The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Some Sundays I preach on a particular reading because I like it. Other Sundays, I preach on it because I don’t like it, and - I’m sorry to say - today’s Gospel reading falls in that last category.
This passage, in which Jesus tells his disciples how to deal with problem people in the church, is the Biblical basis for the practice of excommunication. In it, Jesus explains that if you have a grudge against a brother or sister in the church, you are to go directly to him or her and try to reconcile. If that doesn’t work, you take your complaint to two or three other church members, and you all approach the offender. If that doesn’t work, then you let the whole church in on it. And finally, if that doesn’t work, then the person becomes “as a Gentile and sinner” - that is, he is cast outside the fold.
Before commenting further, I feel it’s worth mentioning that there’s some question whether Jesus even said these words - first, because it’s only in one of the four Gospels, Matthew, and whenever a saying of Jesus appears in only one Gospel, it’s fair to wonder whether this was something he said (or at least said often enough to be remembered). Also, because Jesus himself hung out with tax collectors, prostitutes, Gentiles and sinners of all sorts, so it seems unlikely that he would say that those who are cast out of the church will be like Gentiles and sinners, whom he was eager to include. And finally, because Jesus probably didn’t have in mind the creation of the Christian church in the way it’s described in this passage, and so neither would he have had in mind setting down rules for it to live by. All that would come later, after his death, resurrection, and ascension.
So, it could be that the Gospel writer Matthew or someone else added these instructions. Or it could be that Jesus said something like it, but in a slightly different way or a different context - we don’t really know. In any case, as Episcopalians, we’re probably a bit too eager to just remove this passage from Jesus’ mouth. Many of us, myself included, came to the Episcopal Church to escape more judgmental traditions, and we like the latitude of belief and the inclusiveness this church provides. So I thought that, rather than dismiss it or list all the reasons I don’t like this passage, it might be more challenging - and productive - to consider what in it could be useful, even if we don’t make it a matter of church policy.
The first thing I thought of was that it reminds us that conflict will happen in a community of people, even the church. I can’t even count the conversations I’ve had with people who are incredulous that someone in their own church could do such-and-such. It’s not that we don’t know better; it’s just that, without really thinking, we just set the church up to be that place without conflict that we long for. And when it’s not that place, our disappointment and anger are that much greater. If Jesus did say these words in connection with the emerging Christian community, it’s comforting that he knew it wasn’t going to be without its conflicts.
Another good lesson in this passage is that it encourages direct communication with someone who has hurt you in some way. One of the worst things in any community, and especially the church, is when we complain about someone to everyone but that person. What I like about this procedure is that it assumes people have dignity, and that they shouldn’t be gossiped about as if they didn’t.
Connected to that, the practice of directly approaching someone has the added advantage of forcing us to really think about whether the matter is all that serious in the first place. If we’re too embarrassed to say to another what bothers us, maybe our taking offense is more about us than about that other person. But we tend not to step back and really reflect on that possibility if we just spout our complaints to a third party.
On this subject of directly approaching someone, I also wanted to briefly mention an interesting version of this passage by the poet Willis Barnstone in his translation of the New Testament. Instead of saying "If your neighbor sins against you go and tell him his sin (or fault)," Barnstone translates it: "If your neighbor hurts you, go and tell him of your hurt." His project in his translation was to get closer to the Jewish context in which the events of the New Testament occurred, and I think for him the language of “sin” has taken on such freight in the Christian tradition that removing it from this passage brings it back to its real purpose: learning how not to hurt each other. So, in his view, trying to remove sin from a community isn’t about condemning a fixed set of behaviors to make a community pure, but it’s about learning not to hurt each other. I like that emphasis a lot more, and it makes me less apt to ignore this passage.
Which leads me to a final lesson that I like here: that our wrongdoing isn’t just between us and God; it’s between us and a community. Next time we consider doing something hurtful, it’s important to really think about how it will affect those around us.
So there is a lot of wisdom in this passage. And ultimately I’d just like to say that I’m touched by Jesus’ emphasis on the community - as I often remark on here at St. Nick’s. Again, we don’t know what kind of community he thought would be gathered in his name, but he knew it wouldn’t be perfect. And as long as we strive to honor and love each other, his promise is that he will be with us.
Some Sundays I preach on a particular reading because I like it. Other Sundays, I preach on it because I don’t like it, and - I’m sorry to say - today’s Gospel reading falls in that last category.
This passage, in which Jesus tells his disciples how to deal with problem people in the church, is the Biblical basis for the practice of excommunication. In it, Jesus explains that if you have a grudge against a brother or sister in the church, you are to go directly to him or her and try to reconcile. If that doesn’t work, you take your complaint to two or three other church members, and you all approach the offender. If that doesn’t work, then you let the whole church in on it. And finally, if that doesn’t work, then the person becomes “as a Gentile and sinner” - that is, he is cast outside the fold.
Before commenting further, I feel it’s worth mentioning that there’s some question whether Jesus even said these words - first, because it’s only in one of the four Gospels, Matthew, and whenever a saying of Jesus appears in only one Gospel, it’s fair to wonder whether this was something he said (or at least said often enough to be remembered). Also, because Jesus himself hung out with tax collectors, prostitutes, Gentiles and sinners of all sorts, so it seems unlikely that he would say that those who are cast out of the church will be like Gentiles and sinners, whom he was eager to include. And finally, because Jesus probably didn’t have in mind the creation of the Christian church in the way it’s described in this passage, and so neither would he have had in mind setting down rules for it to live by. All that would come later, after his death, resurrection, and ascension.
So, it could be that the Gospel writer Matthew or someone else added these instructions. Or it could be that Jesus said something like it, but in a slightly different way or a different context - we don’t really know. In any case, as Episcopalians, we’re probably a bit too eager to just remove this passage from Jesus’ mouth. Many of us, myself included, came to the Episcopal Church to escape more judgmental traditions, and we like the latitude of belief and the inclusiveness this church provides. So I thought that, rather than dismiss it or list all the reasons I don’t like this passage, it might be more challenging - and productive - to consider what in it could be useful, even if we don’t make it a matter of church policy.
The first thing I thought of was that it reminds us that conflict will happen in a community of people, even the church. I can’t even count the conversations I’ve had with people who are incredulous that someone in their own church could do such-and-such. It’s not that we don’t know better; it’s just that, without really thinking, we just set the church up to be that place without conflict that we long for. And when it’s not that place, our disappointment and anger are that much greater. If Jesus did say these words in connection with the emerging Christian community, it’s comforting that he knew it wasn’t going to be without its conflicts.
Another good lesson in this passage is that it encourages direct communication with someone who has hurt you in some way. One of the worst things in any community, and especially the church, is when we complain about someone to everyone but that person. What I like about this procedure is that it assumes people have dignity, and that they shouldn’t be gossiped about as if they didn’t.
Connected to that, the practice of directly approaching someone has the added advantage of forcing us to really think about whether the matter is all that serious in the first place. If we’re too embarrassed to say to another what bothers us, maybe our taking offense is more about us than about that other person. But we tend not to step back and really reflect on that possibility if we just spout our complaints to a third party.
On this subject of directly approaching someone, I also wanted to briefly mention an interesting version of this passage by the poet Willis Barnstone in his translation of the New Testament. Instead of saying "If your neighbor sins against you go and tell him his sin (or fault)," Barnstone translates it: "If your neighbor hurts you, go and tell him of your hurt." His project in his translation was to get closer to the Jewish context in which the events of the New Testament occurred, and I think for him the language of “sin” has taken on such freight in the Christian tradition that removing it from this passage brings it back to its real purpose: learning how not to hurt each other. So, in his view, trying to remove sin from a community isn’t about condemning a fixed set of behaviors to make a community pure, but it’s about learning not to hurt each other. I like that emphasis a lot more, and it makes me less apt to ignore this passage.
Which leads me to a final lesson that I like here: that our wrongdoing isn’t just between us and God; it’s between us and a community. Next time we consider doing something hurtful, it’s important to really think about how it will affect those around us.
So there is a lot of wisdom in this passage. And ultimately I’d just like to say that I’m touched by Jesus’ emphasis on the community - as I often remark on here at St. Nick’s. Again, we don’t know what kind of community he thought would be gathered in his name, but he knew it wouldn’t be perfect. And as long as we strive to honor and love each other, his promise is that he will be with us.
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