resurrection and reconciliation

I don't like the feeling I get when I know that I have offended someone. I am an anxious person, I guess. I do not have tough enough skin for this calling. I take it personally. So when I am accused of some form of wrongdoing or injustice, I seek to make amends and to clear the air. I want to set it right and restore a clear conscience. I am aware that I have shortcomings that may offend or anger others. I am not neat. I am scattered. I lose things. I don't pick up. I don't always follow through. Sometimes I don't do what I say. This is the most regrettable offense. Do what you say you're going to do. I have learned the hard way that people take me at my word, which makes me the breaker of promises.
I am not passive aggressive, either. I like to talk through conflict and to resolve anger peaceably. When I discover that someone has been harboring ill feelings toward me for several weeks, months, or even years it grieves me. I cherish the power of forgiveness because of this. Being set free from the need to punish others also releases the victim from the violence. And isn't all sin, great or small, violent? Does sin not violate our sense of goodness, rightness, health, balance, etc...? Forgiveness is the first step in reconciliation, which Jeuss teaches as a central claim about God and the kingdom. Being reconciled to GOD begins with release from punishment for sin. It is advanced through an ongoing way of reconciliation, as we begin to live together for the healing of one another and for the building up of relationships toward harmony, compassion, and love.
Interject the problem: On Easter Sunday, I was threatened with a small claims law suit because I hadn't returned a meaningful item to a person in my congregation. He had offered it to me 3years ago. I had failed to return it, despite at least one prior attempt to retrieve it from me. I was a little embarassed and also anxious to find what he sought, in order to return it promptly and avoid more conflict. I was able to return it the next day. For me, resurrection is not only a future post-death reality. Resurrection is life in a perpetual state of grace characterized by a spirit of reconciliation and loving service. What I mean is: Easter is a way of life now. The church is the body of Chirst, daily dying to sin and rising as a foretaste of the new creation. We embody the risen Jesus in our relationships, in our sharing of spiritual gifts, and in our humble gratitude that fosters worship.
Back to the problem: People give me stuff. Sometimes as gift or offering or "payment" for some service. I realize we live in a transactional culture where people beleive they must pay for service. What I freely received, however, I am called to freely give.
People give me stuff as a function of the priestly office in which I reluctantly serve. People want to be approved, blessed, and endorsed. People want to be heard, they want to count, to be numbered among those in "the Lord's book of life." People need to matter and they expect their priest to mediate that need before GOD. So they give me stuff. In many forms. Books. Tapes. CDs. Movies. Ideas. Religious Kitch. Notes. Stuff. Sometimes its gift. Sometimes its not. Often its task. I am supposed to do something with or about it. Bless, affirm, acknowledge, embrace. I am not good at this. I think it is because I am not a priest. I am a prophet in priest's clothing. I am a missionary working as a manager/minister. Square peg/round hole. Only the peg is under the microscope too with expectations to fit in. People want me to be round. I am not. I can exercise priestly functions, as can all baptized Christians, called to offer service and prayer to those in need. But i am not the priest. I am not the head, the administrator, or the one who blesses. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the LORD.
What would it mean for me to experience resurrection and reconciliation? I think about the healing of broken relationships. And I think about the need to live authentically as a follower of Jesus called to church vocation. What would it mean to cease being the Priest and live publically as the Prophet in this place? I resonate with Michael Frost's intent to recover the lost expressions of apostle, prophet, and evangelist as integral to the organic ministry of body-building for the church's maturity---as described by the writer of Ephesians 4. His chapter in "The Shaping of things to come" on the five fold leadership structure of the early community has affirmed much of my own vocational journey. Living as an apostle/evangelist in a denomination that has not affirmed or endorsed such ministry is challenging. But it is necessary in the post-Christian, postmodern U.S. So how will apostle/prophets/evangelists live out their vocations authentically and sustainably? We shall see. In the meantime, Jesus is risen and we are reconciled. May we rise to reconcile with all of creation, in its wounded, broken, lostness.