The Rev’d Virginia Holleman
Year A, Proper 18 – September 6, 2020
Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 149
Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20
In the Name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
If ever I thought my faith was a matter just between me and Jesus, this story from Matthew’s Gospel would surely correct my thinking. Faith, my faith, is a community affair. So is yours; so is every other person’s who professes to be a Christian. Sure, we do need time alone to ponder the things in our hearts and lay them at the feet of our Lord. It’s why people have special places in their homes for private prayer; it’s why we go on retreat – either by ourselves or with a small group or even with a trusted friend. We do need time to spend in quiet and reflection with our Lord; we need Sabbath time. It recharges our batteries and renews our souls. But, you can’t stay on retreat or in your special place forever; you can’t be a Christian by yourself. We need community; we need, in the words of this morning’s Psalm, “the congregation of the faithful.” And since “community” is made up of unique human beings, individuals each and every one of us, community by it’s very nature will be fraught with anxiety, disagreements, frustrations, anger, misunderstanding, hurt feelings and sorrow. Fortunately too you will also find in community forgiveness, understanding, hope, patience, hospitality and love – all those things Paul implies to the young Christian community in Rome when he reminds them in our Epistle reading for today to “Love your neighbor as yourself” because “love is the fulfilling of [God’s] law.” Paul’s advice hits the nail right on the head and is just as important today as it was almost 2000 years ago.
In our Gospel lesson for this morning, Jesus is talking to us about what it means to be in community. He tells us, if someone in your church – in your community – sins against you, the burden of fixing this is on you, the victim – it’s not on me, the wrong-doer. Now I’m talking about sin here, not crime – and I think there’s a difference. Crime is like a felony, and sin – well sin is more a product of our human failing. When I sin against you, there’s always that possibility that the sinning was inadvertent; I didn’t realize I would hurt your feelings or maybe I misunderstood what you expected of me. I remember years ago when my sons were still in elementary school, the mother of one of my younger son’s friends came by our house unexpectedly. I invited her in, she sat down on my sofa and promptly burst into tears. In between sobs she asked what she had done to have caused me to ignore her. I was shocked and had no idea what she was talking about. Apparently we had passed each other in the hall at the elementary school and I hadn’t acknowledged her in any way so she assumed I was mad at her. After I explained that sometimes when I’m deep in thought I tend to have tunnel vision and don’t see anything else around me. I assured her in no way was I upset with her – and thanked her profusely for coming to me to get this straightened out. The misunderstanding could have been blown way out of proportion but fortunately she did exactly what Jesus commends. My tendency when I feel I have been wronged is either to retreat to my special place to lick my wounds or come out with my arms flailing, fists clenched, ready to do battle in the name of hurt feelings or wounded ego. Jesus doesn’t go along with either of my tendencies.
“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault (the sin, the hurt, what it is that’s offended you) [but do this] when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you [and I did], you have regained [your friend].” In other words, don’t go and blast someone in public right off the bat because the chances are pretty good that that member of your community will become very defensive and will NOT hear what you have to say. If you go alone, there is a chance we may be able to work this out – just the two of us. But maybe not.
So Jesus continues, “But if you are not listened to (your friend becomes defensive anyway, walks away from you or asks you to leave) take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” So you ask a couple of the folks from your Foyer group or your Bible study or your Confirmation class, you ask them to go with you; maybe they can mediate this misunderstanding. But again, maybe not.
If not, Jesus suggests still another way – take the whole church with you if necessary, but don’t give up on your friend. Maybe with the whole community there supporting both of you, maybe then reconciliation and forgiveness can take place. When the other member of the church who has sinned against you sees how important it is to you for you to be in relationship with each other, in community again, maybe then she will be moved to put aside whatever anger and hurt feelings have accumulated in her heart as well.
This is a lesson on what it really means to be in community. It’s a lesson in healthy confrontation and accountability because you love someone; it’s not a lesson in how to seek vengeance or retribution or how to make me do what you think I should. What’s the most important in all of this is community, living together with forgiveness, understanding, hope, patience, hospitality and love.
But Jesus ends this little vignette with something that seems to totally negate this. “If the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Now to the Jewish people in Jesus’ day, it doesn’t get much worse than being a Gentile or tax collector. Definitely not people you want to be with. So it seems pretty clear. The offender doesn’t want to work this out with the offended? Kick ‘em out – they’re no longer welcome in our community! At least that’s what it seems to say: “If the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
But I’m not sure Jesus means to kick ’em out of the community. Think back a couple of weeks ago to the story about the Canaanite woman – a Gentile – who comes to Jesus begging him to heal her daughter. Even though Jesus appears to be downright rude to this distraught mother, her faith in him as her Lord touches him deeply and he heals the daughter of this Gentile woman. Now, think about which Gospel writer we are reading this year – Matthew. Tradition associates the writer of this Gospel with one of Jesus’ disciples, one of the 12 trusted friends and confidants who travel with Jesus and share his ministry for three years. Matthew – And what did Matthew do before Jesus called him to be a disciple? Matthew was a tax collector. A hated tax collector. Hated because he was a Jew working for the oppressive Roman tyrants to collect the taxes for them. And tax collectors always collected more than they should in order to fatten their own purses and make themselves rich in the process.
So this is how we are to treat the members of our community who don’t want to reconcile with us – like Jesus treats a Gentile woman, like Jesus treats a tax collector. We are to commend their faith, heal their daughters, and call them to discipleship. They are part of our community, whether we think they are or not. Whether they think they are or not! It doesn’t matter if we think they don’t deserve to be part of our community. Their race, their religion, their gender, their identity, their social status, whether they’ve sinned against me or not – that isn’t important; what is important is their humanity. We call that Grace. And since it has been extended to us by Jesus, we in turn need to extend it to others, even when they – like us – don’t deserve it
So what does it mean to be in community, to seek and serve Christ in each other, to live as our Lord Jesus would have us live? Well for starters it means being responsible for each other – I think the Bible makes that very clear – we are not islands each unto ourselves! We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, and that’s not just for family and friends. It’s also those people who offend us – or seemingly intentionally ignore us to hurt our feelings. But it’s also the very young and the very old, the widowed and orphaned, the stranger who lives among us, the poor and the downtrodden – all those marginalized folks the Bible is constantly commending to our care – those who can’t care for themselves. Our caring for them today can mean extending the hand of friendship when no one else will. It can mean loving someone who isn’t particularly loveable. It can mean going out of our way to help someone in need even when our own resources may be stretched a bit thin. It can mean joining a community action group when they lobby for safer neighborhoods and safer policing. It can mean joining a march advocating for justice. It can mean spending several days sewing pillowcases for CPS so that kids who have to be removed from their families can put their few belongings in a new and large pillowcase – the large is important! Community often means reaching out to help someone whose needs are greater than your own. That’s what it means to live as community. Community doesn’t turn its back on the hurt, on the homeless, on those who have hurt our feelings, sinned against us or even professed a theology different from our own. Community constantly goes back to work it out. Constantly, as many times as it takes. By yourself, with a couple of community members or with the whole community with you. As many times as it takes.
There’s no question that right now we need community more than ever. It’s one of the reasons I feel we here at St. Thomas are so blessed to belong to a small church – we’re small enough to do zoom services and meaningfully connect with each other – we can SEE each other every Sunday. The larger churches can’t do this and have to stream their services thru the Internet never knowing who is “attending” church today and who isn’t. But all those little things we took for granted that make us the special community that St. Thomas is – those are the things I am really missing and I suspect you are too. I’m tired of not giving hugs and not going to Café Express on the first Sunday for brunch with all of you. And I miss going to the movies and leisurely browsing the shelves of the library for something to read. All legitimate – I think – but in many ways considering our neighbors to the east of us pretty paltry as well.
Our neighbors to the east of us on the Gulf Coast are struggling to recover from the devastation and loss in the wake of Hurricane Laura. We here in North Texas are fortunate. By comparison to our neighbors there, we’re dry and cool thanks to the recent rains and electricity that still powers our air conditioning, and we have plenty of clean water to drink and safe food to eat. The survivors of that hurricane don’t. Their homes have been destroyed, they have no electricity, and they are running out of hope. But they are our brothers and sisters in Christ, and as community reaching out to them with open hands and open hearts and open pocket books, we are seeking and serving the Christ that is in them. Let us pray that by what we do they will be able to see the Christ that is in us too.
Episcopal Relief & Development has appealed to all of us as members of the Christian Community to be ministers of that hope, through Christ, to the people who are enduring the effects of this horrific disaster. Because through Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit we will be bound together “as a community of love and service to bear one another’s burdens” (++Michael Curry) as we face the future together. Community is easy when we agree, when we’re healthy, when life is sunny and free. But when community is still together when we disagree, when we face life’s tragedies together and shoulder each other’s burdens, bearing each other’s sorrows and misfortunes, that’s when the true spirit of the gospel message comes through – because we are loving as Jesus loves. Each of us can show the compassion we feel for these members of Christ’s community by going to Episcopal Relief & Development’s website and making a donation to their Hurricane Relief Fund. Episcopal Relief & Development is in constant communication with the impacted dioceses working to reach vulnerable populations devastated by the storm. With the help of our donations we thru them can be the hands and feet of Jesus. We thru them can be the reflection of the love God has for each one of us and of the love we have for God. That is what binds us together as Christ’s community, a love that is rich in mercy, forgiveness, and compassion.
AMEN.
