September 4, 2005 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Ezekiel 33:7-9 + Romans 13: 8-10 + Matthew 18:15-20
What is set forth in this Gospel is not merely a matter of charity, but an absolute ethic by which the community is bound to conduct itself. Before Moses, the law of retribution was wild and uncontrolled. I would call it the “law of rage”. If someone shot your dog, then you burned down their house and barn with all the livestock in it. We still find this system working these days in conduct called “road-rage”. Some folks have not gotten much past that age of human history. Then, Moses. In an effort to calm the desert passions of nomadic tribal peoples, he promulgated a code we called: “an eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth”. It was a brilliant move to limit the extent of damages and control rage. The violence of terrorists, and our response to them gives evidence that we have not even taken that code of conduct seriously. Then, Jesus of Nazareth, who completely abandoned an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and turned the relationship around. The Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel consistently cast in the image of a new Moses promulgates a new way by turning the relationship around. He introduced a different standard: as you relate yourselves to others, so God relates to you. Forgiveness is to forgive.
Therefore it follows that those who are forgiven by God are to forgive one another.
The church that gave rise to this Gospel, the church which focused on the issues raised chapter after chapter in Matthew’s Gospel is painfully revealed here.
It was not all sweet charity and kindness. It was a community facing conflict, change, disgrace, unfaithfulness, and the burden of free-riders. There was friction outside with the Roman and Jewish authorities. There was friction inside as the growing church sought it’s identity as belonging to Jesus distinct from but rooted in Judaism.
They fought it out. They argued. It is likely that they shouted and pointed, accused and excused. In an effort to aid and lead the church’s self awareness and realization,
Matthew puts forth an ethic and a vision to motivate behavior based not solely on the Law, but upon the person and the message of Jesus Christ.
Jesus was a seeker. The verses of today’s Gospel ought to be heard with the echo of the verses just before – in which he speaks of seeking and finding what is lost.
That seeking and passionate desire to be one, to be whole, to be united drives the human spirit touched by the Holy Spirit. We must be seekers if we will be part of Jesus Christ. The opposite of a seeker is a settler, and churches are full of them everywhere.
We have our share here at Saint Mark. They are pew warmers who settle in, who come to church with no passionate reason of their own. Sometimes because they inherited a certain church from their ancestors. Sometimes because it is the socially acceptable place to be seen. Sometimes people belong because they are afraid, and they settle down in church because they fear the great punishment, or because they long for the great reward.
But for people created in God’s image, it would seem more appropriate to be in church because they are in love. That kind of real love is only sustained and maintained by forgiveness.
I wonder if you’ve ever thought about the furniture in this place, about where you see this kind of seating. First of all, except for a few trendy restaurants, the only other place you see this seating arrangement and furniture is in a court room. Yet again, and even more powerfully, this kind of seating in long rows is found in airports and office waiting rooms. On this September weekend, our broken church glues itself back together again. It is imperfect because we are so. It has sometimes failed us, and each of us have failed the church. Yet in the midst of this mutual failure, we claim this church as our own, our home, our mother. We do not run away when we see through the cracks and find littleness and greatness, poverty and wealth. We ought to feel more fed and failed. But not everyone can say this, and so we are called to great sensitivity. We are still full of controversy and troubles without and within,
but an end of controversy will not mean success. As long as love prevails, there is nothing to fear in controversy. We must accept both the burden and the grace of being Church. By our assembly week after week, we begin again and again with a rite of forgiveness because that is what we are about. More and more those who venture in here should be called in love to join the seeking and the waiting. The simple truth of the matter is that we can do nothing on our own to get to heaven, but if we wait long enough, God will come and lift us up. And so, we wait, and we seek, and we watch for the day when living forgiveness leads us to find it.