, a few provinces in Anglicanism have made unilateral decisions that have had a serious negative effect on the rest of the Anglican Communion. These decisions, mostly made by the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, and how other parts of the Anglican world responded to these decisions, have brought the Anglican Communion to a crisis. It is clear that the Anglican world has come to a point where it cannot and will not function as it used to. Whatever it comes to look like, the future Anglican Communion will be different from what it has been.

At the risk of putting it too simply, it seems to me that there are now two views about the way Anglicans should do business. One view says that in the modern world, Anglicans need to realize that they are in fact a world community addressing world issues, and that the provinces are interdependent—not “should be interdependent”, but already “are”. Major issues that confront any given province will likely affect all the other provinces. Therefore a way must be found to define Anglicanism as a world community with a decision-making process at the world level. That means that we must “centralize” the way we make decisions in areas that affect the whole Anglican world.

The other view asserts that that is not the way Anglicans have ever made decisions, and actually goes against one of the strengths and boasts of Anglicanism: a decentralized form of government with provincial independence. This claim is certainly accurate—historically, at least. The question is whether this way of doing business meets our current needs. In my opinion, the old way is clearly inadequate. Even apart from the issues that have created the crisis, to try to maintain the old way of doing things is backward thinking—basically merely saying, “But we’ve never done it that way before.” It is doing business this way that has brought the Anglican Communion to its current crisis. It doesn’t work any more. It hasn’t worked for more than thirty years. (I find it more than curious that most of those who claim to be “pushing the envelope forward” in the Anglican world are the “backward thinkers” in the matter of Anglican decision-making!)

The first view, proposed by the great majority of Anglican leaders, is indeed a way new to Anglicanism. This does not make it automatically wrong. In my opinion, it is, in fact, wise, realistic, and essential. The realignment is moving in the direction of this view—creating a worldwide Anglican identity with mutual accountability and effectively recognizing that Anglicanism has become a world family and is no longer a loose confederation.

There are currently four Instruments of Unity in Anglicanism that define us as a world family: the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury who is the symbol of unity and has authority to decide who is an Anglican; the Lambeth Conference of all Anglican bishops, which began in 1867 and meets every ten years to take counsel; the Anglican Consultative Council, a deliberative body that includes clergy and lay people from around the world; and the Council of Primates, or bishops who are leaders of the 38 Anglican provinces. The latter two only came into existence in the 1970s.

Currently, there is proposed to the 38 provinces an “Anglican Covenant” by which the various provinces are asked to agree together to be a worldwide family with mutual accountability and, when necessary, make binding decisions together. It is a situation similar to the time after the original thirteen American colonies had become independent from England and then had to decide whether to form a federal government or not. It is a rare situation in world history, and people do not easily or gladly cede authority to a larger body. Until now there has been no need in Anglicanism to do so, but it seems to me to be a crying need today.

What will the Episcopal Church do in the present time? What will the rest of the Anglican world do once the Episcopal Church makes its decision? What will Blessed Sacrament do as these decisions unfold? Ah—these are the questions, aren’t they? As always, they are only different forms of the One Great Question of all: how do we best serve Jesus?

Writing this post has been far more demanding and time-consuming than I anticipated, for each line carries some heavy complexities. But then, this is only a blogpost, not a treatise, curriculum, or book. So here goes:

Restore me to you
Christians believe that we are forgiven sinners. When we sin and are sorry for it, we believe that God forgives us. “We have complete confidence” and are “sincere of heart and filled with faith, our hearts sprinkled and free from any trace of bad conscience” (Hebrews 10:19, 22). Yet I have found that although many believers acknowledge that this is true, they rarely feel it. We are often told, even by experienced spiritual directors, that feelings are comforting but not strictly necessary, and that assenting to the belief is most important.

This is true, but I rather think that consistent failure to feel what we believe is indicative of something that needs attention. Doesn’t the assurance of being truly loved fill us with joy? If it didn’t, wouldn’t that be a sign that we didn’t really believe or trust that the love was genuine? Believers are to be confident that we are loved and worthwhile people in spite of our sin.

Our confidence to relate to others, especially those against whom we have sinned and to whom we owe a moral debt, can only come from being restored to God who strengthens us and gives us grace to seek reconciliation with others. Without that, the best we can do is stumble through with very mixed results. Yet we are also taught by Jesus himself to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”—that is, our understanding of and ability to accept forgiveness from God is linked to our experience of forgiveness at the human level.

Grant reconciliation with any whom I have offended
This is by far the most difficult, challenging, and risky part of the entire process of sin, forgiveness, and love. Although reconciling with others is a command given by Jesus in Matthew 18:15ff, I think that it is rarely followed. Whenever a serious sin has done considerable damage in a relationship, it is complex and costly to try to effect reconciliation, for doing so is completely dependent upon others who are sinners themselves.

Those who ask forgiveness put themselves into the power of others, and Jesus knows well that that power will not always be wielded in mercy and love, but sometimes in vengeance—which is another sin in the sad cycle of human relationships. Since no sin is solitary, being hurt by someone else’s sin stirs up other sins that have caused wounds. (For more on this subject see the post called With His Stripes We Are Healed.) That can inspire a variety of different responses that can make reconciliation very difficult, requiring generous servings of humility and courage.

Yet Jesus ordered us to seek reconciliation with anyone whom we have offended—and, for that matter, anyone who has offended us. In spite of all the complications, if two people desire reconciliation, they can find it, with or without the involvement of others, as long as they are willing to recognize and accept that reconciliation in this life can never be free of “fuzzy edges”. In fact, Jesus provides no other option for achieving reconciliation.

Through all the complications, it is vital to know that no merely human circumstances have veto power over forgiveness. If the offended party is unavailable—long missing, dead, or unwilling to reconcile for any number of possible reasons—this can complicate matters but can never blockade the peace that God promises in Jesus. Any individual who sincerely seeks forgiveness may have it, with or without the participation of the offended party. (I’ll post more on this topic in a few days.)

True love is shown when there is genuine desire for genuine reconciliation, for such love is powerfully made known when the sinner knows he hasn’t earned it but it is given just the same. This is where love is proven. I suspect that love is perhaps most truly shown in such circumstances. This kind of love is akin to the love Jesus commands us to show to those who cannot pay us back. “While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10).

Help me to forgive those who have sinned against me
When we ask for forgiveness, we are indeed asking someone to give us something that may be very difficult to give. In some ways, it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to grant it. One has much to gain but maybe little to lose by asking.

Yet Jesus has made it clear, very clear, that our own forgiveness is dependent upon our forgiving those who sin against us. Many, many people have sinned against me, sometimes grievously. I’m sure that every priest can say the same thing. We are often unjustly the targets of people’s angers and hurts; it is part of our ministry. Even though I know this, I have been angry for many years at some people for savage hurts they have done me.

Yet I must forgive—certainly for my own ability to be forgiven, but also for the sake of those who have sinned against me. Jesus himself, and his first martyr Stephen after him, prayed for those who were unjustly killing them at the time they were doing the praying. (See Luke 23:34 and Acts 7:60.) Forgiving others is a critical precondition for receiving forgiveness for our own sins—not like the turning of a switch, but as a condition into which we grow over time.

Give me desire and grace for amendment of life
Once we recognize that we have sinned, , we must set about doing whatever we can to prevent a recurrence of the sin. To achieve this, human effort and divine power must work together; hence “amendment of life” requires both desire for it and grace. Grace provided without desire for it is rare but possible, but is intended to build desire without which the grace may be unproductive. An example is the man by the pool of Bethesda whom Jesus healed and then called to forsake his sin. (See John 5:1-14). As for desire without grace… well, there is no such thing, though grace may be delayed until the timing is right. I do not believe that grace will be denied if genuine desire is there.

One may think of the broken bone that, immediately after the injury, hurts and hampers normal activity, yet eventually grows to be stronger than before. Most leaders of the people of God were displayed as great sinners: Noah, Moses, David, Peter, Paul, etc. Paul even boasted of it—boasting not of his sin, but of the grace of God that was manifested to all because of his sin. “‘My grace in enough for you: for power is in full stretch in weakness.’ It is, then, about my weaknesses that I am happiest of all to boast, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me… For it is when I am weak that I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9, 19b).

This is the conclusion of the well-known passage about Paul’s thorn (2 Corinthians 12:7ff)—probably either a chronic illness or a besetting sin that God refused to remove. It was Paul’s own weakness—whatever it was—that revealed to him the powerful grace of God.

We must couple John’s, “No one who is a child of God sins” (1 John 3:9a) with Paul’s, “The good thing I want to do, I never do; the evil thing which I do not want—that is what I do” (Romans 7:19). This is far too complex a matter for reflection on a blogpost that has already grown long, though I think that a good place to start would be to consider what is in the heart of the believer. When we truly and genuinely desire holiness, to love God and our neighbor, our sins will be kind of like “exhaust” on the journey, i.e. not willfully evil or deliberately injurious to others as the primary pattern of life. That is, they are evidence of weakness and imperfection rather than corruption that has been embraced while God is rejected.

Let me live in joy
The final stage in knowing the infinite love of God through the process of renewal after sin is to accept it all humbly and gladly, with childlike simplicity. We cannot do this, of course. Writing the points of these two blogposts down as if they were points in an instruction manual makes it come across as rather artificial, and of course no real relationship can be like that. We must always live with rough edges, incompletenesses, anomalies, and imperfections. God knows that.

Where John taught that “Perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18a), we have to hope that maybe pretty good love reduces fear, and that we will grow step and step, stage by stage, seeking the holiness “without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14) but which is granted only by the will of God. (See Hebrews 10:10).

Finally we must believe that, “No created thing whatever will be able to come between us and the love of God, known to us in Christ our Lord” (Romans 8:39). By the grace and in the economy of God, therefore, even our sins and the sins of others against us can lead us and them more and more deeply into the fathomless depths of joy and peace and truth and love. In this life, these will always be mixed with pain and grief, but at the end we may expect that God “will wipe away every tear” (Revelation 21:4) and our joy “no one will take” from us (John 16:22b).

Recently I reflected on David’s encounter with Goliath (1 Samuel 17:1-58), and for the first time noticed something that gave me a cool insight. As I read through the account, there were the usual observations I had seen before. At nine feet tall, Goliath was a pituitary giant. These unfortunate folks usually have weak hearts. The man also wore heavy bronze armor and carried bronze and iron weapons. He clearly had some strengths, but also a few obvious weaknesses. With his size, his movements would have been ponderous and he would have tired easily. The opponent most likely to be successful against him would have to be someone who could move quickly and keep out of range of his weapons.

Goliath’s taunts of the Israelite army were a large part of his assault. A voice that was no doubt booming and his formidable size with overlarge weapons surely made it easy to daunt the Israelite army. His challenge to single combat really ratcheted up the stakes. It is no wonder that the Israelites couldn’t find anyone willing to meet Goliath. The war of nerves was pretty one-sided, but that was only because the Israelite army was thinking in the same terms as the Philistines—matching strength for strength.

David reset the terms by asking, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (1 Samuel 17:26b) —that is, David didn’t see a giant who had all the advantage by brawn and force; rather, he saw one who was at a fatal disadvantage because he was opposing the army of the people who served the true God—even if that same army was failing to remember that. In short, David recognized that this was not a secular battle but a spiritual battle—and he was confident of victory because he was dedicated to the living God.

From an encounter based on sword against sword, armed warrior against armed warrior, David changed things by forsaking armor and even conventional weapons. When he stepped out unarmored and apparently weaponless to confront the giant, Goliath protested, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” (1 Samuel 17:43b) Goliath had failed to realize that the terms of battle had shifted. David announced the new terms in the exchange of boasts before the fight when he cried, “I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand” (1 Samuel 17:45b-46a).

See, David was totally confident that the Lord would deliver Goliath and that he would prevail in the clash. Still, confronting Goliath in the valley while two armies watched from the ridges must have taken a lot of courage. With that courage, in spite of his youth, David could also depend on his experience against lions and bears, as he had informed Saul. So David went out with both faith in God and his own skill and cunning. The sling was precisely the right weapon with which to do battle against Goliath.

The new insight I mentioned above came to me when I read that David had chosen “five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd’s bag or wallet” (1 Samuel 17:40). The thing is, he took five stones. Though fully confident in the Lord, he didn’t take just one stone; he admitted to himself the possibility that he might miss the first time—and the second, third, and fourth. David knew that his success against Goliath would have to depend not only on the Lord’s favor and grace, but also on his own courage, his successful defense of his flock against lions and bears, and his skill with the sling, and he knew that these were fallible and he had to be prepared for catastrophe. That is, alongside the grace of God he would have to work for the victory.

So it often is with the faithful. Many times, like the Israelite army, we think by a secular measure and therefore refuse to go to battle because we are vastly outnumbered and outgunned and we are unnerved by formidable opposition. On the other hand our dependence on the Lord may be such that we only “pick up one stone”; we expect deliverance by a miracle and fail to see that we have to do our part with everything we’ve got—our own courage, our own experience, our own skills, and our own possibility of missing the mark once or twice or more often than that when the battle is joined. God will not abandon us, but usually neither will he do all the work.

In nearly every specific task in Scripture that God asks of his people, they have to do something. Noah had to build an ark. Ananias had to go to Saul to lay hands on him after his conversion. Etc., etc. God assures us the victory, but we cannot be mere spectators to it. We have to do our part, and that means going forth confidently while also admitting the possibility of setbacks and failures. Taking five smooth stones is by no means evidence of distrust in God—on the contrary, it is recognizing that within God’s grace we are subject to failure and reversal even as we go forward on the winning side to ultimate victory.

There are so many other areas of Christian life and belief that are now preached that I wonder if somehow we have lost sight of the immensity of the declaration that sins can be forgiven. For Luke, it was the first, most amazing promise of Christian profession. (Of course, one has to have a sense of sin before the promise of forgiveness will have any appeal. That is difficult today, even in the Church, but still true.)

For a long time, like so many believers I thought that we need do no more than confess our sins and so be forgiven. “If we acknowledge our sins, he is trustworthy and upright, so that he will forgive our sins and will cleanse us from all evil” (1 John 1:9). Simple. And, of course, true. But over the years, as my understanding of theology has grown and my experience as a sinner, spiritual director, and one who hears confessions has broadened, I have come to realize that this simple thing has layers to it. Reflecting on the layers provides a rich understanding of Luke’s great claim that “because Jesus is risen from the dead, sins may be forgiven.”

For most of my adult life I have done a moral self-examination each day and confessed my sins to God, and then several times a year made a more thorough inventory for confession to a priest. But in the past few years my daily prayer in this area has expanded. Now I begin each day by praying that when I sin you will protect others from any harm that might come to them because of me, and show me my sin, bring me to repentance and confession, have mercy on me, forgive me, restore me to you and grant reconciliation with any whom I have offended, help me to forgive those who have sinned against me, give me desire and grace for amendment of life, and let me live in joy.

Following are brief reflections on this prayer, line by line.

When I sin, protect others from any harm that might come to them because of me
This is the first part of the prayer, coming even before I pray that I will know what my sin is. I intend this to be an act of love for others, that they will be protected from the consequences of my sin even before I ask to know my sins and ask for forgiveness. “Protect others before setting me right,” is what I mean.

At the same time, I do realize that whenever I sin, others will be hurt regardless of my prayer. It is the network of human contact and relationships that we live in that makes this so, just as it makes love possible. No one sins alone, and no sin is solitary. By this prayer, then, I really mean to commit anyone who is affected by any sin of mine into the care of God so that the sin’s effects will become means of blessing, redemption, and growing in love.

It also asks that whoever I sin against will be loving toward me by showing me my sin and bring me into a deeper understanding of God’s love. Whenever I sin against someone, I put myself into their power, for they have the potential to show me the power of God and his love in a fashion I could not receive in any other way.

Show me my sin
Knowing for sure what one’s sin is may not be as easy as one might think. It’s more than just acknowledging that one had lost one’s temper, neglected to help someone in need, or whatever. We human beings have many ways of avoiding an unpleasant truth. Some want to grab all the blame if something goes sour, others become defensive, others rationalize, and still others look for someone else to blame—or a combination of these responses. All of them are ways in which people refuse to see what is true. Being set right with God after a sin requires first simply acknowledging not just facts, but truth—neither claiming blame wrongly (for that denies to others the opportunity to recognize their own sin, which is unloving to them), nor refusing to listen, nor defending oneself (and there is always some proper reason to do so), nor rationalizing, etc.

It can take real discernment to prise the truth out of a situation. In addition to hurt, there is shame, blame, defensiveness, fear of being thought poorly of by others, etc. John’s, “If we acknowledge our sins,” can be very difficult to do, even if we want to acknowledge them. Often it takes another who loves us who can and will show us the truth, as Nathan told King David: “You are the man!” And David responded properly and admirably, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:7, 13). Until Nathan confronted him, David had intrigued to hide his sin, and by doing so became more and more embroiled in it.

A few years ago, for example, I became angry at someone at an important event in his life. Later he came to me, gently and humbly, and showed me how inappropriate my anger had been. We were quickly reconciled and I was greatly blessed by his love and truth-telling.

Bring me to repentance and confession
Recognizing one’s sin provides no guarantee of moving on to the next step. After recognition, one must come to repentance. Repentance means not only saying, “I have sinned,” but being sorry for it and wishing to fix it. There are times when someone may say, “Yes, okay, I did it, but…” And “but” is followed by rationalization, blaming someone else, pointing out someone else’s sin, or even an excuse for why the sin was really okay.

Repentance (which may include contrition or a feeling of sorrow and empathy with offended parties) must lead to confession. In confession, one frankly names one’s sins. Confession must be made to God, quite often to the offended parties, and sometimes to “the Church” in one form or another. If no sin is solitary, neither is any sin just against God alone. Just as love of God and love of neighbor must go together, sin is also against both God and neighbor. In the rite of the Reconciliation of a Penitent, at one point the penitent says, “I confess to Almighty God” and “to his Church…” It is at this point that the penitent begins to gain power over his sin; it is true that to name something gives one power over it.

Have mercy on me
The request for mercy must come before asking for forgiveness. Mercy acknowledges the debt that a sin has created, and that it is really unpayable. The penitent can never pay the debt, and must have a measure of understanding the debt before he can value and receive the forgiveness. “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” is a prayer that Jesus highly commended. (See Luke 18:13.)

The infinite indebtedness of sin is shown in the parable of the servant whose debt “ran into millions” (Matthew 18:24), whose master forgave him when he begged for patience. But the master rescinded the forgiveness when it became evident that the servant had no understanding of what had been done for him. We see it also in the simple but moving account of two debtors Jesus provided when he ate a meal in the home of a Pharisee: “Which of them will love him more?” asked Jesus. “The one who was let off more, I suppose,” Simon answered. “You are right,” said Jesus” (Luke 7:42b-43).

Forgive me
Having acknowledged that the debt is unpayable, then the penitent can request forgiveness by claiming the power of the sacrifice (and resurrection) of Jesus, which makes possible the removal of the sin. The incredible, powerful, mystical foundation to the truth that sins may be forgiven is explained in some detail in Hebrews, the Biblical letter that addresses the theme of the high priesthood of Jesus: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness,” “Christ has offered one single sacrifice for sins,” and “by virtue of that one single offering, he has achieved the eternal perfection of all who are sanctified” (Hebrews 9:22b; 10:12, 14).

The request for forgiveness is utterly dependent upon the love of the One to whom the request is made. We put ourselves completely in the power of the Other, making ourselves vulnerable as a loved person, plowing through and overcoming all the ways listed above by which we can resist knowing our sins. And this makes it possible for us to receive love in a robust way that cannot be known in any other fashion.

The rest of my reflections will appear in a few days.

At the last second a young woman volplaned into the bus, hurled her coins into the receptacle, and—by default—sat next to me. The vehicle rolled away from the curb kerb and we had embarked on the hour or so drive to Oxford. Within two minutes she had introduced herself. She was 26 years old, a producer of documentaries for the BBC, her mother was Jamaican, she would soon be going to Africa to shoot a film, and was now on her way to visit a friend who lived near Oxford. She worked ’way too many hours and had forced herself to take a few days off to rest. Then she asked me where I was going and what I was in London for. I told her.

When she learned I was a priest, her eyes opened wide and she began to talk about faith. She was thinking of becoming a Christian. Most of her friends were atheists or agnostics, but her mother was a Christian and had been praying for her daughter. She interrogated me about belief in Jesus, and before long we were heavily animated in conversation. It was incredibly fun, just exhilarating, to talk about Jesus to someone who was eager for the witness.

We lost track of time. The bus pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. We paid no attention. The bus driver said, “Miss? Here’s your stop.” We kept talking. The young woman didn’t hear him as we continued our conversation. The other conversations around us gradually ceased and everyone was looking at her. “Miss?” said the driver, louder this time. “Miss! Here’s your stop!”

“Ohh!” she cried and leaped up. The thanked me profusely for the exchange and bounded toward the door.

“What’s your name?” I shouted after her. “I’ll pray for you.”

“It’s Laurel!” she exclaimed. “Thanks!” And out the door she shot.

The bus pulled away from the side of the road and continued on into Oxford. The students’ conversations gradually resumed. I felt immensely satisfied and thought to myself that gee, in a few months I could call or write to the London offices of the BBC and ask for a young producer of documentaries named Laurel and try to find out how she was doing and whether she had decided to become a Christian.

Immediately I received a profound spiritual smack on the back of my head. It wasn’t the person in the seat behind me, but the smack was almost as tangible as if it had been. A voice nearly shouted in my head, “Leave her alone! You’ve done your part. You played your role in her conversion. You are to pray for her every day for one year. You will not try to find or contact her, and you will not learn in this life what happens to her.”

It was refreshing. I think from that experience I learned more about how God is the true evangelist in all encounters in which we are “personal evangelists” than in anything else I’d ever done in evangelism. I was greatly blessed by being the instrument of God for one hour on a bus from London to Oxford. “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6).

So, being both obedient and literal, I prayed for Laurel for one year to the day. But twelve years later I know that I, at least, was greatly changed by the encounter.

The next day in Oxford, among the Lewis, Tolkien, and Williams sites I visited, I strolled along Addison’s Walk (pictured below). This was where, on a long autumn night in 1931, Lewis, Tolkien, and Hugo Dyson talked about Christianity. Lewis later reported that the walk had been instrumental in his own coming to faith.

Personal evangelism. Tolkien and Dyson did it. I did it. Others do it all the time. God gives the increase.

In a lot of ways, the years of the space race were pretty heady, optimistic times. Underneath the course of normal living was kind of a feeling of having a grand, cultural “dream”. In that era Walt Disney put a lot of “tomorrowland” shows on television, there were plenty of rocket models for preteen and teen boys to build. There was a lot of classic science fiction for kids and adults in the form of movies, television shows, and books. Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and Tom Corbett were household names long before Captain Kirk. The Griffith Park Planetarium in Los Angeles was a big attraction. Even as a small child I knew the name “Mount Palomar” very well. It was the home of the world’s largest telescope with its 200 inch mirror in the mountains near Temecula, California. Its work began the year I was born—1948.

Rocketry was a popular hobby. One of my neighbors—an older teen to my ten years—designed and tested his own rockets. I remember going out to the desert with him and our fathers and a few others on a Saturday morning, and watching him shoot off rockets he had built. We all got behind a concrete bunker-like thing and he closed the circuits on the electronic launcher. It was just like the movie “October Sky”. It was real.

There was a lot of anticipation that the “space age” would just keep going and that within a few decades human beings would land not only on the Moon but on Mars and beyond. The movie “2001” came out in 1968; its title articulated the expectation that just 33 years after the movie, human beings could be exploring the moons of Jupiter.

I doubt that anyone could have imagined then that after the Moon landings we would just abandon space. The U.S. won the space race, and then the race was over and everyone went home. Interest and national budgets went elsewhere. The dream, the excitement, just faded. I remember in the late 1980s having lunch with a member of the parish who was an engineer for Hughes Aircraft and a published science fiction writer. We were talking about these things, and she shocked me by saying, “I don’t think we even have the ability to go to the Moon right now.”

Well, maybe, just maybe now things are beginning to change. There have been remarkable astronomical discoveries in space in recent years and the general interest seems to be piqued. There are rudimentary plans now to return to the Moon and to prepare for a manned landing on Mars. Robotic probes have gone to every planet of the Solar System and to many of their moons and a few comets and asteroids.

On June 9 this year I finally went to the Mount Palomar Observatory for the first time—fifty years after I first heard about it. (That’s me on the stairs.) Though I had seen photos of the Palomar telescope before, I was not prepared for the overwhelming sight of the real thing. It was five or six stories tall, with parts constructed in a shipyard—the only facility at the time with the ability to build such enormous components.

Sadly, light pollution has now cut its ability to see into the heavens to about half what it was. Even so, it was here that the “tenth planet”—the body beyond and larger than Pluto—was discovered in 2003 and popularly labeled as such before the International Astronomical Union decided last August that there are only eight planets now. Pluto, Ceres (in the Asteroid Belt), and the “tenth planet” Eris were defined as dwarf planets. (I think that the status of Sedna, Charon, and Quaoar is still being debated.)

At Palomar there was a display that showed that a new earth-based telescope is in the early stages of planning. It will be more than five times the size of the Palomar telescope, and its ability to see will be eight times better than that of even the space-based Hubble telescope.

I remember well watching the Moon landing in July 1969. I was working at a summer camp in Big Bear. I worked there for four summers and this was the only time that a television was brought out. Never at any other time in my life do I remember the people of Earth being as united as they were on those days when men walked on the Moon. It seemed to me that all the nations, peoples, languages, etc., for this brief moment, realized that they were indeed one race. A racial dream that was many generations old was fulfilled as we watched. “We came in peace for all mankind,” reads the plaque that was laid at Tranquility Base, and everyone knew and believed it.

Are there dreams today? Is there optimism anywhere, culture-wide optimism? Dreams may be insubstantial, but they are solid soul-food for human beings. They remind us of the dignity God has given us by being made in his image, and they cause us to reach outside ourselves. It has been so from the earliest days of humanity. Dreams remind us that the world has no edges. To be cognizant of the immensities of creation and our place in it inspires humility and wonder—both qualities essential for true worship and therefore learning who we really are and what we were made for.

On many occasions, Jesus departed from his busy ministry and the crowds that so frequently surrounded him. He himself set the example that times of reflection are vital for ministry. Sometimes he sought solitude, and sometimes he took his disciples with him to lonely places. Today we call such times “days off”, “vacations”, “retreats”, and “sabbaticals”. Each of these serves a different purpose, but all are intended in one way or another to be times apart from busyness for the purposes of reflection and renewal.

The first retreat I ever took was for seminary students, and took place in 1972. The conductor was an associate priest at St. James’ Anglican Church in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was at Westminster Abbey in Mission, British Columbia. Thirty years later I was back for another retreat at the same place. The abbey had been completely remodeled into one of the most beautiful modern church facilities I have ever seen.

Anyway, the conductor began the first address by quoting this Scriptural passage: “When evening had come, [Jesus] said to [his disciples], ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him” (Mark 4:35-36).

Then he remarked that the line he wanted to emphasize was, “other boats were with him”. He explained that no matter what effort one makes to set one’s personal concerns, stresses, and demands aside for a time of retreat, some distractions will always come along: whenever one tries to “go across to the other side”, “other boats” will always come along, and we just have to accept that.

Thirty-five years later that’s the only thing that I remember about his addresses. It’s a good lesson. One can not be completely free of distractions for long—not on a retreat, not in times of prayer, not in church, not in—well, anything. —And we probably shouldn’t be. “Other boats” are a constant reminder to us that in all aspects of our lives, including our striving for God, we have to live with imperfections. We are to go all-out always for what is best, but at the same time we must be content with the status of things at the moment. It is how we learn that we just absolutely must depend always upon the grace of God’s love and mercy and not our own efforts and achievements. Only God is perfect.