Friends in Christ, Christian reconciliation — that is honest and blanketed by prayer — is really hard work.
Take some time this week to ponder and pray about your own experiences with reconciliation:
...where it’s failed
...where you’ve parted ways with a sibling or a partner or a parent or a church member or a friend.
...And where it’s been good? Reconciliation that has finally come to fruition through time (maybe years) and prayer and tough conversations.
These five “Matthew 18” verses are probably not what we do best…
It’s a gift to be around people who do this well.
This poignant lesson is life-giving for us all...when it’s done faithfully.
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When someone sins, when someone breaks covenant, breaks relationship, breaks trust, breaks the heart, breaks the community...when there is a severing, Jesus says, go to that one in-person and speak to them privately. What’s been your experience of that, either being the one to go or the one to be approached?
Often nowadays, we use email as an alternative. And email communicates some different messages, right? That the recipient is only left to guess…
Maybe it’s saying...
You’ve sinned but, I don’t have time to call you or meet with you in person. It’s not important enough for me.
I don’t want to talk to you in person. I don’t care about you that much.
I don’t do well speaking face-to-face. And I certainly don’t like it. I can put my thoughts into writing much better.
I just want to move on. By writing this down after a glass of wine, and blasting it off to you, then I’ve said my piece, done my part, spoken my truth, and now I’m done. I don’t even need you to respond.
I had a friend who was a pastor and promoted a practice of email as only a tool for scheduling appointments. [pause] He broke his own rule all the time (and I know I do too), but it was a very helpful guide: email as a tool for scheduling the face-to-face...not the venue itself.
And trying to text our way to reconciliation is kind of a trumped up version of all this, I’m afraid. That’s why we popularly recognize and even joke about the shame and disgust in breaking up with someone by text or email, even by phone. We know the impact of in-person conversations, and it’s one of the great losses of this COVID time: in-person conversations are now physically a risk. So this Gospel lesson just got even tougher.
What does email and texting have to do with our Gospel today? It is a very down-to-earth, everyday part of how we live out our faith, how we follow Jesus (like how we pray for our lips and our tongue, every word that comes out of our mouth, let’s pray for our fingers too — what we type, the numbers we dial, and the sit-down appointments we make.) This is everyday, specific stuff...maybe a little too close to home?
This is again, a wake-up call from God, the “Jesus alarm clock” is ringing again. Seems like this idea of forgiveness/reconciliation keeps coming up for us Jesus-following people!
The church is not just a social club where people pay dues, share common interests, and when there’s a disagreement the club either breaks up or dies…
No, the church is the body of Christ. Different people, from different walks and perspectives, from all over the community and the globe, all come to gather around the manger, the table, the words of Jesus. Bound together — not by their own will and likes/dislikes, but — by the Holy Spirit. And today called again to work together, as we move back out into the world.
There’s some housekeeping we always need to do before we go back out into the world. We need to make our metaphorical beds, wash the dishes, sweep the floors: Go to the individual, and speak privately. Do the interior house keeping.
Talk to one another, when things get tough. When feelings are hurt. When there is severing. [Heather with the neighbor and the truck on Monique Ct.]
I’m spending a lot of time on the first part: go to the individual person who has sinned. Hold them accountable in Christian, neighbor-love.
As I was pondering this text this week, I had this vision of a congregation that decided to suspend all programing, except for worship, for the explicit purpose of going to one another and doing the deep housekeeping of Christian communication, reconciliation work. Who would you need to sit down with? Who might reach out and ask to speak with you [pause] in the church, in your family, in your workplace and your community?
Tell the truth, Jesus says. If that conversation is not enough, then, Jesus says, gather together with others and, in Christian love and honesty, have a larger conversation. And if and when we hear each other, we have regained one another. There is reconciliation—one of the most beautiful and powerful moments in the human experience. Reconciliation (talk together again). [Would love to hear your stories sometime of reconciliations…and I hope you can remember those times in your own lives and celebrate those (times in the church community but in your families, neighborhoods and workplaces, etc. We could have a Reconciliation Fall Festival.]
But if, after one-on-one conversation and conversation with a larger community if necessary (I’m not talking as much about that because I want to emphasize Part 1, the one-to-one. And Part 2 is often the jump. “We 3 or more all think [this] about your actions” is not heard as well if it was never preceded by a one-to-one, right. Part 2 is important also, but if it skips Part 1 (the one-to-one) it violates the spirit of Holy Community.
But, when the steps are worked — the one-to-one yields no reconciliation, and after a few have met with the individual and still, that one “refuses to listen,” the third part of Jesus’ life-giving instruction today: when conflict doesn’t result in a reconciliation or a re-gaining, but to only greater anxiety and pain...then Jesus says this: “Let that one be to you as a tax collector or a Gentile.”
In other words, LET IT GO. Let that individual go, yes, and there’s a sad and painful process to releasing someone from the community. But I want to get back to these three words. Let it go. Release it to Jesus. Release the whole situation to God...
This is so important. How are you doing with letting it go? That’s a good question to check in with one another on...
Because in addition to so many other social and psychological side-affects of not-letting-it-go, our anger, resentment, bitterness toward a person or at a community has been shown to have physical effects on our bodies—digestive problems, back aches, head aches, sexual dysfunction, ulcers...the stress kills.
Or God forbid, our hanging-on-to-it’s, our not-letting-it-go’s mean that our children or other innocent ones get the brunt of our pent-up, toxic anger and bitterness.
Let it go, Jesus invites us, let it go. Not a storming out, “*beep* you, I’m outta here!”, angry “I’m done with it” response, which is more of a cultural norm. This is a different kind of letting it go, that takes prayer and Christian community and practice, practice. Just words today, but one exercise is [breathing (grace-peace)].
It’s the ultimate question again: How’s forgiveness going (hfg)? As we move into a new school year, hfg? As we move toward the anniversary of 9/11, hfg? As you think back into the past here at Bethlehem, can’t pretend that they were all perfect years, hfg? As we chat on the phone with family members and distant friends this afternoon, hfg?
“Let that one be to you as a tax collector or a Gentile.”
Let it go…because we know how Jesus treats the tax collector and the Gentile.
Let it go, release it to Jesus, who forgives even and especially the tax collector and the Gentile. Release that one, and leave them to Jesus, because Christ is at the center of our letting go...when we reach our limits, honest about our frailties. And despite the distance between yourself and the one you must release to God, we can still love, feel compassion, pray for those who persecute us...when Christ is at the center. This is the power of God! Loving and letting go at the very same time…and God gives you that power today!
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One more thought: In truth, if we’re honest, we’re all Gentiles, and so Jesus welcoming and forgiving the Gentile becomes all the more poignant.
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This can be perhaps the most liberating and practical message we’ll hear in a long time: First, to do the hard work of going directly and lovingly to the person or the issue…and trying in Christian love to reconcile. If there is reconciliation, “Praise God!” There is nothing greater. That’s amazing grace, in flesh and bone. The lion lies down with the lamb. And if not, release it, and harness the power of God to continue to love despite wrong-doing, distance, evil and deep sadness.
This is where Jesus calls us, friends: down that rocky road, carrying the cross of direct and healthy and loving communication. Not avoiding or distancing but meeting our sibling, our parent, our co-worker, our friend, our neighbor in love and longing for reconciliation. And blanketing the whole process, however it goes, in prayer and trust in God.
Finally, Jesus knows that we cannot ultimately go to the cross, that finally we must lay our crosses down. “Let go of your cross,” he says to us, “I’ve got it from here. You’ve done your best. Let me take it now, your anger, your hurt, your resentment, your bitterness. Let me take it now, and unbind you, from all that is holding you down. Let me take it…”
Jesus takes it.
Friends, because of Christ, we are now free, you are now free to love and serve and live. Now you are unbound in order to be bound. In order to be bound to this Christian community and to this world in love!
Let us pray: Teach us, O Lord your life-giving ways. Help us to meet and talk, and say, and do the right thing, and keep you at the center through it all. Help us to release what we must into your care, and thank you for taking it from there. AMEN.
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