Excluding Those Who God Includes

this sermon was written for, and preached, as part of the requirements of a preaching subject in my M. Div program.

Excluding Those Who God Includes

Text: Matthew 18: 15-20 focussing on verses 15-17.

 

Let us pray:

God who is revealed to us in Love, may we be open to your surprising presence, and transformed to live and love knowing that we are created for relationship with you and each other. Amen.

 

When someone hurts me with what they say or do, I want to get even.

When someone has hurt me and doesn’t listen to my pain, I get angry and sad, and I want them to hurt.

When people don’t play by the rules, I want to cut them out of my life.

 

In the reading from Matthew today, Jesus is recorded as saying, if someone hurts you, then go and speak with them and if after speaking with the person they haven’t listened to you, then take some witnesses along. If after discussing it with the person in front of the witnesses they still don’t listen, then raise the issue with the church and if the person still doesn’t listen, then treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

 

All of this suggests to me that dealing with the pain that I am feeling isn’t about my pain. Dealing with the hurt is about relating with the person who caused the pain; going and speaking with the person I least want to talk with. I prefer to avoid conflict.  I’ve been in arguments a couple of times in my life. One argument I can remember happened at a meeting, there were four of us present, and I knew them all well; elders executive, our main task was planning the agenda for the meeting the following week, but at times we also looked at what might be some suggestions for how to deal with some of the issues arising in the meeting. Something was coming up on the agenda and one of the Ministers and I disagreed. Now normally I would have relented, avoided the conflict and gone with the Minister’s suggestion; but not this evening. And even though it wasn’t an important issue for either of us; neither of us would back down. Shortly afterwards the meeting finished and I had to rush home and have dinner; people would be arriving at my place in less than an hour for Bible Study.

 

Before I got in the door one of the other people from the meeting was on the phone to make sure I was OK, and before dinner was over so was the other person and the Minister. The Minister and I agreed to meet the next day. I took cake; the minister made coffee and we are both still friends. For both of us, fortunately the relationship was more important than the issue.

 

It wasn’t about who won or lost the argument, but about a continuing relationship. And this is what the first part of the reading is about. Don’t run and hide, don’t gossip and try to get a group of supporters as much as that is what you feel like doing.  Talk to the person, and often it will be much more difficult than the example I have just related.

 

In looking at this reading as I prepared for today, the part of the passage that most intrigues me, is in verse 17, if the person doesn’t listen to you, and doesn’t listen to the church then treat them as a tax collector or a pagan.

 

Now Matthew is the most Jewish of the gospels, and thinking what this might mean for them, and reading a few commentaries, it would seem that at least here Matthew’s Jesus and I agree. If someone won’t listen to the church, then shun them; remove them from your life.  At least sometimes Jesus agrees with me.

 

Just to be sure, I looked at how Matthew speaks of tax collectors in other parts of the gospel. Uh-oh! I’m in trouble again. When I look at other references to tax-collector in Matthew, they don’t talk of shunning, or avoiding. Jesus called a tax collector to be one of the disciples, and Jesus ate with tax collectors. That was one of the things that got up the nose of the Pharisees; Jesus ate with the wrong people and Jesus visited the homes of the wrong people.

 

In the first part of the reading, if someone wrongs you, then try and maintain or build on the relationship. The process is in the interest of the one we call the guilty party, the perpetrator.  Then traditionally the final part of the process is interpreted as to remove people from the fellowship of the church. Which when I think about it makes perfect sense and also doesn’t make sense. It makes sense to me because if someone is causing problems in the church and won’t admit it, then the church is probably better off without them. My experience in the church tells me that it makes sense. But it doesn’t make sense in the light of the gospel.

 

Here Matthew is talking of doing everything possible to maintain relationship with the person who has done wrong. Even treating them like a tax collector.

 

The tax collector bit is treated very differently by different commentators. That’s why I went back to Matthew’s gospel, try and see how Matthew has Jesus talking about tax collectors. And Jesus doesn’t talk about them much, and when he does he tells the religious folk that the tax collectors will be in heaven ahead of the religious people.

 

While Jesus doesn’t talk about them much, he does spend time with them, and he eats with them.  I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult to eat with someone when I am angry with them, my tummy turns somersaults and I don’t breathe well. To eat with someone would mean that I have to let go of my anger, to recognise the humanity and dignity of the other person and not let my feelings get in the way of the meal and the conversation.

 

Now I don’t know about you, but I find this hugely challenging. And as I have been thinking about this this week, the following story from the news a few weeks ago kept coming into my mind. It was about the response of some people on the North Coast to a convicted paedophile, on parole, moving into the community to live with his family. I can understand their concern for their children, and I wonder what we can do to help make safe places for children; to be a safe community for all people. But I also wonder what do we do with people who terrify us; people we don’t like; people we consider dangerous to us or our community.

 

 I don’t have any easy answers.

 

Even within the church, I wonder what difference it would make to the debate on leadership and sexuality, if we ate together rather than debating each other.

 

As I said at the beginning, I’m quite happy to avoid those who hurt me, and to have those who don’t follow the rules or are disruptive thrown out of the church. But as much as for a moment there was the possibility that this text was saying that, and there are scholars who appear to go in that direction, reading the text I can’t agree with that. Here I sense a challenge from God, to do that which is subversive, to include those who hurt you.

 

Now I suspect you are wondering where the good news is in all this. Maintaining a relationship with a person who has hurt you, and won’t admit it, hardly seems like good news to me. Doesn’t sound like liberation or life sustaining way to live. But if I am honest, as often as someone hurts me, I have hurt other people, by what I have said or the way I have behaved.

 

So maybe the good news is that I am constantly being included; that this is a challenge to the church to hold onto people like me, a sinner. Because as much as there are people I find difficult to live with in the church, there will be people who would want me out. When we look at making rules that define the boundaries of God’s grace, this passage challenges me to think about which side of the boundary I might end up on. 

 

Love not revenge, patience rather than anger, inclusion not exclusion. May we all live up to the challenge to live as God’s people – forgiven and forgiving, living in relationship with God and each other. Amen