What do we owe when we’ve long ago taken something

Some of you may have recently seen my son, Jonah’s, reflection on medium.com. In it he reflects on both of his grandfathers and writes about the idea of what is required of us to repair (or even begin to address) historical injustice – and especially if we are the beneficiaries of that injustice.

I’d encourage you to read his reflection (it’s a 3 minute read) at https://medium.com/@jonah.boucher/on-rocks-and-reparation-6a9007fb8022

But in case you may not have time to read it, he concludes his piece with, “With all that they [my grandparents] have directly and indirectly given me, surely I bear some of this same responsibility too.” And he goes on to ask, “What do we owe when we’ve long ago taken something? How do we deal with the inheritance of these debts? It’s hard to imagine where to begin, and even harder to imagine an end.”

Just pause for a moment.

What comes up in you when you think about the repair of historical injustice and your place in it?[1]

In some circles in this country, the word “reparations” has become a hot-button word that evokes such deep reactions. Yet at the heart of the word “reparation” is the word “repair.” And as people of the Christian faith, we are steeped in a tradition of repair.

For example, I love the words from Isaiah 52 (v 12) where it says, “Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”

The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. The streets will be restored. The foundations for a new generation will be raised.

But by whom? And how?

When Jesus lived in first-century Palestine, he was not unfamiliar with this idea of repair because he and his people lived in an occupied land. No doubt he was familiar with the prophetic tradition of Isaiah (he quotes it a few times!) and about repairing the breaches in society (which are not merely spiritual but economic and about land being returned to people). Furthermore, he does not balk at the tax collector, Zacchaeus’, proposal to pay back those who have been cheated out of money 4 times what was taken from them.

Again, just breathe this in.

You may have heard me cite the work and writing of Mia Mingus before. She is a queer, disabled Korean adoptee who writes frequently about activism, accountability and disability justice. As someone who knows first-hand the embodied impacts of historical harm, she offers people ideas on “repair” in one of her blog posts titled “How To Give a Good Apology.”[2] (I would invite you to check it out at some point because it is so rich.)

In the blog post, she divides accountability into 4 main parts, “Self-Reflection, Apologizing, Repair, Behavior Change.”

Because I am focused on one aspect of this accountability process, I’ll just say a bit about the repair part, but as you can see, repair is one part of a much larger process.

Mingus says that “repair includes making amends and rebuilding trust” and is “an opportunity to do the work to be in right relationship with those you have hurt or harmed, and just as important, to also be in right relationship with yourself. Repair can take a long time and usually demands consistency and a level of faith in the face of fear that we are often not taught. It takes a lot of work to rebuild trust and to mend a broken relationship, especially when compounded by past trauma (for everyone involved).”

I have often thought that one of the reasons we have so much turmoil in our country is because we have never addressed so many of the historical harms that are part of our country’s history. There is a dis-ease that lives in and among us because these harms and wounds have been largely untended and left to fester.

Obviously reparations are a complicated proposal and the idea of it raises many questions. And while there is complexity to it, some of it is quite simple. I was talking with someone lately who had some work done on their house and the contractor screwed some things up. The contractor asked the homeowner, “What do you want me to do?” The homeowner said, “Make it as right as possible!”

Given the current realities of the world, we can’t go back and change everything, but we can commit to making things “as right as possible” as often as we can – whether personally or collectively. And it is also important to keep in mind the principles of “restorative practices” which focus on asking those who have been harmed, “What do you need to make this right?”

What would “right relationship’ mean for us here in the United States?

With whom do we not currently have “right relationships?”

How were people harmed?

What does it do to us to not address these things?

In today’s gospel, Jesus says one of his more famous and troubling quotes, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother…and one’s enemies will be those of their household (Mt 10:34-35).”

When I read this, I think about something like reparations and the repair of historical harm. The prior generations (the parents) lived with certain assumptions and practices that can no longer continue if we are going to enact justice in the current generation. Disruption is required (the sword). The so-called peace (built upon the injustice) must be disturbed.

Mingus reminds us that “repair is not linear and does not follow a set path” and also says that “you will most likely have to apologize more than once while you are practicing repair and the process of repair can also help to reveal more harm that was caused or a clearer picture of the depth of the impact of your actions (or inaction).”

Perhaps this week, we can spend some time thinking about repair in our lives. We might think about times that we have tried to repair relationships and times that people have tried to repair with us. And maybe we spend some time reflecting further on collective repair and what that might look like from where we are in the world. And may our reflections move toward embodied action.

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[1] Perhaps part of what comes up in us depends on how much we have been beneficiaries of the historical injustice.

[2] https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2019/12/18/how-to-give-a-good-apology-part-1-the-four-parts-of-accountability/