Down to the Hard Work of Reconciliation – Part 4

There is great responsibility to being a follower of Jesus Christ – the responsibility of binding

and loosing, the responsibility of heaven itself.  Yet this responsibility comes with an accompanying promise: the very presence of Christ himself.

In one of the most evocative verses on what it means to be church, Jesus tells his followers that when even a very few – as few as two or three – are gathered in his name, there he is among us.

Jesus has just been speaking of gathering in the cause of restoration where there has been sin and now he speaks of being there with ‘them’ – even with the one doing the breaking . . . as in my body broken – for you . . .

Now we are come full circle to the beginning – at the start of Matthew 18, the disciples are quibbling about who will be the greatest in the coming kingdom of heaven.

Jesus replies that the change that must happen is to become as children and admonishes his followers not to put a stumbling block before another – and perhaps this has been his point all along – after all, Jesus is speaking to his disciples – to the ones he entrusts to carry his gospel message to all the world.

It’s a big job, being a disciple.  It is crucial that they, that we, get it right.  Jesus makes clear what it is not about:

It is not about getting the first prize blue ribbon in some sort of race and if they/we insist on thinking of it that way, they/we would do better to try for last place rather than first.

It is not about being recognized for one’s power and dignity of office – it’s more like being a little kid with nothing to offer.

It is not about setting up gates and entrance exams and tests and setting bars higher and higher to get in.

It is not about setting ourselves as the example unless we are prepared to be the perfect example.  It is about pointing always and only to Jesus, who actually is – the perfect example.  

It is not about valuing station, position, or wealth.  It is about seeking the lost.  Always.

Maybe Jesus was speaking about as well as to the weak ones standing right in front of him, full-blown sinners themselves.  Maybe he was reminding them that their squabbles about who gets in first are just nonsense – harmful nonsense.  Maybe he was telling them that they had to first work this out among themselves before they had anything of value to bring to the world.

Maybe he was reminding them that their journey – our journey – is one of humility, where they, where we, must always be prepared, no matter how old, how advanced, how knowledgeable in bible studies, how closely aligned to Jesus himself, they, we must always be more prepared to be corrected than to correct . . . to be chastised as to chastise . . . to be put right as to put right.

Maybe he was teaching them that correction is a gentle thing that takes great care of the one being offered the correction.

Maybe he was suggesting that when sin and sinners and sinning come up, the one in the room I must first be concerned with is myself.

Maybe he was suggesting that if a sinner be ejected, we’d better leave too. 

Maybe he was suggesting that if a penalty needs to be paid, I should be willing to pay it for you, because we are family and brothers and sisters always take up for each other.

Maybe Jesus was suggesting that unity looks like family – sloppy, messy, mistake-making, feeling-hurting, wrestling-til-we-get-it-right family.

Maybe Jesus wants us to come to those who have done wrong as Christ comes to us – in humility rather than in judgment . . . in great desire for their good rather than for our right . . . in the willingness to take on the burden of their sins as our own that they might be reclaimed.  

Maybe.

Down to the Hard Work of Reconciliation - Part 1

Matthew 18.15-20 (NRSV)   If a brother (or sister) sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the brother (or sister) listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.  If the brother (or sister) refuses to listen to them, 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 and a tax collector.  Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.  Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

Down to the Hard Work of Reconciliation – Part 1

Throughout scripture, it is recognized that sin, the breaking with or turning away from God, is a harming, real, lasting, living thing that brings with it . . . broken relationships, broken people, hurt within and hurt without . . .

In this passage from Matthew, Jesus is recognizing the impact of that broken being on the body of believers as a whole.  In a very real sense, this is about unity.

The Genevan fathers read this text as a command from Jesus that within the body, we strive for agreement rather than seek for revenge.  It is the recognition that wrongs will happen even within the body and that we must address them.

We are not to simply do nothing, to pretend as if nothing happened, allowing our wounds to fester.  We are not to plot out our own course of getting even.  We are not to withdraw our affection and support from another within the body because they wounded us.

We are to make the effort to restore right relationship between us. And the responsibility rests as much with the one wronged as it does with the one doing the wrong.

This, then, is the Jesus twist: the one wronged has as much responsibility for dealing with the wrong as the one having done the wrong.

The reason is obvious: if it’s about unity rather than about staying even (what we think of as justice) – if it’s about unity, it does not matter who makes the first move.  

What matters is that the move – the move towards restoring relationship – be made.

In Leviticus 19.17-18, God instructs as to what the unity of family – the kind of unity Jesus speaks of – looks like:  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.

When it comes to family, I don’t know about yours, but in mine, we are seldom, if ever, all in the same place at the same time.  In fact, most of the time we’re so out of step with each other that we couldn’t even walk in a parade together.

But that’s all right, because family isn’t about that.  It’s about the quicker ones waiting for the slower ones because we were made to walk together . . . it’s about knowing ourselves to be linked across time and space . . . it’s about welcoming each other home . . . every time . . . it’s about simply being – in family, you don’t have to prove who you are or that you belong – you simply are.  Some families are better at it than others, some are worse.  But no family looks at you standing at the door and asks who you are.

In Matthew 18, Jesus’ use of kinship language of brother (and sister) is important – it matters to these ‘rules’ and how they work.  This is a family affair.  

When it comes to family, we approach each other with an intimacy seldom found anywhere else.  Jesus’ point is that this level of intimacy – the closeness of what we call family – is to be found in the gathering, in what we call church.

Loved

Love and hate . . . sinner and sinned against . . . we've been having a FB conversation about the tension (if any there be -- I land on the yes side of that equation) between love and admonition.  What follows is my ruminating on love and sin.  It is a would-be peacemaker's perspective.  What do you think, I wonder?  Is love more present in our challenges, admonitions, judgments, and condemnations?  Or in our understanding and compassion?  Must there be a choice?  Which are we better at?  I'm guessing we're really not very good at either most days and I wonder why that is.


Loved


Love – how disarming a thing
to behold in actual practice –
the sinner, the sinned against,
even the sin itself –  so ready for
the other thing – the admonition,
the condemnation, the judgment –
oh, sin is ever ready for those –
fully armed, protective vest donned –
no chink in the armor to be found –
but when love is lobbed instead,
it finds its target, for the sin
always somehow forgets to protect
the heart against the onslaught
of love

Taking my anger, my self-righteousness
taking all the slings and arrows in my quiver
disarms me completely and I am left not
bereft, not shamed, but filled – filled with
a new thing – there, in the hard place that
was my heart, something warm and
butter-melting finds its way in and
I  –  am  – changed –

love me, love me not
change me, change me not


____________
*Interestingly, in entering labels, I discovered that this is the first time I've used the label 'sin'.  Hmmm.