Rector’s Ramblings – March 13, 2025

One of the assigned essays for this week’s Lenten Book study was written by Martha Jarvis, the Anglican Communion’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. She began her essay on conflict by noting the gathering of thousands in Mozambique for a prayer service at which the Archbishop of Canterbury would preach. She recalled the violent history of Mozambique’s bloody civil war that cost as many as one million lives thirty years ago. At the event, Bishop Dinis Sengulane, who had been instrumental in getting the two sides of the conflict to the table to negotiate peace. He received uproarious applause that lasted for a very long time before quieting down the crowd and speaking a word of greeting, “Hello, peace!”

For Jarvis, this moment captured the Christian hope for peace and why we strive for it. Bishop Dinis’ efforts, often at risk to his own life, were motivated by the love of Jesus and the call for reconciliation. Those efforts can seem to seek an impossible outcome, which may remain elusive for a long time. There are still ripples from that decades-old conflict and peace in contemporary Mozambique. Present-day politics continue to bear the tension between the factions that went to war.

Towards the end of her essay, Jarvis also wrote about a concept I found beneficial: “the defiant posture of the heart.” She suggests this is the natural posture of our hearts as we seek to love those we disagree with. At first, it sounded oxymoronic, or at least it did to me. How do defiance and love stand alongside each other? For Jarvis, it comes from an understanding that love is about solidarity with and accountability to one another. This means that loving those we disagree with, like our enemies, isn’t about ignoring wrongs or perpetrators’ actions. Remaining silent or going too far down the road of forgiving and forgetting can lead to repeated harm, resentful silence, or another phrase I found helpful: “toxic proximity.”

This makes total sense, of course. It aligns with my work to teach couples how to engage in constructive conflict since conflict isn’t bad in and of itself. Conflict comes with being human and being in relationships. When we love the person we’re in conflict with, we owe it to them to speak the truth, even if that truth is hard to say and hard to hear. Otherwise, reconciliation and healing remain elusive. The defiant posture of our hearts does not allow us to stay silent when a wrong has been committed. We are defying the tendency to move on and hope for the best. Speaking the truth in love is the only way to manifest justice.

This resonates with what I learned about the process Archbishop Desmond Tutu employed after Apartheid was abolished in South Africa. For healing to take place, the victims of that evil system needed to name what they experienced so that their oppressors could hear it and be able to respond. No one forgot what had occurred, of course, but it allowed both sides to experience the invitation to and acceptance of forgiveness and reconciliation. That work took place under the auspices of “The Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” whose name bonded the two concepts forever. Those who know the post-Apartheid history of South Africa also understand that the Commission’s work was not a magic pill, and not everyone believes it was effective. Like the ongoing tensions in Mozambique, South Africa is still working on living into reconciliation. Time will tell if it is achievable indefinitely. Such reconciliation is often a choice to work towards rather than a final destination.

Most of us are not engaged in such monumental conflicts, and yet our lives are full of conflict of one sort or another. It will be a growing edge for me to meditate on what my heart looks and feels like if I take on a defiant posture in the face of injustice and conflict as I see it. After all, we have all sorts of “enemies.” Enemies fall on a scale, and it’s not as though everyone we’re in conflict with is our mortal enemy. However, in the broad theological sense, anyone with whom we disagree is an enemy. We strive to pray for our enemies at Christ Church, and we even add a prayer for those who consider us their enemies, remembering that we may not even know who labels us as such.

So yes, I have my enemies: those I find myself at odds with. As I strive to love my neighbors – all of my neighbors – that love calls upon me to be honest about what I see out of place in the world and not retreat into polite, toxic proximity. It does not call on me to point fingers or to demonize others, nor does it call on me to convince others that every one of my opinions and insights are the only true realities. Instead, it calls on me to be defiant in the face of the status quo or mere politeness by sharing the truth as I understand it and listening for the truth of others to see if there is a place we can come together in shared wisdom and understanding. It calls on me to love with such a large and generous heart that I seek the peace of others and the peace of this world beyond my own personal inclinations. Through loving engagement, peace and justice become possible, though never guaranteed. We have to try, though, right?

Tom+

“O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.