Let us pray:

O God, be present here and in all the places from which we are worshipping; move in us and through us that we too would be moved and changed. Speak to us, we pray, less of me, more of you; none of me, all of you. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

In a few weeks, I will be in Atlanta for a board meeting of the Immigration Law & Justice Network, but it won’t be my first time in Atlanta.

About a year ago, I traveled there with a group of Korean American clergy at the beginning of a Civil Rights Pilgrimage. From Atlanta, we continued to Selma, Montgomery, and Birmingham, visiting places where the history of racism in this country is not an abstract idea. It is embedded in churches, streets, bridges, parks, courtrooms, and memorials.

And I’ve been thinking about what it will mean to return.

A year ago, I was there to learn more deeply about the struggle for Black freedom and the people of faith who refused to accept segregation as the way things had to be. In a few weeks, I will return for a meeting focused on accompanying immigrants as they seek safety, legal status, and the opportunity to build a life in this country.

Those are different stories, and I don’t want to collapse them into one another. The history of anti-Black racism in America has its own particular violence, and the experiences of migrants are complex and varied. But underneath these stories are some of the same questions:

Who is allowed to belong?

Whose humanity will be protected?

Whose suffering will be taken seriously?

And what does our faith require of us when laws, institutions, and cultural narratives divide people between those who belong and those who do not?

As a Korean American, I could not experience the Civil Rights Movement as though it belonged only to someone else. Asian Americans have our own histories of exclusion and violence, but we have also benefited from the courage and sacrifice of Black Americans. We also have to confront the ways our communities participate in anti-Blackness.

That pilgrimage made me ask not only where I have experienced racism, but where I have benefited from racial systems, remained quiet, or protected my own comfort. Those are harder questions for me.

The pilgrimage also made me realize how easy it is to tell the story of the Civil Rights Movement as a story of reconciliation.

We remember Dr. King’s dream. We remember segregated schools eventually opening their doors. We remember Black and white people joining together. We tell ourselves a story about a divided nation that finally began to heal.

But reconciliation is not where that story began. It began with people telling the truth. It began with Black Americans naming what segregation, racism, and white supremacy were doing to their lives. It began with people refusing to remain quiet simply because their truth made other people uncomfortable.

At Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, we remembered children and young people who protested segregation and were met with police dogs and fire hoses. Yet they were accused of creating trouble. The movement was accused of creating division. Dr. King and other leaders were told that their actions were too disruptive, too confrontational, and too soon.

But they had not created the brokenness. They had simply made the brokenness impossible to ignore. And I wonder whether this is still one of our struggles when we talk about reconciliation in America.

We want healing, but we are not always willing to name the wound. We want unity, but we do not always want accountability. We want the tension to disappear, but the disappearance of tension is not the same thing as the presence of justice. Sometimes what we call reconciliation is really a request for the people who have been harmed to stop talking about what happened. But that isn’t reconciliation.

Racial reconciliation cannot become another burden placed upon the people who have been harmed by racism. It cannot be created by asking people of color to forgive while churches, institutions, and those of us who have benefited from racial hierarchies remain unwilling to confront or change them. Reconciliation requires responsibility from those who have caused harm, participated in harmful systems, or remained quiet while others carried the cost.

And that is why we begin this series, Love Your Enemies, with the courage to reconcile. Because loving our enemies does not mean ignoring evil, excusing harm, or remaining in a relationship that is unsafe. To love is to make the courageous choice to resist evil without becoming captive to it. It means allowing God’s grace, rather than another person’s actions, to shape who we become.

And perhaps that work begins before someone ever becomes an enemy. It begins when harm enters a relationship or community. And that is the moment Jesus addresses in Matthew 18.

Jesus and the disciples are moving closer to Jerusalem. He has begun telling them that he will suffer, be killed, and be raised. But the disciples are still arguing about who among them is the greatest.

Jesus knows this fragile community will face pressure from outside and conflict from within. They will misunderstand one another. One will betray Jesus, another will deny him, and most will abandon him. And still, Jesus is entrusting his mission to them. So he teaches them how to remain a community when they inevitably hurt one another.

He places a child among them and challenges their understanding of greatness. He warns them against placing barriers before those who are vulnerable. Then he tells them about a shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to search for one sheep who has become separated from the flock.

And immediately after that story, Jesus says: “If your brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If you are listened to, you have regained that one.”

The placement matters. Jesus has just described a shepherd seeking someone who has become separated from the community. Now he describes what to do when harm threatens to separate people from one another.

The goal is not punishment, humiliation, or winning. Jesus says the goal is to “regain” the other person. The hope is restoration.

But Jesus does not pursue restoration by pretending nothing happened. Jesus does not say, “Ignore it,” or “Be nice and move on”, or “If you were a better Christian, you would get over it.”

Jesus says: Tell the truth, because reconciliation cannot be built upon a truth we are unwilling to tell.

Jesus is speaking here about relationships within a community. He is not offering a complete strategy for dismantling systemic racism. And we should not pretend that a conflict between two people is equivalent to generations of racial injustice. Matthew 18 cannot bear that entire weight.

Racial reconciliation is larger than any one conversation. It requires changes within laws, institutions, and systems, not simply better relationships between individuals. But that does not mean these words from Jesus have nothing to teach us about the larger work. The spiritual habits that make reconciliation possible are also formed in the relationships closest to us. This is where we learn whether we are willing to tell the truth, receive accountability, and remain open to repair.

And when reconciliation becomes personal, the temptation is familiar. We want the tension to end without naming what caused it. We want to move on without having the difficult conversation. We want the relationship to feel normal again without asking whether anything has actually changed.

For most of us, this teaching will become real not in the national discourse, but in a particular relationship.

A family member who said something that still hurts.

A friend whose actions damaged our trust.

A colleague we have begun avoiding.

Someone within the church whose name now creates tension inside of us.

This is where Jesus’ teaching becomes deeply personal, because in these relationships, we often confuse reconciliation with keeping the peace. But keeping the peace often means preserving the appearance that everything is fine. It asks the person who has been harmed to carry the pain privately so everyone else can remain comfortable.

That is not peace. It is comfort purchased at someone else’s expense.

And I think this can be a particular temptation for progressive Christians. We value welcome, inclusion, and making room for difference. Those are gifts. But sometimes our desire to be nice becomes a reluctance to name harm. We do not want to sound judgmental. We do not want to create more division. Humility matters, and none of us possesses the whole truth. But humility is not silence. We can remain open to correction while still speaking clearly when people are being harmed. Playing nice may preserve comfort. Reconciliation requires the courage to tell the truth. It is the work of repairing what has been broken. And we cannot repair what we refuse to name.

Jesus begins with a direct conversation: “Go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.” Beginning privately can protect the dignity of both people and create room for truth before a conflict expands.

Hear me: this teaching should never be used to demand that someone confront an abuser alone. Abuse requires protection, support, and accountability. But in the ordinary fractures of our relationships, we often talk with everyone except the person with whom something is broken. Jesus invites us to tell the truth, not as a weapon, but in the hope that repair remains possible.

If that conversation does not bring repair, Jesus says to include one or two others. They are not there to outnumber anyone. They bring wisdom, protection, and accountability, reminding us that the person who was harmed should not have to carry the work of repair alone.

And if the person still refuses accountability, Jesus says the relationship must change. Trust may have been broken. Access may need to change. Boundaries may be necessary.

But a changed relationship does not erase the person’s humanity.

A boundary is not revenge. And Christian love is not endless availability. It is the refusal to make another person’s destruction our purpose.

And Jesus does not ask the disciples to practice a love he is unwilling to embody himself.

As he approaches the cross, Jesus names betrayal as betrayal and confronts injustice. He never pretends violence is peace. But he also refuses to allow the violence of others to determine who he becomes. The cross reveals a love that tells the truth about evil without becoming an imitation of it.

And that is the courage reconciliation requires.

Here are your action items for the week:

First, notice the label you are using.

What name have you given the person who hurt you? Selfish. Difficult. Impossible. Enemy. The label may describe something real, but has it become the only truth you are willing to recognize?

Noticing the label does not deny the harm. It refuses to let the worst thing someone has done become the only thing we believe about them.

Second, tell the truth in the right place.

Is there something you have been saying about someone that you need, if it is safe and appropriate, to say to them?

Name what happened and its impact, seeking clarity and repair rather than victory. Some conversations should begin privately. Others require support or communal accountability. Courage includes wisdom and safety.

Third, release control of the outcome.

We can tell the truth, invite accountability, and make room for repair. But we cannot manufacture an apology or create reconciliation by ourselves.

Sometimes a relationship will be restored. Sometimes trust must be rebuilt slowly. Sometimes the faithful response is a boundary.

Releasing control of the outcome does not mean releasing our responsibility. It means remaining faithful without allowing another person’s response to determine who we become.

Maybe this is where I find myself thinking again about Atlanta. The people we remembered on that Civil Rights Pilgrimage could tell the truth. They could resist injustice. They could make room for a different future. But they couldn’t control the outcome. Many of them never experienced the reconciliation for which they worked. The dream remains unfinished. And yet, an unfinished dream is not the same thing as an impossible dream.

And perhaps the same is true of the relationships we are carrying today. We may not know whether a difficult conversation will bring healing. We may not know whether trust can be rebuilt. We may not know whether the other person is ready to change. Jesus does not promise us control over any of that. But in the middle of this teaching, Jesus does make a promise: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Christ is present in the truth we are afraid to tell. Christ is present when someone finds the courage to acknowledge the harm they have caused. Christ is present in the possibility of repair. And Christ remains present when reconciliation is not yet possible and a faithful boundary must be kept.

In a few moments, we will gather at the Communion table. We do not come because all our relationships have been repaired. We do not come because racism has been overcome or God’s dream for this world has been completed. We come carrying unfinished work. And Jesus meets us here.

Jesus knows the truth about the disciples gathered around his table. He knows that they will betray, deny, and abandon him. He does not pretend that none of this matters. Yet he gives them bread. He offers them the cup. He makes room for a future they cannot yet imagine.

That is the grace offered to us today. Not grace that allows us to avoid the truth, but grace that gives us courage to tell it. Not grace that excuses harm, but grace that makes repentance and repair possible. Not grace that guarantees every relationship will be restored, but grace that refuses to let brokenness have the final word.

So come to this table carrying what is unfinished. Come receive courage for the truth that still needs to be told. Come receive grace for the work that remains. And come receive hope that reconciliation, however distant it may sometimes feel, is still possible. Then let us return to our relationships, our communities, and our world ready to participate in the work Christ entrusts to us as we continue Becoming Christ in the Community.