We Want Church To Be MORE!

Sermon-Proper 18A/ Pentecost +12
September 4, 2011
How many of you are really frustrated with congress, exasperated with their inability to get things done, discouraged by their stubbornness and ineffectiveness? You know what John Adams, our second president said? “one useless man is a shame, two [useless men] is a law firm, and three or more [useless men] is a congress." I listen to my share of political shows and I have heard many good ideas about how things ought to be changed so that we get on the right track. The problem is, I keep running into other people, like myself, who have different (I would say wrong) ideas about how things ought to be changed. And I guess that is what I have learned about our current political situation right now-it reflects us. No one has offered this as an explanation, but listening to today’s gospel gave me some insight-we have the kind of congress right now-that we deserve-conflicted, unproductive, angry, and uncivil. Because maybe that’s who we are. Maybe the government we have right now is in our image--conflicted, unproductive, angry, and uncivil.
Jesus had a tough road the last several chapters of Matthew-disciples disappointing, Pharisees judging, people arguing. And then we get to chapter 18. And Matthew portrays Jesus as essentially giving instructions about what his community, the church, should look like, be like. A lot of Biblical scholars think this section actually came from the teaching Jesus gave after the resurrection and was reinserted here. Regardless, Jesus begins talking to his disciples and explaining to them how they have to live together. It’s so easy to focus on the easy parts of this reading and skip the tough ones. If someone sins against you, you have to go and talk to them about it. Privately. Ever gone to someone and told them what they’ve done wrong? That’s the easy part. Ever been the toldee? How did you handle that? This is what we have to do if we want to live together. I’m afraid if people took this seriously that they had to tell me how I had sinned against them the line would be down the block. To be the church, Jesus tells his disciples, you have to be honest with one another. You have to be brave. And you have to be open and willing to listen. And it is not easy. Everyone always talks about living in community, being a pat of a larger family-how much we want that. But realistically, it is difficult living with people. What is going on in our government is a good example. The more scared we are, the more stubborn, the more accusatory, the more we blame, the more angry, the less we listen.
There is a mistranslation in today’s gospel-and it was done on purpose. Look at your bulletin. See where it says "If another member of the church…” and then a little farther it says, “you have regained that one” “member of the church” and “that one” What the Greek actually says is “If your BROTHER sins against you” and later “you have REGAINED your brother” Your brother. Does that feel a little different than “a member of the church”? The translators were trying to get the sense of inclusion in the words at the sacrifice of intimacy. If your brother sins against you-what do you do?

From time to time I will go up to someone, someone who is a pretty good person, and say to them, “you know what, I think you’re a pretty good person, and I’d like you to consider serving on the vestry-the board that runs Trinity.” And I can’t count how many times people have said to me over the centuries, something like this “oh no, I like Trinity, I don’t want to see the political/powerhungry/nasty/dark side of it by serving on the vestry.” We assume that if we know too much we won’t like what we see. Church, the Christian community, for most of us is an ideal, a model, and we’re afraid if know too much, see too much, our dream. Our model will be scarred and tainted.
Jesus said, “But 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.” Don’t take people along so they can agree with you, or record the charges, take them with so they can explain to both of you what is being said. As Karl Jacobson, Assistant Professor of Religion, Augsburg College Minneapolis, MN writes: “Jesus is not instructing us to bring witnesses to testify against our "brother" who has sinned against us, but to testify to the exchange between brother and sister.” “If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church…” Jacobson again: “Jesus says, essentially, that being a member of the church means you have a responsibility. If your sheep gets lost you don't look for an hour and call it quits. You get out there and find that sheep.”
They were surveying ministers about their favorite and least favorite gospel stories-and guess what-this turned up very often as “least.” One of the primary reasons people leave a church is because there is conflict-and not just conflict-but nastiness. People are always telling me that they left a previous church because there was arguing, name calling, fighting-and there was only one option-losers had to leave. What a shame. We want more from a community dedicated to Jesus. We want a community where no one has to or wants to leave, where people are so committed to each other-and more importantly, to Christ, that even when one of them sins against their brother-they stay. Jesus tells his friends, “these are your brothers, work through it-be honest, be accountable, be brave, be open. This is your brother.” Jacobson one more time: “One of the things that plagues most Christian communities (and other communities no doubt) is the inability to handle confrontation, disagreement and our mutual accountability when it comes to sin. We simply don't know how to live together, fight together, and stay together.
It started last week when Jesus told Peter, on this rock I will build my church. Here it is. Here is what it’s about, here is where we go. The next few weeks, Jesus is going to tell his disciples how hard it is to be the church-the community that will live on after he is gone. He wants it to be a dream, too. He wants it to be a model for how people can live together, love together, and even fight together. He wants it to be unlike anything else we’ve ever done. He will never, ever tell his friends that it needs to be easy. He will not say that he will be in their midst when they agree.
Years ago I was on the board of an organization, and it was disintegrating in front of our eyes. Backbiting, yelling, accusing. There were threats, namecalling-people being fired. I would come home from the meetings and Deb would say, why don’t you just resign. And I figured I probably would. One evening, one of the members, a prominent businessman, said-“we can’t keep going like this-we have to come up with a different way of being a board. And he suggested that we spend the next 3 meetings coming up with solutions on how we could work together. It was painful and hard. But the first principle we came up with-you had to talk to the person you disagreed with-directly-in person. It was eye opening. Businesspeople following Matthew 18.
Listen to Jacobson one last time: “Notice that Jesus follows this with talk about the power of agreement, saying that anything that is agreed upon by two on earth will be done for them by the Father in heaven. This is a promise. But notice as well that this is not where Jesus ends. Jesus says last, "where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." There is no question of agreement at this point. Jesus is present, really present, where two or three are gathered in the Divine Name, not just where two or three agree in Jesus' name, but where two are three are gathered; presumably this includes the two who cannot listen to each other about a matter of sin, and how to handle it. Even there, perhaps especially there, Christ Jesus is present.” Brothers-and sisters-don’t always get along. We don’t always agree. We frequently, painfully, sin against each other. We hurt each other-intentionally and unintentionally. And we respond badly way too often. But that doesn’t change our relationship. That doesn’t change the dream. Our goal is still to be a new community in Christ, something sacred, something holy. It just means that it will take a lot more of ourselves that we wanted to give.
From time to time, people who have been arguing will wind up at the altar rail receiving communion-side by side. I don’t know what they’re thinking or feeling when this happens-maybe they don’t even notice the person beside them. But when I see it I always think-this is what church is supposed to be.
Over the next few weeks we will hear through Matthew, Jesus teaching how this new community has to be, must be. He will handle the hard parts of being brothers and sisters in Christ. Today it’s about conflict and confrontation-two things we never want to deal with in church. But if we are to be brothers and sisters, if we are to live together as the ideal community-this is what we have to do. We fight, we confront, we go to one another, and we gather in Christ’s name. Amen.