The Reverend Tommy Thompson
15th Sunday after Pentecost
Philippians 2:1-11
25 September 2011
The Symphony or American Idol?
It was a few years ago in Blacksburg, VA that I went for the first time to hear a band by the name of Cadillac Sky. My good friend and colleague had turned me on to the band. I started listening to a couple of their albums and really liked their music. But I hadn’t heard ‘nothin yet.’ They were one of those bands that were so right on that the studio actually became more harmful to them than it was helpful. Unlike many, this band didn’t need the studio to cover up where they lacked...they needed it out of the way...they were one of those bands you have to go and watch live. Technology cannot faithfully record great music.
So I went. I remember the opening show like it was yesterday. It was so fabricated...the young band was trying so hard to be like the one that would follow them, but they didn’t have “it.” Something was missing...they were not abandoned to one another and to their instruments and to making music. They were obvious having trouble on many levels...the music wasn’t in sync...the performance was forced...it was not good by any stretch of the imagination. It left me wondering if I had come to the right auditorium.
Then the main event commenced. Cadillac Sky came on to the stage and went right into one of their masterpieces. I had never experienced music so in sync...so right on. The banjo anticipated the lead bass...the guitar was right there with the mandolin and the mandolin with the others...the fiddle anticipated every note of the banjo...their voices were right on in tune and perfect pitch, making harmonies that were so unified that it was like watching many droplets of water become one beautiful waterfall. It was breath-taking from start to finish. As if that wasn’t enough, these musicians were able to trade instruments...the fiddle player could play the guitar or the mandolin, the guitarist could take a couple of the instruments and play them equally well as could the mandolin player go to the fiddle or guitar. A few times in the performance, a tear was forced out of my eye and i wasn’t even sad. This was beautiful stuff...perfect unity. And it opened a whole new world of music to me.
The more I’ve sat and thought about it, I have come to believe that it was so beautiful because none of them sought to be the star...to be in center stage. That’s never beautiful is it? When you have the one giant ego on stage and then the others all support that self-centeredness. I am not a fan of that kind of music. There’s something beautiful about musicians being abandoned to one another like Cadillac Sky demonstrated that night...or like a great symphony...Something beautiful about that interconnectedness that knows the other so well they are always anticipating the other’s movements and each supporting one another to make prefect, unified music. When musicians get this right as well as Cadillac Sky did that night and in every subsequent performance I enjoyed, the total experience is the kind of art that causes you to leave the auditorium picking your jaw up from the ground.
Sisters and brothers, that’s what unity can do...it can be so utterly joyful, so comforting, so encouraging, so completely awe-inspiring. There is such fruit to unity, and when it is accomplished, it causes our jaw to drop and tears of joy to flow out of our eyes.
In Paul’s letter to the little church in Philippi, he calls us to such unity. Paul suggests that unity is such a beautiful thing that we should be motivated towards it. This unity is described as “encouragement/comfort,” “enjoyment in the fellowship of the Spirit,” “tenderness & compassion,” ... that which makes joy “complete.” If something makes your joy complete, you are motivated to participate in that.
But then again, our egos can get in the way can’t they. We want center stage...we want others to support our ideas...our life’s music, which we believe is superior to the other. We have made ourselves number one....and we’ve been taught to “look after number 1.” And in all this, we have come to think that in that illusional center, we are actually happy. Yet we continue the grasping for more power...more center...
Thus Paul urges the Philippian church to sacrifice their own desire to be in center and put the other in the center which not only makes those who live this way joy complete but even Paul’s. It is far reaching joy. Love for the other keeps on multiplying and engenders love, encouragement, joy, affection, tenderness, all the best stuff of human life, in the whole of the community and overflows from it. This unity into which Paul invites us causes others who experience it to wipe those tears of joy from their eyes...to pick their jaws up off the ground. Why? Because a world full of egos and it’s resultant discord, longs for the music of true unity. We are sick of American idol ... we long again for the symphony...
But unity for the sake of unity is not the point. N.T. Wright makes a great point when he says, “Unity by itself can’t be the final aim. After all, unity is possible among thieves, adulterers and many other types. Those who commit genocide need to do so with huge corporate single-mindedness, as the Nazis showed when killing millions of Jews, gypsies and others.” I would add, as we did when we crucified our Savior.
It’s not merely unity for the sake of unity that beautiful jaw-dropping, unified music points us to...it’s a particular kind of unity that truly is the only real unity...the only enduring unity. And that’s the purpose of the rest of the story of today’s Epistle lesson.
Paul says, “Think alike. Love alike. Be of one soul...of one mind. Do not act out of a spirit of rivalry, nor out of empty conceit. Act rather with humility and consider others better than yourselves. Each of you must look to the interests of others rather than to the interests of yourselves.”
If Cadillac Sky’s members would’ve acted out of a spirit of rivalry rather than mutual affection and cooperation, the result would’ve been as disastrous or even more disastrous as that opening show. If the church acts out of a spirit of rivalry, it’s members always fighting each ‘other’ for center stage, then the result is nothing more than what the world already deals with day in and day out--that which we received from Adam when he who was found in the form/image/likeness of God considered God-likeness a prize to be seized and exploited..when he grasped for the center stage. We human beings have been at this business of grasping for center stage ever since, and the church calls this sin.
But the church is called to the subversive and counter-cultural life of the real power of love. This is the particular “thing/person/mindset/good news” that we must all be focused upon if we are to present God’s music that is salvation to the world.
We are called, St. Paul exclaims, to participate in a new symphony that is quite alternative to American Idol or the X-Factor. Jesus showed up in human form and in the likeness and image of God and let us in on a new symphony: the one that has been performed from before the foundations of the world...the one that continues to unfold into the most beautiful composition we’ve ever known. And it will continue for all eternity.
Because Jesus is God, unlike adam (or rather, unlike us), he did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited -- a prize to be seized. Because he is truly human, even though he found himself in the form of God, he did not grasp for center stage. No, instead, he showed us a different stage where three persons of the Holy Trinity pour the divine music into each other and for the benefit of the other, causing tears to flow and jaws to drop. We had never experienced music like this...music that begs our participation...that calls forth our giftedness to respond to such graciousness, such beauty, such self-emptying...to get in sync with the divine symphony for which all other great music only points, the music continuing to develop as each and every ‘other’ becomes centered in the divine ‘other’ and as a consequence, in each ‘other.’
This is the kind of music we are invited to keep on making in the world...it’s called Christian community. Through it we invite the world into it’s God’s beauty. Good art overtakes us...it naturally invites us to it’s beauty and we become completely transfixed in it and by it. God’s life lived in Christian community is the best of all art ... Thus, elsewhere, Paul says the church living this way is “God’s masterpiece.”
Jesus self-emptying servanthood among us, has shown us what the face of God really looks like. It is this very particular something/someone...this very particular Jesus, that is the source and the goal of the unity to which Paul describes. It is this humble love of God in Christ emptied into the other and receiving the fullness of the other that has been exalted by the Father as what is real power in God’s world - power that will last--the reign that will cause all other caricatures, if we can even call them that, to eventually bow down and confess Jesus for who he truly is-- the king and ruler of all the universe.
What music resounds from Central United Methodist church? Are we participating in the divine symphony cadillac sky style or is our life together more like that opening show of fabrication that is only more of the same? God desires our participation in the divine, everlasting symphony that is His own life, and for that music to resound from this place into this community, inviting others to know and love the enduring way of Jesus Christ, which is God’s humble, self-emptying, other-receiving love as exemplified most clearly in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension and the outpouring of Pentecost.
Know this Gospel and know it well. Let it challenge and transform you. Let us repent if we’ve allowed other so called gospels to become center, creating a false unity...and let us see and hear what God can and will do with a local parish who chooses to respond to his gracious musical invitation that is the Gospel by following his score and our head conductor, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Real Love in Real Community
The Reverend Tommy Thompson
“Real Love in Real Community”
Matthew 18: 15-20 & Romans 13:8-14
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 18A)
4 September 2011
The Epistle Lesson and Gospel lesson for us this morning could not be any more closely related, could they? ... neither text is that warm and cozy text we’d curl up with by the fire on a winter’s evening. They’re the kind that we might want to overlook...to gloss over to get to the stuff that makes us feel better. These texts get right to the heart of the issues of the church whether it happens to be the first century or the 21st century.
Because the main problem in the church in the first century and the main problem in the church in the 21st century are one and the same...that problem is sin.
Sin can be defined in many ways. Sometimes it is understood as “missing the mark” on what God desires for our lives. That is a good understanding. It was referred to by Margerie Suhocky as the “ill-being of creation.” That is a good way to put it as well. John and Charles Wesley’s mother Susanna said sin is anything that deviates from the holiness of God...another solid definition of sin. Sin is all these things.
God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is relational at the very core. God is relationship and God intends relationship...whole relationship...fruitful relationship...loving relationship. That’s who God is...and since we are created in God’s image and likeness, then ultimately, God will for us is to be diverse yet unified in love...in fruitful, loving relationship.
Thus, ultimately, sin is broken relationship...discord...the opposite of unity....fragmentation...individualism.
And in both the Epistle and Gospel lesson we see that the major issue has to do with broken relationship...sin at the grass roots level...
In the Epistle lesson, Paul is writing to a very specific parish community in Rome. He is addressing real issues in their real world. Romans, like much of the Bible, is not a collection of universal ideals, but real pastoral wisdom offered to a very particular people in a very particular setting in time.
Those people are the early Jewish and Gentle followers of Jesus Christ. The particular time is around 50-60 A.D., right after the Jewish people who were banned from Rome for a few years were allowed to return the Roman church. The real situation is broken down relationship...sin. The Gentiles have been leading the church in the absence of the Jewish people...now that the Jewish people are back, they have their own ideas of how the Roman church should be led.
Though this issue is very particular, it relates to the church of all times doesn’t it. We say we love God...we say we love people...yet we have a tough time loving our neighbor...the one or the ones who happen to be around us in a given situation in time.
If I had a dollar for all the times I’ve heard, “Now, don’t get me wrong...I love everybody...but let me tell you about so and so.” I think that’s kinda what the Jewish people in Rome would’ve said about the Gentile believers and vice-versa.
So Paul enters in and basically says, you don’t truly love unless you love the one whose face you see. Be careful generalizing love...so many of us use the “universal” or the “global” as a way of making the issue so big that we don’t have to worry about local commitment or accountability. We make ourselves feel better about professing love that is not real for a world that does not exist...it is only in our imaginations...people we never see who, in our imaginations, look a lot like us... I wonder, how can we know we love “everyone” when we have not even met a fraction of everyone? More especially...how can we claim to love everyone when we struggle to love the ones who are right next to us? This is not real love of real people in real Christian community in the real world. It is the stuff of fantasy.
When Paul invites the Roman Christians to “love your neighbors,” i think he was saying, “Don’t say, “I love everyone,” when you can’t love your Gentile brother or your Jewish sister whose face you can see.” John said something similar when he said (my paraphrase), “How can you love God who you can’t see when you hate your brother who you do see?”
For Paul these broken relationships matter. So he calls the Roman church to “Love your neighbor.” In doing that, Paul says, the entire law is fulfilled. Sin is broken relationships. Whole relationships...loving relationships...relationships that mirror God’s very life...that is holiness and that is what God has called us to in this world: real love of real people in real community in the real world.
And that is why Jesus is so strong in his language in Matthew’s Gospel. Sin (broken down relationships) cannot be taken lightly by the church. “If brother or sister sins against you, go and point out that fault when the two of you are alone. If that brother or sister listens to you, you have regained that one.”
This is tough for us, isn’t it..sure it is. This is real love in real Christina community. This is what God expects out of his church. Love is our goal...love is always rooted in community...in relationship. The church is called to be a sacrament of the life of God--the visible and tangible expression of the life of the kingdom that is coming. God is not broken...God is not fragmented. God does not place the priority on individual but the community...The Father does not live a life that is concealed and private from the Son nor does the Son towards the Father or the Spirit toward The Son. God’s life is loving mutuality. God’s life is most clearly revealed in Jesus Christ who put his own individuality on the cross for the sake of the human and non-human community he came to redeem and restore.
So, when we put the individual above the community, we do not reveal the nature of God but the consequences of sin. We cannot overlook sin as if it were simply between God and the “individual.” Sin always affects the whole church...just as an infection in one part of the body affects the whole body...sometimes what is best for the body is amputation...otherwise the whole body might die. Jesus says the same goes for the church.
You ever thrown a stone into the water? what happens? It sinks...yes. But what else? It causes ripples...that’s what sin is like. There are always ripples and those ripples are like an infection that grow throughout the body.
So Jesus tells us...real love is tough. It’s not as simple as saying, “I love everybody”...especially when it involves real people in the real world.”
We have to understand that the church’s mission and it’s integrity that goes with it is of higher priority than things “appearing to go smoothly.” We prefer to sweep issues under the carpet...”oh, that’s just so and so’s personality...or “oh, just leave it alone and it will go away.” These are the easy yet trivial responses to serious and real issues...but you know what happens to a “small infection” that is not deal with right away...or what happens when we keep sweeping all our mess under the carpet for so long...the infection spreads...we trip over the carpet.
Real love with real people in real community in the real world is tough...but it is worth being tough...because love is what will last and love is what we are called to be for God’s world. It might cause things to be rough for a while..there may be tension in the air...some peoples’ feelings might even get hurt, but nevertheless, Jesus says, “If brother or sister sins against you, go and point out that fault when the two of you are alone. If that brother or sister listens to you, you have regained that one.”
Note what Jesus does and doesn’t say here. He does not say, “call up sister so and so and tell her all about it...he does not say go ahead and make sure to spread the rumors.” No, love says “go to the one who has wronged you...go to the source of the problem...otherwise you will compound the problem. Demonstrate love and care for the other and go to them when you are alone. Don’t even let others overhear. Go, and when two or three are gathered together to seek reconciliation, understand that the One who has overcome our sin and has reconciled us to God is in your midst.
And the goal here is this: to regain that one who has sinned against you. Jesus has spoke about this elsewhere. He wills that none perish...the goal is always for the other and not for the self, isn’t it. The goal is that the one who sinned against me is regained through reconciliation. That’s love.
But what if that person does not ask for forgiveness? what if they do not repent or cooperate with reconciliation? Just give up on them? Absolutely not, Jesus says. The mission and integrity of the church is too important to allow sin/broken relationship to run rampant in the church. Go back to that sister or brother, Jesus says, this time with one or two others with you so that ever word can be confirmed by the evidence of 2 or 3 witnesses.
If the member then refuses to listen, 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 or a tax collector.
Notice the escalation of the inclusion of others. The goal is not to embarrass the offender...the goal is not to ostracize the offender. The goal is to regain the offender. And each time the offender does not cooperate toward reconciliation, steps are taken to offer that opportunity again and again.
But we cannot ignore the fact that Jesus said, that if the brother or sister refuses to cooperate toward reconciliation, even after the church’s involvement in those efforts, then that person should be to the church like a Gentile or a tax collector.
Understand that Matthew’s Gospel was proclaimed primarily for early Jewish believers. The first century world was well aware of the position of the gentile or more specially, the tax collector, in relationship to the Jewish community. These were outsiders...outcasts...ostracized. So, as hard as it is to fathom, Jesus is saying, “If after every effort has been taken to regain that person, and they choose to let that sin and it’s effects remain, then the church can no longer be in bondage to that sin.” In other words, the infection in this part of the body is so severe, it will kill the whole body unless it is amputated. Jesus calls the church to excommunication...There’s no two ways about it.
That’s tough stuff...but it is the price of real love with real people in real Christian community in the real world. I mean we have been called to carry the cross...there’s nothing easy about that call. The first priority of the church is faithfulness to the Gospel...faithfulness to the continuance of the mission of Christ for the salvation and renewal of the world. Broken relationship is not what God intends...therefore we must make every effort to face sin or distorted relationships head on and trust in God’s reconciling power to not only face it but deal with it. Real love with real people in real Christian community is a visible expression of God’s very life for the real world. We cannot excuse or overlook sin simply because it might shake the boat a little...or make someone mad or make a few people leave...Jesus says that our mission is too important...broken relationships are not the way of the future kingdom so they must not be the norm of the church’s life.
So let us live deeply in the life that Jesus opened for us: His very own life: the life of Father, Son, and HOly Spirit. The more we live and love there the more we know and reflect this God of love. When we love and live in God’s life, it is not so difficult to distinguish sin from mistake or sin that must be dealt with one on one and so forth from something that shouldn’t. If we are centered in the life of God, when our life as church community is not congruent with the life of God, we will know it...when that happens, we must allow the Holy Spirit to work towards reconciliation.
Do you love God? If you’re answer is yes, let that love bring forth fruit by loving not a fantasized “everybody” but a very particular somebody--your neighbor--the faces that you actually see...whoever that happens to be...and love me enough...love your neighbor enough that when I sin against you...when she sins against you...when he sins against you, go to her..go to him, come to me...regain us. When you sin against another brother or sister, let him come to you and understand the priority is upon this community and your reconciliation with it...choose now that when that time comes, you will cooperate with reconciliation for the sake of this community and the mission to which we are committed. And let our love be the sign of God’s love which is the way of the everlasting kingdom...the only way that will last.
Amen.
“Real Love in Real Community”
Matthew 18: 15-20 & Romans 13:8-14
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 18A)
4 September 2011
The Epistle Lesson and Gospel lesson for us this morning could not be any more closely related, could they? ... neither text is that warm and cozy text we’d curl up with by the fire on a winter’s evening. They’re the kind that we might want to overlook...to gloss over to get to the stuff that makes us feel better. These texts get right to the heart of the issues of the church whether it happens to be the first century or the 21st century.
Because the main problem in the church in the first century and the main problem in the church in the 21st century are one and the same...that problem is sin.
Sin can be defined in many ways. Sometimes it is understood as “missing the mark” on what God desires for our lives. That is a good understanding. It was referred to by Margerie Suhocky as the “ill-being of creation.” That is a good way to put it as well. John and Charles Wesley’s mother Susanna said sin is anything that deviates from the holiness of God...another solid definition of sin. Sin is all these things.
God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is relational at the very core. God is relationship and God intends relationship...whole relationship...fruitful relationship...loving relationship. That’s who God is...and since we are created in God’s image and likeness, then ultimately, God will for us is to be diverse yet unified in love...in fruitful, loving relationship.
Thus, ultimately, sin is broken relationship...discord...the opposite of unity....fragmentation...individualism.
And in both the Epistle and Gospel lesson we see that the major issue has to do with broken relationship...sin at the grass roots level...
In the Epistle lesson, Paul is writing to a very specific parish community in Rome. He is addressing real issues in their real world. Romans, like much of the Bible, is not a collection of universal ideals, but real pastoral wisdom offered to a very particular people in a very particular setting in time.
Those people are the early Jewish and Gentle followers of Jesus Christ. The particular time is around 50-60 A.D., right after the Jewish people who were banned from Rome for a few years were allowed to return the Roman church. The real situation is broken down relationship...sin. The Gentiles have been leading the church in the absence of the Jewish people...now that the Jewish people are back, they have their own ideas of how the Roman church should be led.
Though this issue is very particular, it relates to the church of all times doesn’t it. We say we love God...we say we love people...yet we have a tough time loving our neighbor...the one or the ones who happen to be around us in a given situation in time.
If I had a dollar for all the times I’ve heard, “Now, don’t get me wrong...I love everybody...but let me tell you about so and so.” I think that’s kinda what the Jewish people in Rome would’ve said about the Gentile believers and vice-versa.
So Paul enters in and basically says, you don’t truly love unless you love the one whose face you see. Be careful generalizing love...so many of us use the “universal” or the “global” as a way of making the issue so big that we don’t have to worry about local commitment or accountability. We make ourselves feel better about professing love that is not real for a world that does not exist...it is only in our imaginations...people we never see who, in our imaginations, look a lot like us... I wonder, how can we know we love “everyone” when we have not even met a fraction of everyone? More especially...how can we claim to love everyone when we struggle to love the ones who are right next to us? This is not real love of real people in real Christian community in the real world. It is the stuff of fantasy.
When Paul invites the Roman Christians to “love your neighbors,” i think he was saying, “Don’t say, “I love everyone,” when you can’t love your Gentile brother or your Jewish sister whose face you can see.” John said something similar when he said (my paraphrase), “How can you love God who you can’t see when you hate your brother who you do see?”
For Paul these broken relationships matter. So he calls the Roman church to “Love your neighbor.” In doing that, Paul says, the entire law is fulfilled. Sin is broken relationships. Whole relationships...loving relationships...relationships that mirror God’s very life...that is holiness and that is what God has called us to in this world: real love of real people in real community in the real world.
And that is why Jesus is so strong in his language in Matthew’s Gospel. Sin (broken down relationships) cannot be taken lightly by the church. “If brother or sister sins against you, go and point out that fault when the two of you are alone. If that brother or sister listens to you, you have regained that one.”
This is tough for us, isn’t it..sure it is. This is real love in real Christina community. This is what God expects out of his church. Love is our goal...love is always rooted in community...in relationship. The church is called to be a sacrament of the life of God--the visible and tangible expression of the life of the kingdom that is coming. God is not broken...God is not fragmented. God does not place the priority on individual but the community...The Father does not live a life that is concealed and private from the Son nor does the Son towards the Father or the Spirit toward The Son. God’s life is loving mutuality. God’s life is most clearly revealed in Jesus Christ who put his own individuality on the cross for the sake of the human and non-human community he came to redeem and restore.
So, when we put the individual above the community, we do not reveal the nature of God but the consequences of sin. We cannot overlook sin as if it were simply between God and the “individual.” Sin always affects the whole church...just as an infection in one part of the body affects the whole body...sometimes what is best for the body is amputation...otherwise the whole body might die. Jesus says the same goes for the church.
You ever thrown a stone into the water? what happens? It sinks...yes. But what else? It causes ripples...that’s what sin is like. There are always ripples and those ripples are like an infection that grow throughout the body.
So Jesus tells us...real love is tough. It’s not as simple as saying, “I love everybody”...especially when it involves real people in the real world.”
We have to understand that the church’s mission and it’s integrity that goes with it is of higher priority than things “appearing to go smoothly.” We prefer to sweep issues under the carpet...”oh, that’s just so and so’s personality...or “oh, just leave it alone and it will go away.” These are the easy yet trivial responses to serious and real issues...but you know what happens to a “small infection” that is not deal with right away...or what happens when we keep sweeping all our mess under the carpet for so long...the infection spreads...we trip over the carpet.
Real love with real people in real community in the real world is tough...but it is worth being tough...because love is what will last and love is what we are called to be for God’s world. It might cause things to be rough for a while..there may be tension in the air...some peoples’ feelings might even get hurt, but nevertheless, Jesus says, “If brother or sister sins against you, go and point out that fault when the two of you are alone. If that brother or sister listens to you, you have regained that one.”
Note what Jesus does and doesn’t say here. He does not say, “call up sister so and so and tell her all about it...he does not say go ahead and make sure to spread the rumors.” No, love says “go to the one who has wronged you...go to the source of the problem...otherwise you will compound the problem. Demonstrate love and care for the other and go to them when you are alone. Don’t even let others overhear. Go, and when two or three are gathered together to seek reconciliation, understand that the One who has overcome our sin and has reconciled us to God is in your midst.
And the goal here is this: to regain that one who has sinned against you. Jesus has spoke about this elsewhere. He wills that none perish...the goal is always for the other and not for the self, isn’t it. The goal is that the one who sinned against me is regained through reconciliation. That’s love.
But what if that person does not ask for forgiveness? what if they do not repent or cooperate with reconciliation? Just give up on them? Absolutely not, Jesus says. The mission and integrity of the church is too important to allow sin/broken relationship to run rampant in the church. Go back to that sister or brother, Jesus says, this time with one or two others with you so that ever word can be confirmed by the evidence of 2 or 3 witnesses.
If the member then refuses to listen, 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 or a tax collector.
Notice the escalation of the inclusion of others. The goal is not to embarrass the offender...the goal is not to ostracize the offender. The goal is to regain the offender. And each time the offender does not cooperate toward reconciliation, steps are taken to offer that opportunity again and again.
But we cannot ignore the fact that Jesus said, that if the brother or sister refuses to cooperate toward reconciliation, even after the church’s involvement in those efforts, then that person should be to the church like a Gentile or a tax collector.
Understand that Matthew’s Gospel was proclaimed primarily for early Jewish believers. The first century world was well aware of the position of the gentile or more specially, the tax collector, in relationship to the Jewish community. These were outsiders...outcasts...ostracized. So, as hard as it is to fathom, Jesus is saying, “If after every effort has been taken to regain that person, and they choose to let that sin and it’s effects remain, then the church can no longer be in bondage to that sin.” In other words, the infection in this part of the body is so severe, it will kill the whole body unless it is amputated. Jesus calls the church to excommunication...There’s no two ways about it.
That’s tough stuff...but it is the price of real love with real people in real Christian community in the real world. I mean we have been called to carry the cross...there’s nothing easy about that call. The first priority of the church is faithfulness to the Gospel...faithfulness to the continuance of the mission of Christ for the salvation and renewal of the world. Broken relationship is not what God intends...therefore we must make every effort to face sin or distorted relationships head on and trust in God’s reconciling power to not only face it but deal with it. Real love with real people in real Christian community is a visible expression of God’s very life for the real world. We cannot excuse or overlook sin simply because it might shake the boat a little...or make someone mad or make a few people leave...Jesus says that our mission is too important...broken relationships are not the way of the future kingdom so they must not be the norm of the church’s life.
So let us live deeply in the life that Jesus opened for us: His very own life: the life of Father, Son, and HOly Spirit. The more we live and love there the more we know and reflect this God of love. When we love and live in God’s life, it is not so difficult to distinguish sin from mistake or sin that must be dealt with one on one and so forth from something that shouldn’t. If we are centered in the life of God, when our life as church community is not congruent with the life of God, we will know it...when that happens, we must allow the Holy Spirit to work towards reconciliation.
Do you love God? If you’re answer is yes, let that love bring forth fruit by loving not a fantasized “everybody” but a very particular somebody--your neighbor--the faces that you actually see...whoever that happens to be...and love me enough...love your neighbor enough that when I sin against you...when she sins against you...when he sins against you, go to her..go to him, come to me...regain us. When you sin against another brother or sister, let him come to you and understand the priority is upon this community and your reconciliation with it...choose now that when that time comes, you will cooperate with reconciliation for the sake of this community and the mission to which we are committed. And let our love be the sign of God’s love which is the way of the everlasting kingdom...the only way that will last.
Amen.