Sermon delivered Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014 (13th Sunday After Pentecost, Year A, Proper 18), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN (Matthew 18:15-20).
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus addresses one of those subjects nobody wants to talk about in church: conflict.
Many of us tend to think there should be no conflict in church, because if we were being “good Christian people” we wouldn’t disagree or argue with one another. But that simply isn’t true. Relationship therapists will tell you that in any relationship with any depth, conflict is bound to arise at some point. The problem in a relationship is not the presence of conflict, but how conflict is handled when it does arise.
Jesus outlines a very reasonable process for addressing conflict in this passage from Matthew chapter 18: “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone,” he says. The first step is to approach the person directly and privately, and almost all conflict can be addressed effectively at this level. Where we often get into trouble is when we avoid this step of talking directly to the person we are at odds with and instead start talking about that person to other people in unhelpful ways. If we approach the person directly and privately, in a spirit of respect and compassion, we can often address the issue right there and come to some kind of reconciliation between us.
But, in cases where that reconciliation is not forthcoming after a one-on-one encounter, the next step in the process Jesus outlines is to take along one or two other people with you to speak to that person. The reason he gives for this is so there will be a witness to your conversation, but a third party can also be a helpful mediator, especially if the person is trained to do such work. Often a third party can help broker peace between two people in conflict.
But if that doesn’t work either, the third step Jesus outlines is to take the issue to “the church.” It’s not entirely clear what “the church” means here, but most probably it means the local parish, not the entire denomination at large or the entire Christian community around the world! This step implies an appeal to the authorities – someone with the ability to issue judgment in the case, to make a decision about the matter; this is not an invitation to air your dirty laundry in front of the whole community at coffee hour!
If that step doesn’t work and the person still continues in the offensive behavior, Jesus says to “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” This phrase can be somewhat confusing, since in many places in the Gospels Jesus welcomes tax collectors and Gentiles to his community. But in this context, Jesus is probably using a phrase that would easily be recognized by his first century Jewish audience as meaning “outsider,” one who is not part of the fold. What Jesus probably means here is if the person has refused all attempts at reconciliation as outlined in this process, eventually you must come to a point where you treat that person as an outsider rather than as a brother. Hold them at arm’s length, in other words, because that person has violated a trust between you. This distancing is a way of ensuring that you don’t continue to get hurt, and to ensure that the offender doesn’t continue to hurt other people.
This process has much wisdom in it, but like anything else, it can be abused. As we attempt to follow Jesus’s teachings in this matter, we must be careful not to take this “formula” and make it the standard in all things rather than love. The Apostle Paul reminds us in our reading from Romans today that “the one who loves another has fulfilled the law,” and “love does no wrong to a neighbor” (Romans 13:8, 10). We must be careful that in seeking to address a conflict or confront someone about unethical behavior that we do not wind up doing wrong to that person, that we do not allow ourselves to become prideful judges whose focus is on exclusion and punishment rather than reconciliation and love.
I’m sure many of us know of situations where churches have taken the instructions in Matthew 18 to an extreme – where they have made it a practice to publicly humiliate anyone who is seen as a “sinner” in their midst, who are so concerned with purifying their ranks that they seem to forget that God also calls us to be merciful. The film Chocolat is a good example of a community who has taken the instruction to confront and condemn sin to an extreme.
If you haven’t seen this film, it came out in the year 2000 and was nominated for several Oscars. The plot centers on a woman named Vienne who moves to a small French Catholic village and opens a chocolate shop in the middle of Lent. Vienne is not Christian; she follows various spiritual practices of some of her ancestors from Latin America, so the fact that it is the middle of Lent means nothing to her and she proceeds to begin making delicious, sumptuous treats that of course none of the villagers are supposed to eat during the Lenten fast.
The mayor of the town, who essentially runs not only the town, but also the local parish church, is outraged. Not only does Vienne attempt to sell chocolate during Lent, she also associates with the so-called “river rats,” the gypsies that travel through town on the river. He stirs up opposition against Vienne and begins a campaign to “boycott immorality” designed to drive the gypsies and Vienne out of town.
Although he never references this passage from Matthew about dealing with sin and conflict in the church, it’s clear that the mayor thinks he is doing God’s work in treating these people like outsiders. He eventually whips himself into such a frenzy over Vienne’s presence in town that he is convinced that God is telling him to literally destroy Vienne’s shop. On Easter eve, he breaks in to her store with a knife and attacks all the chocolate statues in her front window.
On Easter morning, the new priest in town, a young man who has thus far been a puppet for the mayor, even allowing the mayor to write his sermons, finally has to come into his own. The mayor didn’t get a chance to finish the Easter sermon because he was so busy with his anti-chocolate crusade, so Pere Henri delivers his first real message, and breaks the ice of judgmentalism and exclusion in favor of a more open and inclusive approach. After citing the example of Jesus’s life and his tolerance and kindness to others, he ends his short homily by saying: “Listen, here's what I think. I think we can't go around measuring our goodness by what we don't do; by what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.”
After the service, the whole town goes out for a huge Easter feast, with the desserts provided by – guess who – the local “pagan” owner of the chocolate shop.
I cite the example of this story because it raises an important question for us as we strive to live together as the body of Christ, as we try both to live out the example of Jesus’s welcome of outsiders and also attempt to deal with conflict and sin within the church. As much as some within the church would like to think that matters of sin and judgment are clear-cut and simple, there will always be questions among us about what exactly constitutes a sin that requires the use of this process Jesus outlines in Matthew 18. Exactly how sinful does someone have to be before we make the decision to treat them as an outsider rather than a brother? As we consider our response to that question, will we err on the side of judgment or on the side of mercy? Will we measure goodness by what we resist and who we exclude, or will we measure goodness by what we embrace and who we include?
If we look at the picture of Jesus’s life and teachings as a whole and do not allow this one passage to become the lens through which we read the Gospels, we will find a picture of abounding love and mercy, not a strict calculation that leads to expulsion in four easy steps. Immediately following this passage about dealing with conflict that ends with an instruction to treat the offender as an outsider, Jesus tells Peter that if another member of the church sins against him, he should forgive not just seven, but seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:21-22) – a figure meant to express a large, generous approach to forgiveness rather than a literal calculation of the number of times one should forgive. By that standard, our forgiveness should be boundless – so that even the Gentiles and tax collectors – even those we see as outsiders because they are not part of our group and those within our group who we have come to see as outsiders because of their sin – are still within the reach of God’s all-embracing love. As much as it is humanly possible, we should seek to model that love for others, knowing that even when someone has broken the bond of trust between us because of their sin, God’s forgiveness is still just as available to them as it is to us.
The God who we know through the person of Jesus Christ reminds us that above all, God desires mercy, not sacrifice (Matthew 9:13, Micah 6:6). The God we know in Christ forgave the woman caught in adultery, saying “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7). The God we know in Christ told Peter to forgive not just seven, but seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:21-22). So although there may be extreme cases where we must make the decision to hold someone at arm’s length and treat them as an outsider because of their refusal to engage in reconciliation, even then we must remember how Jesus treated outsiders overall: he loved them and invited them to the table. May we always do the same.
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