Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 18A, September 10, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L.Werntz

O God of love, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Those of you who have heard me preach, know that I frequently offer alternative translations of Biblical passages as a way of helping us get out from under the heavy rubble of Christian doctrine, burdensome dogma, that can be the weights around God’s ankles. I never want us to be putting on weights around God’s ankles. If Theresa of Avila is right that, “Christ has no hands but our hands,” I’d add that God has no ankles but our ankles, and we must not be weighing one another down, but encouraging one another to be light on our feet, ready to move, able to be swift to love. That seems especially critical in a time of wildfires, floods, high winds, hurricanes, and earthquakes, of devastation and suffering around our country and around the world. It seems especially critical in a culture where what passes for Christianity can have so little to do with the life and love of Jesus.

John Pavlovitz, a pastor in Raleigh, NC, wrote a treatise last fall about the kind of Christian he refuses to be; it’s the kind of Christian I want us all to refuse to be. Pavlovitz wrote, “I refuse to be a Christian devoid of the character of Jesus; his humility, his compassion, his smallness, his gentleness with people’s wounds, his attention to th[ose who ar]e poor and th[ose who ar]e forgotten and th[ose who ar]e marginalized, his intolerance for religious hypocrisy, his clear expression of the love of God.” [1] As I said last week, we are called to be fully present: physically, emotionally, and morally, to intervene to stop institution and cultural, interpersonal and personal violence. Whether the violence comes from bathroom bullies or bullies that have access to nuclear, chemical, biological or ballistic weapons; whether the violence comes in the form of religious or secular racism, misogyny, classism, or xenophobia; whether the violence is active or comes from indifference: We are to intervene.

It’s back to school time, and teachers typically start the year with a review. I want to review some basic Biblical definitions: God is Love. The Law is Love. Love is the Law of God. We have three scripture texts before us this morning, snippets of much larger stories – love stories all. In the Bible, love is the beginning, love is the means and love is the end. God is depicted as a lover Who will go to great lengths to love, and Who makes similar demands of the beloved. [2] Our reading from Exodus is giving the instructions for celebrating the Feast of Freedom, otherwise known as Passover. Passover is a celebration of Love that frees from any kind of enslavement or oppression, the narrow places or tight spots in which we find ourselves.

Over and over in the Bible, the people are called to remember and celebrate that what God wants for people is to be free and to be fed. The Bible contains frequent admonitions to remember what it was like to be in Egypt – a word which literally means narrow place. And the call to celebration is not just so that the people can be happy. The call to celebration comes with the moral obligation to also ensure the freedom and well-being of others. Did you notice the part in our passage from Exodus about what to do if a family is too small for a whole Passover lamb? That family must join with its nearest neighbor to obtain a lamb. Notice that the directive is not for the family to join with their closest friends. As we know, nearest neighbors and closest friends are not always the same people, but sharing a sacred meal together will people together in deeper relationship.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans he writes the beautiful lines – that love is the fulfilling of the Law. Owe no one anything except to love one another, Paul writes. All I owe you is love. All you owe me is love. All we owe each other is love. That’s how we are to live — honorably and respectfully, loving one another. Paul is quoting Rabbi Hillel of Jerusalem, who wrote that all commandments can be summed up as, “Love your neighbor as yourself…love is the fulfilling of the Law” which is part of what Torah means. Jesus taught that and modeled that everywhere he went. So keep the teachings of Exodus and Romans in your minds while we move to the Gospel according to Matthew’s instructions for how to handle conflict in community.

It’s anachronistic to translate this passage as Jesus talking about church membership or prescribing church practice. Maybe this was a teaching of the church long after Jesus’ death, retroactively applied, or maybe Jesus was teaching about how human beings (human siblings) can hold one another accountable in community that later got applied in churches. A more literal translation is: “if your brother should sin, go confront him between you and him alone.” [3] Honestly, there’s no “member of the church” here, and the words, “against you,” were probably not part of the original Gospel manuscript. Then there’s the question of sin. What is sin? According to the Bible, the word for sin is an archery term that gets used figuratively to describe errant behavior like falling short, overshooting, going astray, missing the mark. What is the mark? Love. Love of neighbor is the mark. Missing that mark is sin.

The set up for this instruction about responding to sin in Matthew is fourteen verses about caring for the most vulnerable in the community. Matthew writes that as Jesus began to preach this sermon he called a child over to himself and said, “Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” According to Jesus, the most humble folks are the greatest in the realm of God. Furthermore, anyone who scandalizes them or trips them up would be better off not living. The most vulnerable are God’s most precious, so treat them well, look after them, if they stray, rejoice when they return.

The complaint Jesus seems to be addressing next is about the straying or misbehavior that tears apart the fabric of the community. His response is a reminder that the offender is a brother (we could make it sibling); there is the sense of intimate relationship here (but not one restricted to biological kinship). If your sibling misses the mark, Jesus says, say it directly and privately. This instruction is not directed only to the victim – it includes anyone who notices that someone else has missed the mark. (However, keep in mind Jesus’ instruction earlier in Matthew’s Gospel about removing the log from your own eye before you attempt to get a sliver out of another’s eye.) If the offender listens to you – what’s implied here is that the offender comprehends and is willing to reconcile – then you both have profited. If not, tell the offender again with witnesses. And if the offender still doesn’t listen, let the assembly know. If the offender refuses to listen even to the assembly, let the offender be to you as the non-Jew and the tax collector.

That sounds dismissive until we remember what Matthew says about Jesus and tax collectors and other sinners, which is that he dined with them, he reclined with them, he was a friend to them, and that they were surely going to heaven ahead of the son in the parable who says he’ll work in the vineyard but doesn’t go. The writer of this Gospel was a scribe, another term for what we would call a lawyer. That writer was writing under the name or the authority of the Apostle Matthew, who was a tax collector. What Jesus did with non-Jews and tax collectors was to invest in relationships with them with the goal of reconciliation and restored relationship. And in case it sounds like the authority to bind and loose judgment somehow justifies decisions to exclude folks from the assembly, in the very next verse, an exasperated Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive (in other words, how many times must I cancel a relational debt owed to me)? As many as seven times?” And Jesus said to him, “not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times” (in other words, more times than you can keep track of).

Jesus’ offering is a protocol that promotes dignity, collaboration, and accountability in order to build up the community. The goal of every step is reconciliation and restored relationship: Dignity is promoted when your siblings miss the mark and you tell them in private. You honor them by letting them know that they have injured you or the community while allowing them to save face. A private and direct conversation is the first step in restoring the breach. Collaboration is promoted when your sister disagrees or ignores your private plea and so you enlist two or three others in the conversation to talk with her again. Note well that Jesus’ instruction is not to go tell two or three others about how your sister has disregarded your concern, without including her in the conversation. The point of this step of including others is not to gang up on someone – it’s about getting additional perspectives and demonstrating the seriousness of the breach. It’s also about getting additional perspectives and help in the restoration process. Remember the context for this whole teaching is compassion for those who are vulnerable, for those who are at risk. Accountability is promoted when two or three have not been able to persuade the errant sibling, and the situation is brought before the assembly.

Now honestly, I don’t know how well this would work and the idea of it makes me feel a little queasy. However, I think if we could just start practicing the first and second steps in order, either we would have time to figure this step out or we just wouldn’t need it after all! In any case, I’m sure that the power to bind and to loose is given to the whole assembly and not to any individual. I think that our sin sometimes has to do with not taking the integrity of our community seriously enough – of not valuing the people in it enough to engage in the difficult conversations directly, or of nursing grudges, of tolerating destructive behavior, or of simply walking away and vowing to not interact again with the sibling who has fallen short, or overshot, or gone astray – who has let you down or stepped on your toes, or let the community down or stepped on the community’s toes. Is this ringing any bells with you?

A few weeks ago, some 40,000 people demonstrated in Boston after the violence in Charlottesville. In the hour before the rallies, I took a walk around the Boston Common with two of my colleagues, to check on people and to tell them that the Cathedral was providing sanctuary if things got bad. The atmosphere was very tense. People were scared. I was scared. We came across a woman talking with a man across a great political and cultural chasm. I heard her say to him, “I disagree with everything you stand for, but I hope we can all have a peaceful day.” I heard him respond, “I hope so too.” And I felt less scared and more hopeful.

Jesus was not inventing something new here. He was reminding the community of the Torah instruction in Leviticus (19:17-18) that says “you will reprove your neighbor or you will incur guilt yourself. You will not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” He must have known that this sounds impossibly difficult, so like any great preacher, Jesus made some very bold statements here, the way lovers often do. Do you know the song in the musical Oliver, “I’d do anything,” that the orphans and prostitutes sing to each other? It’s been in my head all week: “I’ll do anything for you, dear, anything, for you mean everything to me.” It’s not about granting wishes like a magic genie in a bottle. It’s a love song to stir our hearts, strengthen our wills, and increase our appetite for reconciliation, to learn to sing to one another.

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