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
