Interfaith Relations and Christian Living

3. Have paper and pencils or crayons ready for doing the drawing in the Experience segment.

4. Plan the method you will use for reading from Interfaith Relations and the Churches—either duplicating Box 5 or asking group members to bring their own copy. If you will read aloud from Box 5, ask one person to prepare.

1. Having reviewed the questions brought on cards to Session III, determine if there are items that should be incorporated into this session’s planning. Otherwise, you will be reviewing the questions again in Session V discussion.

2. Read one or more commentaries for background on the biblical passages for this session.

3. Research definitions for cooperation, reconciliation, and community building—particularly considering what distinguishes reconciliation from the other two. Look up "reconciliation" in a Bible dictionary.

• To reflect on the reconciling role of Christ and our vocation as reconcilers

If your group had a visit to another religious community since your last regular Session, spend a few minutes debriefing. Remind participants that you gave them questions that will be used in Session V for a fuller time of reflection about the visit.

Invite participants to recall silently some event(s)—personal or in stories – when a wrong is righted, a breach between people is healed, or those who have been alienated from each other and caused each other harm are reconciled. Next tell the participants, Having thought about events that illuminate the meaning of reconciliation, I invite you to think of a person who taught you, through his or her way of living, what it means to be a reconciler. Think of a person in your life whose behavior has shown you what is involved in bringing reconciling attitudes and actions into life situations, and in thereby enabling reconciliation to take place.

Ask participants to draw an object related to the person about whom they are thinking, to symbolize that person’s role as a reconciler, perhaps in some specific situation. Ask them next to break into pairs and to tell each other briefly about their drawing and about the person to which it refers. What were the persons actions or ways of living that taught you something concerning being a reconciler? (10 minutes total)

As a whole group, think about what kinds of actions and attitudes make for reconciliation. Are these actions and attitudes different in your view from those that characterize cooperation? Or community building? In what ways? You may wish to write key ideas on newsprint or a board. (Do not take time to ask participants to share their drawings.) (15 minutes)

Read Matthew 5:23-24. What test does Jesus propose for determining whether or not reconciliation is necessary? What, if anything, do Jesus’ words say about determining who is "in the right?" Is this approach different from the way in which people normally approach their relationships with others? What, if anything, is the significance of the fact that Jesus does not specifically mention returning to the altar together with your reconciled brother or sister?

Read 2 Corinthians 5: 14-20. Are the words, "that those that live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them," primarily an invitation to become a Christian or are they a description of how those who have become Christians should behave? What does it mean to live for Christ? How does living for Christ affect the way we treat our neighbors?

What does it mean to "regard no one from a human point of view?" How do you think God regards our non-Christian neighbors? Our friends? Our enemies?

What relationship do you see between being reconciled to God and being reconciled with other people?

Read aloud from the section on Jesus Christ and Reconciliation, paragraphs 30-35, in Interfaith Relations and the Churches or ask participants to review the section in silence.

Ask the group, How do you understand and respond to the statement, "It is our Christian conviction that reconciliation among people and with the world cannot be separated from the reconciliation offered in Jesus Christ?"

What is your thinking at this point concerning whether and how non-Christians are reconciled with God? Are there issues about which you need to think more? If so, what? How might you approach these in your personal reflection in the future?

Is reconciliation with our neighbors, including women and men of other religious traditions, central to our calling as Christ’s disciples? Why? To what kinds of behavior or activity does being "ministers of reconciliation" call us?

Invite participants to read Interfaith Relations and the Churches, paragraphs 36-44, which will be discussed in the next session.

Box 5

30. Jesus Christ and Reconciliation

31. The revelation of God’s love in Jesus Christ is the center of our faith. Incarnating both the fullness of God and the fullness of humanity, Jesus Christ initiates a new creation, a world unified in relationship as God originally intended. We believe that Jesus Christ makes real God’s will for a life of loving community with God, with the whole human family and with all creation. Through Jesus Christ, Christians believe God offers reconciliation to all."In Christ God was reconciling the world to [God]self" (2 Corinthians 5:19).

32. It is our Christian conviction that reconciliation among people and with the world cannot be separated from the reconciliation offered in Jesus Christ. Jesus, addressing the crowds and the disciples on the mountain (Matthew 5:1 and 7:28), teaches that any who would offer their gift at God’s altar must first be reconciled to their brothers and sisters in the human family (Matthew 5:24). The hope of a cosmic reconciliation in Christ is also central to Christian scripture:"The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God" (Romans 8:21).

33. Jesus Christ is also the focus of the most vexing questions regarding how Christians understand their relationship with men and women of other religions. Christians agree that Jesus Christ incarnated—and incarnates still—the inexhaustible love and salvation that reconcile us all. We agree that it is not by any merit of our own but by God’s grace that we are reconciled. Likewise, Christians also agree that our discipleship impels us to become reconciled to the whole human family and to live in proper relationship to all of God’s creation. We disagree, however, on whether non-Christians may be reconciled to God and, if so, how. Many Christians see no possibility of reconciliation with God apart from a conscious acceptance of Jesus Christ as incarnate Son of God and personal savior. For others, the reconciling work of Jesus is salvific in its own right, independent of any particular human response. For many, the saving power of God is understood as a mystery and an expression of God’s sovereignty that cannot be confined within our limited conceptions. One question with which we must still struggle is how to define the uniqueness of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ in the light of such passages as"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6); "there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12); "in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to [God]self all things" (Colossians 1:19-20); and "as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:22).

34. As Christians we recognize that Jesus is not central to other religious traditions. For men and women in other communities, the mystery of God takes many forms. Observing this, we are not led to deny the centrality of Christ for our faith but to contemplate more deeply the meaning of St. Paul’s affirmation:"Ever since the creation of the world [God’s] eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things [God] has made" (Romans 1:20). Christians disagree on the nature and extent of such "natural revelation" and its relation to salvation. No matter what our view on this may be, we can be open to the insights of others.

35. We recognize that scripture speaks with many voices about relationship with men and women of other religious traditions. We need to devote further attention to issues of interpreting scriptural teaching. But as to our Christian discipleship, we can only live by the clear obligation of the Gospel. When Jesus was asked,"What must I do to inherit eternal life?"he, referring to his Jewish tradition, answered,"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:25-27). Love of God and love of neighbors cannot be separated. We rejoice in our common conviction that Jesus calls us to ministries of reconciliation.

Interfaith Relations and the Churches

Interfaith Relations and Christian Living

Session Four