Proper 19 – A
Matt 18:15-20
Sept 6, 2020
St. Columba’s
In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Intro
Over the last few weeks in our Gospel readings, Jesus has been teaching his Disciples what it means to be the Messiah – and what it means for them to be his followers.
Far from being a Conquering Hero, Jesus came to bring God’s peace, not violence; God’s love, not a sword; to bring hope, not division.
And as his followers, the Disciples are to take up their cross and follow where he leads the way.
And the best way to accomplish this, Jesus tells us, is in COMMUNITY – working together and supporting one another in bringing God’s peace and reconciliation to our world.
I. Polarization
A. But it seems so hard for us these days to try to be a COMMUNITY and to even attempt to do some of the things we are called to do.
1. Rather than coming together to work in harmony to accomplish God’s work, we are further pushed apart by the stresses and strains of our world.
2. The Covid virus still requires that we keep apart, and even when we do go out, we need to keep our distance, wear a mask, and especially not touch.
3. We grieve the loss of companionship – the opportunity to sit down with another to chat and share what’s going on in our lives and to support one another in the good times or the troublesome ones.
4. We are being forced further apart from one another by people and forces seeking to separate and divide us – seeking to set us against each other, rather than working together.
5. Sociologists say that we perpetuate this fear and mistrust by further and further isolating ourselves by surrounding ourselves with people who look like us, and talk like us, and think like us.
6. The Internet and Facebook and other tools for reaching out can also be used for this same isolation, as we only “LIKE” people who are like us, or go to websites we agree with and get our news from the places we like to hear.
7. And the result is we become further isolated – almost ghettoized – as we only seek the narrow way.
B. But in our Gospel reading we find another way.
1. Our Gospel reading urges us to find a way to avoid separation and instead to build up one another.
2. A way to encourage COMMUNITY and working together.
3. A way to reach out to one another with reconciliation not conflict, to listen to each other, not close our ears and our minds, to offer forgiveness to the pain we may have experienced or even caused.
4. To follow in Jesus’ path of Messiahship and to work to bring God’s love and peace to our world.
II. Forgiveness and Reconciliation
A. As you know, I am helping to educate two Seminarians for the Diocese; and the chapter of a book we read for this week offered some interesting insights into how to live lives of forgiveness and reconciliation.
1. The book is entitled “Happiness and the Christian Moral Life” by Paul Wadell, a Roman Catholic theologian and ethics scholar; and I’d like to share a bit of this with you that we might ponder it together.
2. Wadell writes: “The New Testament presents the peace of Christ as God’s ongoing work to overcome all the hostility, conflict, and divisions that leave us estranged from one another and threatened by one another.
– “Christ’s peace is the work of reconciliation and forgiveness.
– “It is a peace that heals, a peace that overcomes barriers, and a peace that creates community where community was never before thought possible.” (46)
3. Wadell continues, “The peace of Christ works to dismantle all structures that exclude, all attitudes and practices that divide and allow one people to gain its identity by dismissing another people.” (47)
B. He then goes on to talk about how we can live into the peace of Christ.
1. “Living the peace of Christ is a complex reality.
– “Far more than an interior quality of soul, it constitutes a whole way of life that must be worked at and attended to if it is not to be undermined by all that threatens it.” (50)
2. He then points out that we cannot “walk in the way of Christ’s peace” without being willing to forgive one another.
3. “Forgiveness is difficult,” he writes, “sometimes even scary, because we do not always know what it will ask of us or where it might take us.
– “But forgiveness has to be learned (and risked) because it is the power to renew, re-create, heal, and restore relationships and communities that is damaged by thoughtlessness, indifference, dishonesty, betrayals and the many other ways we fail to love as we should.”(51)
C. Putting this into practice, he writes: “To tell the story of Jesus is to live a forgiven and forgiving life, for without forgiveness everything is just ‘more of the same’ – more broken relationships, more lingering hurt and bitterness, more vengeance and revenge.
1. “Forgiveness is an essential practice for living in and from the peace of Christ because forgiveness enables us to redeem the past in hope and, therefore, move unburdened into the future.”(53)
2. He concludes this section with these words: “Put differently, nothing jeopardizes growing together in the love and happiness of God more than anger, resentment and retaliation; nothing safeguards it more than forgiveness.
3. This is why anyone who tells the story of Jesus today must see herself as having been entrusted with the mission of carrying on God’s ministry of reconciliation in the world (2 Cor. 5:18-19).” (53)
III. Story
A. Let me tell you a story that helps to put this into perspective.
1. Once upon a time, two brothers, who lived on adjoining farms, fell into conflict.
– It was the first serious rift in their 40 years of working together.
2. It began with a small misunderstanding, and grew into a major difference, and finally exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by weeks of silence.
3. One morning, there was a knock on the older brother’s door.
– He opened it to find a man with a carpenter’s tool box.
– “I’m looking for a few days’ work,” he said. “Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there that I could help with?”
4. “Yes,” said the older brother, “I do have a job for you. Look across the creek at that farm. That’s my younger brother! Last week, there was a meadow between us, but he took his bulldozer and dug a river between us.”
5. “Well, I’m going to do him one better.
“See that pile of old lumber? I want you to build an 8 foot high fence between us. Then I won’t need to see his place or his face anymore.”
6. The Carpenter said, “Show me the nails and the tools, and I’ll do a good job for you.”
B. The older brother had to go to town, so he left for the day.
1. At sunset, when he returned, his eyes opened wide, and his jaw dropped.
2. There was no fence there at all.
3. Instead of a fence, the carpenter had built a bridge that stretched from one side of the river to the other – with handrails and all!
4 And to make things worse, his younger brother was coming toward him across the bridge – with his hand outstretched.
5. “You’re quite a guy,” he said, “after all I’ve said and done … to build a bridge.”
6. The two brothers met in the middle of the bridge, and shook each other’s hand.
7. They turned to see the carpenter leaving.
– “No, wait!,” they called, “We’ve got lots of other projects for you.”
8. “I’d love to,” the carpenter replied, “but I have many more bridges to build.”
C. Who is that somebody that you need to reach out to?
– Into whose life do you need to build a bridge.
1. For that’s what we are called to do – in this time more than ever.
2. We are followers of the BRIDGE BUILDER – we are called to build bridges in our world – in our families, our neighbors, our community and beyond.
3. And the support system and planks we use are the very things we’ve been talking about: Christ’s peace – reconciliation and forgiveness.
4. We cannot allow ourselves to be trapped by the negativism all around us – we must respond to it in love – Jesus’ love.
5. We have to set aside our desire to retaliate when we are hurt, and respond in forgiveness and love – show that there is another way – and live it to the fullness of our being.
Let Us Pray
Lord of the church, you call a broken people around your table;
in times of disagreement teach us to listen, loose us from prejudice
and bind us to your way of forgiving grace;
through Jesus Christ, who stands at the heart of our gathering. AMEN.
(Shakespeare p.35)