In
chapter 18 of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives some practical advice for what
to do when a brother or sister in the church violates another. The first and best course of action, he says,
is for the victim to go, alone and in private, to one who did wrong and point
out the harm that he did. The whole aim
of this confrontation is to get that one to listen. Jesus offers no guidelines for adjudicating
who is in the right. He does not
prescribe a scale of punishments to fit different crimes. What he does lay out is a process that opens
the door to reconciliation, to transforming hurt and estrangement and restoring
trust and the fullness of community, by speaking and listening to what each
other has to say.
I
think Jesus is right that it is almost always the one who has suffered injury
who has to take that first step, and this takes great maturity. It is not easy to confront a person who has
hurt you with the simple truth. It’s
hard to avoid the temptation to try to inflict pain in return, or to manipulate
the other into making the restitution you think you are owed. If reconciliation is really what you’re
after, you first have to gain mastery of your own emotions of anger, hurt, and
betrayal. Those feelings may still be
present, but you probably can’t just vent them, not if you really want to be
heard. But neither can just coolly lay out your charges
like a prosecuting attorney. Because,
as Paul says in today’s reading from Romans, the Constitution of the church is
not a set of laws, it is love. When you
go and speak to a brother or sister who has sinned against you, you don’t do it
with aim of finding that person guilty, but of repairing a relationship of
mutual love.
You
go and speak in a way that seeks only to be heard. And this affirms the basic, underlying connection
between us that still persists, in spite of the violation; you say, “this is
what happened, and this is what it did to me, and I’m telling you this because
I love you. I want us to be together as
brothers and sisters in Christ, and I’m coming to you because I believe that deep
down you want the same thing. I’m
telling you the truth, because I believe in your integrity, your compassion,
your desire for reconciliation. If you
really hear me, you will remember that you love me. And then we can start to figure out what
needs to happen to make things right.”
Now,
as I said, that takes a lot of maturity, and it also takes courage, because it’s
a very vulnerable position to put yourself in.
It opens you up to further hurt, to an even more devastating rejection than
the one you suffered in the first place.
But that is also what makes it so powerfully transforming. It offers a third way, not sinking into
silent resentment, or indulging in tit-for-tat aggression, but taking a strong
and creative stand for the basic goodness of all of us. On our refrigerator at home there is a little
piece of green paper with a picture that my daughter Risa made a couple of
years ago. And I don’t know where she
got this from, but one day she drew a heart and she filled it in with heavy dark
crayon. But she left a little space open
in the center heart shaped a little like a cell dividing into two, or an
infinity sign. She colored this space in
with white crayon, and just a little tinge of pink, and wrote underneath her
picture, “Deep in a very cold heart there is unconditional love.”
This
is the perspective of Christ, grounded in his unity with God. In Christ, God came to us in person, to point
out what we had done to break our relationship with God. Not to hurt us. Not to make us feel guilty. Not to take God’s revenge. Because we were already in pain. We were already tormented by guilt; our
turning away from God was punishment enough.
So Jesus came in vulnerability. He
came to take that risky first step.
And
strangely, he did not confront the people we usually think of as sinning
against God. The tax collectors and
prostitutes, the outcasts and lepers, the blind beggars and raving lunatics did
not need to hear that they were in danger of losing the meaning of their lives;
they did not need to hear about how far they were from God. Jesus’ message to them was one of welcome, of
acceptance and love, of their infinite worth—“ Are not two sparrows sold for a
penny?”, he asked them. “Yet not one of
them will fall to the ground unnoticed by your Father. Even the hairs of your
head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many
sparrows.” These people heard what Jesus
said and understood at once what it was about.
And they were only too happy to accept His offer of repentance and
reconciliation.
But
the ones that he warned were on the wrong path, the ones he accused of breaking
faith with God, were the proud, the privileged, the pious and powerful—“It is
easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to
enter the kingdom of heaven.” “Woe to
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cumin,
and neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith.” “I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was
thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not
welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you
did not visit me.” To these people the
words of Christ were those of a blasphemer, a threat to public order. They refused to listen, and made him their victim,
to bear witness to their sin on a cross.
But
God’s offer of reconciliation did not end even there. God gave Jesus back to them, and to us in his
resurrection, and he promised to be with us always, even to the end of the
ages. So even today, this very morning in fact, you
can go from one end of the world to the other and find people gathering to listen
to the words of Jesus. They hear the
truth about how they have missed the mark, and fallen short of the glory meant
for them, how they’ve been cruel and indifferent to each other, and oblivious
to the love of God. They hear this and
maybe it makes them a little sad, or ashamed, or maybe just a little bit
afraid, but mostly it makes them happy. It’s
good news, and deep down they already knew it, but today they also hear that
they don’t have to live like that anymore.
They don’t have to harden their hearts any longer. They don’t have to carry that burden even one
more day because all God cares about is the love that in them, no matter how much
they’ve denied. It’s going to be okay,
because all God wants is to heal the relationship.
Not
only that, says Jesus Christ to all the hundreds of millions of people gathered
in places like this all over the world, but I’m here to help you. I am right here, to work with you to help you
get what you really want most of all in the world, which is to know that you
are loved, and that your life is a gift, good and worthy and precious, full of ultimate
meaning, and you don’t have to live in fear any more but you can be at peace
with everyone. We can begin working together
right here, right now, to resolve your conflicts with each other, to reconcile your
differences, and heal your relationships, even the ones that seem broken beyond
repair, because you’ve finally accepted that part of the problem lies with you,
and that you have the power to take the first step. Don’t worry if you don’t know how to do it, says
Christ, because I do, and I am among.
And if you don’t believe it, just look around at all the people hear
with you. I mean it—look around and see them. I invited them all here this morning to be reconciled
with you. And see—they came.
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