Sermon for September 6, 2020 - The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 18A - The Rev'd Elise A. Feyerherm

Ezekiel 33:7-11 – Psalm 119:33-40 – Romans 13:8-14 – Matthew 18:15-20

Months ago, when this pandemic was in its early stages, a friend of mine posted something on Facebook that hurt me. It was not directly aimed at me; I was not named in the post; and yet the comment cut me to the core. All the telltale signs of emotional injury were there – my heart-rate and breathing sped up, my stomach felt queasy, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I responded in the comments in a way that signaled my pain, but as always, I didn’t feel as if I had communicated my experience in a clear way. To be honest, I have never found social media to be a place to express real emotion in any kind of authentic and effective way. But that is a topic for another sermon or conversation.

Although I had made an effort to communicate my hurt, it didn’t really help. Nothing had been resolved. I could still feel the break in our relationship, from my end, at least. As the weekend passed, I knew that something more was required of me, if I wanted this friendship to be preserved and healthy.

The following Monday, I made the phone call. No accusations, just an honest statement of hurt, and most of all, love. It wouldn’t have mattered if I didn’t love this friend so deeply, and if we didn’t need each other so much. The other reason I wanted to reach out is that this friend is not only a friend, but a sibling in Christ. We are bound together, no matter what, by our calling to follow Jesus and build up the Body of Christ.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says, “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.”

My friend did listen. We admitted that we have different views of certain matters, but what mattered most to both of us was our love for each other and our love for Jesus and his people. We recognized the way each of us sins against others; in the Greek of the New Testament, “misses the mark.” And as we talked, the hurt began to ease. The shackles of resentment loosened in my heart, and, as Jesus promises, I have no doubt that those shackles will continue to be loosened in the world to come. Had we not worked this through, I wonder if I still would be bound, as Jesus says, even to the end of the age.

This section in Matthew is unique to this gospel. Luke also mentions the need to rebuke a church member who has sinned, but leaves the instruction to a brief sentence. Matthew goes into more detail. Matthew is known as the “church’s gospel,” in part because of these detailed instructions on how to live together in holy community. This section on how to process conflict and hurt sits within a larger section focused on the need for, and way of, forgiveness. It forms what we might call our “community rule,” one of the pillars of our “Way of Love.” And I am grateful. Without it, I might still be alienated from my friend. I might still be part of a rift in the Body of Christ.

Think about why Matthew might have included this pattern of processing mistakes, hurts, and forgiveness. Think about why Jesus might have reflected on this with his disciples and other followers. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, the earliest Christian communities were not perfect? That they made mistakes and hurt one another? That they found it hard to work through these painful ruptures in their relationships?

Being Church has always been hard. Being in human relationship has always been hard. I find it heartening that my own struggles are not just my own, but have been part of the Church’s experience since the very beginning.

I am especially glad that Matthew’s Christian community had begun to translate intention into action, and handed down that pattern of action to us. The sins that are referred to in Matthew 18 are about relationships within the community, not offenses against God. Knowing that they would inevitably miss the mark and hurt one another, no matter how much love they had in their hearts, the community must have understood that swallowing the hurt would only lead to resentment. The Church was – and is – meant to be a community of compassion instead of hatred, mercy instead of judgment, honesty instead of avoidance, and restoration rather than retribution.

This is at the core of Jewish teaching: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” As we can see from today’s lesson from Romans, the apostle Paul knew his Torah, and the 19th chapter of Leviticus from which this commandment comes. The larger quotation is this: “You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

I don’t think I am one to take vengeance, but I am likely to remember and hold on to hurts. I cling to the memory of sharp words while praise slides right off my back. And I wonder whether I would still be nursing the wound of my friend’s Facebook post if I had not summoned up the courage to talk with her about it. As it is, I had all but forgotten about it until I began to work on this sermon. A grudge had been loosed on earth before it could take hold of me, as I pray it and other grudges will be loosed even in heaven.

The world around us is devolving daily into a place of anger, retribution, and vengeance. We are being assaulted daily with images and stories – and experiences – of people whose faces are distorted by rage. Protesters and police pitted against each other as enemies rather than as fellow citizens in a nation longing for justice and equality. We take our own fear and pain and turn them into weapons, wanting to make someone else pay. Kenosha, Portland, Boston, and yes, our own communities, social circles, and families.

If we as the Church are to be a force for love and justice in the world, we have to do more than swallow our hurts and pretend to make nice. We have to do the hard, hard work of restoring our own relationships if we are to have anything to offer this angry, vindictive world. And it is work – hard emotional work with physical consequences. After I talked to my friend, I had to go sleep for an hour to recover.

Full disclosure: I am really bad at directly talking with people who have hurt me. I am even worse at hearing others tell me I have hurt them. I avoid conflict and difficult conversations. I avoid them like, well, like the coronavirus. I don’t like doing this.

And yet the deep wisdom of Leviticus, Jesus, Matthew, and Paul tells me that this is the only way to begin to loosen the bonds that keep us slaves to an unending cycle of pain and regret. And I believe that we can be a source of reconciliation in the world only insofar as we embrace this holy practice in our own lives, and in the Church.

It is hard, hard work. We will fail at it, as no doubt Matthew’s community failed. We will continue to sin, to “miss the mark.” And we will get up and try again, with love and tenderness and no doubt many tears.

One thing I wish I had done before I called my friend – I wish I had taken a moment to ask Jesus to be with me. I wish I had taken a breath and prayed, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, a sinner of your own redeeming and a child of God.”

Jesus was there, of course – you all know that. Nothing could keep him out. But I wish I had reminded myself of that.

Because, as hard as this work is, it’s not really our work. It’s the work of God, who is Eternal Majesty, Incarnate Word, and Abiding Spirit. This work of reconciliation and restoration is all grace – we just have to learn to see it and give ourselves to it.

This is all we need to know: Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Always and forever.

Let us pray:

Lord of the church,

you call a broken people [into your presence]:

in times of disagreement

teach us to listen,

loose us from prejudice

and bind us to your way

of forgiving grace;

through Jesus Christ,

who stands at the heart of our gathering.

Amen.

- Steven Shakespeare, Prayers for an Inclusive Church, “Collect for Proper 18A (adapted).” New York: Church Publishing, 2009, p.35.