Full service here. Sermon begins around 27:30.
Pentecost 14A
September 6, 2020
Matthew 18:15-20
INTRODUCTION
A couple of weeks ago, Jesus said to Peter, “On this rock I will build my church.” Matthew’s is the only Gospel that includes this addition to that story. In fact, of the four Gospel writers, Matthew is the one who is most concerned about the passing of Jesus’ authority to the apostles, and the establishment of the Church and its moral teachings and practical behavior. Today’s Gospel reading is an example of this interest in the Church, as Jesus shares an important teaching about managing conflict in the church (everyone’s favorite topic to avoid!). Seldom do we get such straightforward instructions from Jesus, and yet, when the opportunities come to follow this sage advice, we often do not take them.
Our readings today are all about how we conduct ourselves in the face of conflict and wrong-doing. I’m certain there is something in here for everyone today, so listen carefully to what the Spirit is saying to you this day. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
This week, while reading about what’s been happening in Kenosha, WI, I found myself wondering, “I wonder when it’ll be Rochester that is in the news for something like this?” It wasn’t long. That very night, I read the article in The Democrat and Chronicle about the killing of Daniel Prude back in March. Since the news broke, protestors have taken to the Rochester streets, demanding justice for Prude’s family. By the end of each night, these peaceful protests have been dispersed with tear gas and rubber bullets. What was once something happening in other cities has come very publicly to our own backyard.
Consequently, when I returned to today’s Gospel lesson, I could not look at it with the same eyes. This text is, as it always has been, about reconciliation between individuals in the church. It’s about how to maintain community even in the midst of conflict – conflict that Jesus knew would occur because we’re human, and conflict is a part of being human. But this week’s news has caused me to wonder, what would it look like if we applied it not only to conflict between individuals, but to social reconciliation, and especially, to racial reconciliation?
Jesus’ formula is simple and practical: if someone wrongs you, sins against you, talk to them about it one-on-one. Don’t stuff it and let it fester, like so many of us are so good at doing. Bring it out in the open. If the person who has committed the wrong doesn’t listen, then bring someone along, a third party, and try again. If the message still doesn’t get through, then get a crowd involved, the whole Church even. And if they still don’t listen, Jesus says, let that one be like a tax collector or Gentile – which in Jesus speak, of course, is still someone worthy of love and care and prayer, but who is perhaps not yet ready to be in relationship, or be a more active part of the community.
There are some issues with this formula, of course, not the least of which is that conflict is seldom so straightforward that only one side is at fault. Still, even in its simplicity, can we apply it to racial conflict and reconciliation? As I considered this question this week, I realized that I have always read Jesus’ words as advice on how to handle when someone else has wronged me. Not once have I seen myself in the position of the wrong-doer. But as I have thought about this in light of this week’s news, and the possibility of racial reconciliation, I have found it difficult not to see white folks like me in the position of the wrong-doer in this scenario – if not in the arena of “things done,” then at least in the arena of “things left undone.”
Let me explain. Black folks have been trying to tell white people, and in particular the white church, that wrong has been and is being done to them, that they are suffering. White churches, even if well-intentioned, have for too long not listened. Just as in Jesus’ formula, the efforts Black people have made to be heard over time have escalated. But rather than listen, as Jesus’ formula implies the injuring party ought to do, we just ignore, chastise, or try to quiet those voices.
· To the march for civil rights in the 60s, the church leaders said, “It’s not the right time.”
· Protests after various people of color have been killed, often by law enforcement, in the past 10 years or so – well, we say, it was justified because he resisted arrest, or was selling cigarettes, or had a drug problem, or was reaching in his pocket which is threatening. (Though of course none of these things justify killing anyone on the spot.)
· Ok, then, we’ll peacefully kneel during the National Anthem, to draw attention to the pain we are feeling – no, we say, that’s disrespectful to the flag.
· Ok, let’s get a crowd to shut down 490 for a protest – nope, that’s too dangerous and a nuisance. What about emergency vehicles?
· And, in a last-ditch effort finally to be heard and noticed, let’s start breaking stuff and lighting fires – and the well-intentioned response is, “Stop with the destruction of property. You’re not helping your case. Find a different way to be heard, something more peaceful. Where is your sense of personal responsibility?”
Now, to be clear, I don’t like the looting, damage, and violence. I wish it wasn’t happening, and I especially don’t want to see it in my city. But I also understand, that when you’ve tried and tried to get someone who has sinned against you (actively or by way of compliance or passivity) to listen to you, and they still don’t, you start running out of options, and you often start yelling. People want to be heard. They need to be heard. When we don’t feel heard, we often start shouting, right? “You’re not hearing me – I’ll talk louder so you’ll understand!” Because people need to have their needs met, not to be shushed and shoved aside. Adults and children are the same in this. When my kids have a need and I’m not listening (as happens often in these days working from home!), they start yelling, screaming, or acting out until I do listen. Sure, I could close them up in their room, but that wouldn’t satisfy their need, nor stop their pain (in fact, it would likely magnify it, and it would come out more intensely the next time), and it wouldn’t solve the problem except that perhaps I could more easily ignore it. That screaming is what we are seeing play out in the street: a collective cry, asking to be heard. Without the injured party being heard, as Jesus’ makes clear today, we cannot achieve the reconciliation that Jesus calls the beloved community to seek. Let me say that again: until the injured party is heard, we cannot achieve the reconciliation Jesus calls us to seek.
Someone recently asked me, “Ok, so what policy ideas do you have to fix this unrest?” I don’t know. I don’t do policy, and never claimed to. What I do know is something about faithful living, and the gospel. So, let’s look at that: what does the gospel call us to do, as members of the beloved community, to seek racial reconciliation?
Let’s start by putting ourselves in this text in the position of the wrong-doer, the one who needs to listen. It’s not comfortable there, I know, but just try it. This week I have been trying to put my assumptions about people’s experience aside, and ask: what is it that I have been unable or unwilling to hear? What do you think you have not been hearing? What has the Church not been hearing? What is keeping us from hearing it? How can we make the effort to hear it and truly to listen, so that reconciliation might be found?
Next, we can ask ourselves: What would racial reconciliation look like? I can tell you right now, if it involves other people changing what they’re doing, but requires no change on your part, think again. With some exceptions, true reconciliation is seldom reached by one party saying, “I’m the one who is wrong here, and I’ll change everything,” and the other not budging or listening or seeking understanding. As I mentioned before, Jesus’ formula is really too simple, because interpersonal conflict is seldom one-directional, where one party is completely innocent and the other completely guilty. At the very least, it requires both parties to have empathy and understanding for one another. But reconciliation almost always requires everyone to admit some mistakes. So what do you, personally, need to admit? What do we as a church need to admit – where have we fallen short?
My friends, this is hard, hard work. I’ve been at it a few years now and am nowhere close to where I need to be. It is so much easier to ignore, and not have to face anyone telling us we have sinned against them, or participated in or even just benefited from a wrong done against them. But being able to ignore this is itself a position of privilege – people of color do not have the option of ignoring it. It is a daily reality. And now that this racism pandemic has so publicly come to our town, we really can’t ignore it either.
We are tired, I know – with quarantine weariness, with anxiety about school starting, with sadness and grief. It feels at times insurmountable to address racial reconciliation, too. That is when we must draw our attention to the end of this passage, where Jesus says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Yes, even when we are faced with our sin, Jesus is there among us. Even when we work through conflicts, both personal and social, Jesus is there among us. Where two or three or even a whole Church or denomination are working through challenging issues and having difficult conversations, Jesus is there among us, leading us ever to the new life that was promised to us in baptism, and which is ours every time we face the prospect of death. Reconciliation on any level is difficult heart work, but it is work that brings about new life. And where there is new life – Jesus is there among us.
Let us pray… Reconciling God, we are a broken people in need of forgiveness for our sins, and in need of your presence as we seek to mend our communities. Thank you for being a God who hears our needs, forgives our sins, and promises to be with us as we seek to be your beloved community. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
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