Mennonite Weekly Review

Within living memory are several “births” of community. Mennonite groups in Manitoba differed passionately over forms of baptism. Differences were so emphasized by leadership that when people chose spouses across denominational lines (all Mennonite lines!) someone got excommunicated from the congregation. Years after various incidents, the pain was still palpable.

Muriel T. Stackley, a member of Rainbow Mennonite Church in Kansas City, Kan., is a retired editor and pastor. Her e-mail address is murielts15 (at) gmail.com.

Came the day, at a conference in Winnipeg, that the leaders of one group requested time, on stage, and addressed leaders of the other group. The visitors said, in effect, We have been too harsh. We have caused enough pain. We have overemphasized a particular form of baptism. We ask for your forgiveness.

Silence. Then tears. And embraces. Then a formal mutual giving and receiving of forgiveness. The Mennonite community in Manitoba was reborn. John the Baptist was correct: repentance and forgiveness are the cornerstone of community.

The courage to say ‘enough’

In March of this year, after four years of conflict, our Mennonite brothers and sisters in Congo said, “Enough.” With help from Mennonite World Conference, they reached an agreement that calls for the unity of the church to be considered a priority by all members. MWC’s Pakisa Tshimika said, “I felt today like it was Pentecost.”

As war casualties pile up, we should say, “Enough.” As we comprehend the nature of war, we should say, “Enough.” Unless we hear reporters like Robert Fisk (The Age of the Warrior), we are shielded from the human face of war: slaughter, poisoning of the environment “severed heads of children, slit throats, raped women hanging from ceiling fans, bodies of boys with the brains blown out and intestines dangling from their bellies, widows scouring mass graves” (“A Journalist on the Frontlines” by Raymond Schroth in National Catholic Reporter, July 11, 2008).

In making his movie The Power of Forgiveness, Martin Doblemeier asked Americans, “How do you feel about a Garden of Forgiveness at Ground Zero [in New York]?” Of his 6,000 respondents, 97 percent were against it. Doblemeier describes the United States as “an angry culture, angry on the highways, angry at the movies. We’re a nation of people who are deeply hurt.” Doblemeier promotes the idea that corporate forgiveness would lead to “a transformation of the world.” When will we have enough of anger?

New community is born — and existing ones are reborn — when we listen to Jesus, who was all about creating community, all about including people, all about forgiveness.