Pentecost + 16

Matthew 18:15-20
15“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. 16But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

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You might be a United Methodist if…your pastor has ever said to you, “What I hear you saying is…”

This funny little quip about the way we as United Methodists may tend to offer pastoral care through a process called “active listening,” points me toward this passage—mainly because active listening is not something that comes naturally to most of us; we have to work at it. And this kind of conflict resolution doesn’t really come naturally to us either; in fact, I am afraid that not many kinds of conflict resolution come naturally to us as human beings any more. When was the last time you had a conflict, a fight with someone? Especially someone close to you?

It happens all the time, doesn’t it? You and your significant other, you and your child or parent, you and the dog or cat(!), you and the person who sits near you at work or works closely with you, you and your close friend—we just can’t seem to avoid conflicts with one another. I think it is part of what is called the “Human Condition”: that wonderful gift God gave us of discerning brains and thought patterns we have organized into free will. Having the will to make our own decisions and choose our own actions will inevitably, from time to time, cause us to offend a brother or sister somewhere down the line. Sometimes it is something you have said, whether you meant harm or not. Sometimes it is something you have done or not done. There are things in life that happen to separate us from one another, and Jesus took note of that while he was among us in the human condition. Then he gave us some advice about how to deal with and live with one another that, if were to actually listen to it or try to follow it, just might prove helpful in resolving the conflicts that can break relationships for good.

If we take a look at the whole 18th chapter of Matthew, we get an idea of where all this “how to treat each other” manual part of the gospel comes from. The beginning of the chapter finds the disciples approaching Jesus with the question, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” When I read that, I kinda want to scream at them: are you kidding me with this question? Have you heard nothing he has said to you? Jesus, though, answers them by comparing their allusions of grandeur to the natural humility of children, telling them that they must become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Also in this chapter is Matthew’s version of the parable of the lost sheep—a story known for its ridiculous description of how much God cares for every person individually and makes an effort to develop and maintain a relationship with each one of us, not settling for the big congregations of thousands of people or even a simple majority of believers among the population. And then we come to our passage about practicing the discipline of conflict resolution among the members of the church. In fact, the words he used are a kind of language of kinship, probably not imagining the way we sit in rows together in pews here at St. Paul as “another member of the church,” but more suggesting that there is a tie that binds us together that we cannot see or touch. Our belief in the saving love of Jesus brings us here and holds us here with the help of the Holy Spirit. But we’ll get to that Spirit in just a minute.

So, Jesus is aware that conflict is going to come up. He experiences it himself, usually something to do with some kind of class warfare: either within the synagogue or among his disciples. He’ll even be confronted by Peter in the next few verses asking Jesus if he really has to forgive a sin against him once and for all! Jesus knows that we are not so great at settling the things that come up between and among us. Nations of the world have created formal processes of dealing with disagreements so that we don’t have to come face-to-face with the people who sin against us. Matthew’s gospel was written for the community of Jewish folk who themselves had been excommunicated from the synagogues because of their belief in Jesus as the Messiah and, therefore, their incompatibility with Jewish tradition and teaching. We are still doing it today: excommunicating one another either one by one or in large groups because of disagreements that arise between and among us. And all along, we’ve had a solution right in front of us—a resolution to our disagreements that can so quickly rise to the point of fights, battles, and wars over saving face or proving ourselves to be right above all costs to us interpersonally. Is there another way?

Just imagine for a moment a time when you have been at odds with someone else. Maybe it was your spouse or partner; maybe a child or parent; maybe a co-worker or someone who sits in this sanctuary with you on Sunday morning for worship. How many of those times that you can recall ended with reconciliation? Did you actually bring your concerns and hurts out in the open with the intention of trying to make things better between you, or did you walk away with hurt feelings, writing off the relationship for lack of willingness to try to reconcile or the security of your own mind that the other person wouldn’t want to try, either? What if you tried the process that Jesus proposes in this passage? It would involve speaking openly about what has hurt you and how with the person who has done the hurting. And if that didn’t work, you’d have to let someone else step in as mediator between the two of you, and you’d have to tell the whole story to that person who would then listen to the whole story from “the other side,” too. And if that didn’t work, you’d have to let us—your community of faith and the people who pray with and for you on a regular basis—step in to help. And if that didn’t work, that person would continue to exist, just as an outsider to the religious community. What if we actually asked people to leave as a result of this process not working? Other churches do it all the time. Should we?

I believe the whole point of this passage is not the excommunication of those who can’t participate in the process of reconciliation. I believe that Jesus’ message for us this day is one of hope—that we truly can help one another in our hours of need. And I don’t just think that we can help each other in our hours of financial or physical need. We can go farther than being there for each other when it is easy to do so. We can help each other by holding one another accountable for our actions, calling each other out when sin has been committed against one another, and trying really hard to work it out.

I realize that sometimes we just can’t do this on our own. And that is where the good news comes from today. Through the power of the Spirit who binds us together in our faith in Christ, we have power beyond our human condition to really reach out to each other. Yes, it is easier to send one another packing out of our lives, to say, “We used to be close, but then we had a big falling out;” to hire professional people to mediate and settle our conflicts financially and legally. But the hard work of reconciliation is the work of God, the work of Christ among us to bring us back into relationship with God, the work of the Spirit to continue to saving work of Christ. And since we are created in God’s image, maybe it’s about time we started trying this reconciliation thing a little more often. It requires work and time, effort and commitment. It requires a lot of energy spent and sometimes un-recognized attempts at doing the right thing. Where can we even start, you may be asking?

We can start here, around the table. We can start by coming here together today, not just for what we experience individually in communion with God while kneeling here and receiving the bread and cup, but also for what we can experience from this time on into the week knowing that we have participated in this sacred meal together. No matter where we come from, what has gone before, or what is still weighing us down as we approach this altar, the body of Christ is big enough for all us and needs all of us in order to be whole.

Today I invite you to put aside those grudges, that anger, and that resentment that you feel—whether it be toward someone here today or someone far away from here. Instead, let the Spirit of God lead you to this table and begin the long, often difficult process of reconciliation by accepting the presence of Christ in your life, in your body and spirit. By bringing your whole self—joy, sadness, anger, all of it!—to this table, you will find strength to put aside those things which divide us and look for the grace and mercy to forgive one another. We gather here not in the name of grudge, anger, or resentment. We gather here in the name of Jesus, for he has promised us: wherever 2 or 3 are gathered in his name, Christ is among us.

Thanks be to God.
Thanks be to God its not just us who sometimes would rather just separate than work things out.
Thanks be to God that Christ is with us, all of us, now and always.

Amen.