A reflection on 2 Corinthians 5:16-20

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.—2 Corinthians 5:16-20

Four years ago, I sold my house, gave up my position as a tenured college professor and moved to New Orleans, where I now live and work for Mennonite Central Committee Central States. (In order to be clear from the start that living out the commands of Jesus is something I aspire to, not something I do perfectly, I should clarify that I put the profits from the sale of my house into a CD rather than giving them to the poor.)
Much has changed about my life over these four years. How does this compare with the new creation described in Paul’s words to the church at Corinth?

The Scripture text chosen as a theme for the Pittsburgh convention includes such beautiful words—a new creation, a new start, all things new, a ministry of reconciliation. What things do you want to become new, to get a clean start with?

Socialized in a white, working-class environment, I learned frugality. I continue to use old things way past the time most people replace them. Before I traded in my last car, I had to hold the driver’s side window up with my left hand while driving. I am typing this reflection on a computer with several stuck keys, a missing left-click button and a missing disk drive panel.

When I finally get around to replacing my old worn-out things, the feel of “newness” of a new car, a new computer—a new whatever—is quite a treat. And these are just things. What if our relationships became new—all the brokenness from the wear and tear of the years washed away and all things full of potential and promise yet again? What if our bodies became new? What if the Earth we live on became new? What if we could start over and create a new society, free from the legacy of wrongs that we all have inherited?

In the world we live in, we cause such harm to ourselves, to one another and to the rest of creation. I work in a majority black community that has been brutalized by racism and economic oppression. With tourism a major industry, many of the jobs available in the city are low-wage service jobs. The poverty rate in the city before Hurricane Katrina was twice the national average, with a stark racial discrepancy; three times as many of the city’s black residents fell below the poverty rate as white residents. The region has become increasingly vulnerable to hurricanes due to the loss of the wetlands, and the oil industry and choices to deprioritize investments in infrastructure and environmental restoration have contributed to this loss.

In recent years, poverty in this area has only intensified. Some people saw economic and political opportunities in the devastation that occurred following Hurricane Katrina, and as a result, fewer public services are now available, due to almost all sectors having become privatized. Transportation, education, health care, housing and recreation programs all cost more than they did before the storm. As is repeated too often around the world, the situations of the majority of the people have worsened, while a tiny elite benefits. Those who have the means have seized land and political power without giving thought to those whose broken hearts and shattered lives they are building upon. What causes and maintains such startling numbness to the humanity, suffering, hurt and longing of other people?

All of us are damaged by the realities of oppression in our world. As I live and work with people who have experienced so much displacement, I bear the burden of ancestors who have purged other lands in other times, many times over. In the course of these past four years, I have formed some authentic relationships with people of color as we work alongside one another in our common struggle to create a more loving world. These relationships must be lived out in a world that bears the wounds of centuries of injustice and racial violence. No amount of good intentions or personal history can inoculate my friends and me against the times when this wounded history seems to rear up and make the chasm between us seem so wide, even virtually uncrossable. We work for a new creation, but we do not live in a new creation.
We read in Romans that the creation “waits with eager longing … [to] be set free from its bondage to decay” (Romans 8:19-20). I long for a new creation more than anything.

I long for a world without racism, without poverty, without weapons, without oppressive and unjust hierarchies, without hunger and chronic unmet needs, without greed. I long for a world that operates on love and care for one another, with vibrant communities providing support and accountability, where we embrace dialogue among multiple perspectives that all enrich each other. I am an idealist. Is this an unrealistic vision? Paul writes to the Corinthians that everything old has passed away, and all things have become new.

Some believe the only change God is working to bring about is inside ourselves, but many things have convinced me otherwise, including Jesus’ persistent and remarkable care and concern for the poor, women and other social outcasts; Bible passages about political hierarchies being reversed (see Luke 1: 52-53); as well as the stirrings of my own heart and spirit. God is changing us internally, but God does not stop there. Our world groans for change at the individual, relational and institutional levels, and I see God’s Spirit sometimes whispering, other times shouting a message of reconciliation for all three.

Leaving a tenured position and moving to work in this struggling community seemed to others like a courageous leap of faith, but God was so strongly present with me during that it didn’t seem like anything else was even possible. I remember reading a reflection about a drop of water “surrendering to gravity” as it fell off a leaf, and that is how it felt to me at that time. Sometimes God’s change comes in that way.

Often, though, change is much harder to come by. For four years, my job has been focused on work for social change, and what I experience most often is how stuck we are in the old brokenness. I am a member of Critical Resistance, a group that envisions a world without jails—not a world without accountability but a world where healthy, intact communities work to prevent harm by promoting humane values and care for one another and address harm restoratively when it does occur. But what are you going to do with the rapists and murderers? people want to know, just as those who argue against nonviolence want to know what pacifist Mennonites would do about Hitler. In a world like the one we’re working for, there would be fewer murderers, rapists and Hitlers to deal with, but I know we aren’t there yet. How do we get there from here?

We are called to be builders of bridges from the old to the new creation. To do this, we need to liberate our imaginations and dream of what seems barely possible. We are—as the theme verses for Pittsburgh 2011 remind us—called to a ministry of reconciliation, working to reconcile this world to a God who demands that we first be reconciled to one another.

During Advent 2007, the denominational resources for the liturgical season included a theme song called “The Canticle of the Turning” by Rory Cooney. The words of the song gave me hope and strength during a time when I and others in New Orleans were embroiled in a fight to save public housing stock:

“My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears,
For the dawn draws near,
And the world is about to turn.”

I am sad to say the public housing developments were eventually demolished, only increasing the displacement and homelessness that poor and black and working-class people in the city were already experiencing.

“Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long,” wrote Martin Luther King, “but it bends toward justice.” These words, along with Paul’s words about all things becoming new, heal my tired soul and remind me to persist in hope for the world’s turning, knowing all the while that the Spirit of God is moving, working alongside us for the liberation of all, breathing the new creation into being along with us.