Remember & Reconcile

By Aimee Tucker

Community Life & Mission Pastor

Hyde Park Vineyard Church

The work of the Spirit is to remember and reconcile. We have, as part of our heritage in the Vineyard, the same charge that was given to Paul by the early church: “All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along” (Gal 2:10). John Wimber extended this same challenge from the earliest days of our movement as a critical sign of the work of Jesus’ kingdom in our midst.

For our Vineyard congregation on the south side of Chicago, we recognize the many effects of generational poverty in our larger community which have been perpetuated through years of unjust systems that exploit the poor from so many heart-breaking angles. As a part of our community and as followers of Jesus, we are obligated to have eyes to see these injustices around us and to ask Jesus how we might be reconciled to those who have experienced such poverty.

It is challenging to remain engaged in this work as it often reveals our own shortcomings. The longer our church has endeavored in the relational work of reconciliation with the poor, both in our city and in our global missions partnerships, the more I realize my own poverty of spirit. This, however, is precisely where we encounter an opportunity for God’s kingdom to come. I believe Jesus wanted us to remember the poor not simply for their sake, but that we might be challenged by the generosity, humility, perseverance, and grace that are modeled for us over and over again by those whom the world has deemed poor.

John M. Perkins, a pioneer in the work of Christian community development and one of my heroes who has modeled a life of engaging the needs of the poor, wrote that, “Because reconciliation is so hard to live out on a consistent basis, I fully believe that it’s one of the greatest displays of God’s redemptive power…a reconciled church would be an incredible testimony to God’s ability to do things that are impossible for human beings to accomplish on their own.”^[1] When we allow Jesus to do this work of reconciliation among all of us, whether across the socio-economic or racial lines drawn by the world, we find ourselves changed more into the people God has called us to be. May our churches continue to say, “Come, Holy Spirit,” as a cry to also call us back to remember the poor. May our testimony be that God has done this kingdom work among us, in a way that is only made possible through him, as he reconciles us to one another.

^[1] Perkins, John M., Dream With Me: Race, Love, and the Struggle We Must Win (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2017), 84.