Sermon for September 7, 2014
Proper 18, Year A, 13th Sunday
After Pentecost
St. Philip’s In The Hills Parish, Tucson,
AZ
The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse
For readings click here
Open our lips, O Lord,
That our mouth shall proclaim your
praise. Amen
Today’s
gospel text draws us
directly
into church conflict.
That
can be a difficult place to start.
The
opening sentence launches us into a
“how
to” process for disciplinary action.
I
think that before we can explore
discipline
within the church,
we
need to ground ourselves on what church is.
On
what is our “ecclesiology”
---
the theological understanding of church.
*pause*
In the
book
“The
Churches The Apostles Left Behind[1],”
we
find an entry way
into
this “ecclesiological” discussion,
through
imaginative poetry:
offered
perhaps, by John the last apostle,
as he
is dying in concealment.
The
poet writes,
“…
when [my ashes] scatter, [and] there is left on earth
"No
one alive who knew (consider this!)
"—Saw
with his eyes and handled with his hands
"That
which was from the first, the Word of Life.
"How
will it be when none more saith 'I saw'?[2]
* pause *
How
HAS it been when none more saith ‘I saw’?
I
wonder: how was it
when
the last apostolic witness
disappeared
from the scene?
…
when churches could
no
longer depend on the testimony
of
those who said “I saw”?
How
did the church keep going?
Well,
of course we have scripture: the NT.
The
NT written mostly after the death
of
the last known apostle.
The
NT describing Church
in
the book of Acts and
the
letters of Paul and Peter,
teaching
about Church and
outlining
how to live in community.
Today’s
NT text from Matthew includes
one of only two
times that the word “church”
shows
up in the Gospels.
[The
word Church, in Greek, is ekklesia,
which
means the “called out ones of God.”]
The
other time occurs also in Matthew,
when Jesus
announces to Peter
that
on him, the rock, Jesus will build his Church.[3]
In
this text, sometimes referred to as Jesus’
“Sermon
on the Church,”
Jesus
reminds the community
to
deal with a sinful “brother” or “sister”
through
his love.
That
Love was the core of community.
That
Love was the heart of their gathering.
His
Love pulled the community together.
It’s
impressive, I think,
that
the Gospel writer knew the timeless truth
about
how most people still work:
that often
the offended
does
not go directly to the offender.
Instead,
the offended goes over the offender’s head
(to
the authority) or
triangulates
with someone else
to
get the offender to change. . . Timeless!
But
Jesus says, “Go direct.”
Go to
the offender, alone, to preserve honor.
Go to
the offender with others, if needed.
Only
then, through prayer and love,
with
grace and forgiveness,
Only
then, when the community gathers
and prays in Jesus’
name,
can a spiritual, not
just an administrative,
solution arise.
And
what did it mean for Matthew’s community,
to
“let him be to you as a Gentile or a Tax Collector.” ?
That
seems like a severe response to me.
But Jesus
harnesses the cultural attitudes
toward
these outcasts and
Jesus
invited the disciples not to shun or expel,
but
to reach out through his love,
with
forgiveness that can be “loosed” in heaven
to welcome that
person home.
To
survive in the world
after
the death of the last apostle
who
actually “saw,”
the
church has had to show
a different way of including and loving
and forgiving.
And
what happens
when
The Church
is
not
including
and loving and forgiving?
People
leave.
Faith
communities separate.
Congregations
divide.
According
to a 2011 Pew Forum study[4]
there
are 41,000 Christian denominations in the US.
41,000.
And there
are all kinds of reasons that people leave:
·
In
my own experience, some left the church in Oregon because of my relationship
with my partner
·
Others
left because they changed the color of the carpet
·
Some
people left a friend’s church because they were benched on the church softball game
and
·
Some
because they changed the service times.
When
people leave church in anger,
death
has dominion and grace is thwarted
–
thwarted among the very people
called
to extend grace to the world.
All
these reasons point to what might be called
“bad
ecclesiology.”
That
is,
misunderstanding
of what it means to be church;
---
of what church is for.
To be
Christian is
to be
bound together in community of Jesus’ love
and
to pray “Our Father”
even
in the privacy of our own room.
Borrowing
from one Bishop who said it clearly:
“Church
is not a social club.
Church
is not an interest group.
Church
is not a political party.
It is
not a support group.
It’s
not where you come to get your needs met,
not
where you come to network,
not
where you come to connect with
people
who have the same political views…
The
Church is the community
that is held
together
by the radical love
of Jesus Christ. Period.
We
come together because
we
have experienced that love.
We
come together because /we hunger for that love.
We
don’t come together because of one another.
We
come together because of Jesus.
His
love pulls us here.” [5]
At its
core,
church
is about the radical love of God
revealed
in Jesus Christ
and
if its not about that, its not about anything.
So
when a brother or a sister offends,
God’s
love empowers us to go direct:
and
in love, with humility, grace and forgiveness,
and
bring that our relationship back into community.
*pause*
And
so a story about the Babemba tribe[6]
in South Africa
and
how they discipline.
When a
tribe member does something
hurtful
or wrong, the tribe places that person
in
the center of village, alone.
The
entire village stops work, and
everyone
gathers in a circle
around
the accused.
For
two days, each person in the tribe
speaks
to the accused, one at a time,
recalling
the good things the person has ever done.
They
share every incident and every experience
of that
person’s positive attributes,
good
deeds, strengths, and kindnesses.
For
the tribe believes that every human being
comes
into the world as good,
desiring
safety, love, peace and happiness.
But
in the pursuit of those things,
sometimes
people make mistakes.
The
tribe, the community,
sees
misdeeds as a cry for help.
So
they band together for the sake of
their
sister or brother, and for their community,
to
hold that person up,
to
reconnect that person with their true nature,
to
remind them of who they really are.
And the
circle continues until that person
remembers
the truth from which
they
had been temporarily disconnected,
and
says, “I am good.”
*pause*
When we
are out of Christian fellowship
with
one another, when we are disunited,
we
are not going to get back to unity
by
making people behave like us.
Only
by going deeper, as a community,
in
the love of Jesus Christ.
Only
by getting to our core
can
we find a holy communion.
The
core of our unity is the mutual love of Jesus Christ.
As
John the last apostle asks in the poem,
“How
will it be when none more saith ‘I saw’?”
It
will be glorious – filled with God’s glory –
and
that is our mission -
To
share and go deeper in
the
love, grace, and humility of Jesus.
To
invite others to experience that love.
To
share that peace of Christ
that
the world cannot give and
the
world cannot take away.
For
there is no place else in our world
who
is clear about that.
The
Church is the only agency
that
can call people back to where they belong – by getting centered in the love of
Jesus Christ.
How
will it be? It will be glorious
when two
or three are gathered in his name,
and he
is there among them.
May
we, as a church, yearn for his presence
and
treasure his presence...
May
we share the love of God so that this church
will
always be the Church of Jesus Christ.[7]
Amen.
[1] Raymond E. Brown, SS, (New York,
Paulist Press, 1984), p. 13
[2] Raymond Brown
quoting Robert Browing poetically describing John, the last apostle, expiring
in concealment – how will it be when none more saith “I saw”? see http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173008
[3] Matthew 16:18, NRSV
[5] Inspired by Rt. Rev. G. Porter Taylor
in this sermon: https://soundcloud.com/allsouls/bishops-annual-visit-may-12
[7] Taylor, ibid.
