17A Pentecost                              Matthew 18:15-20                                      Sept. 7, 2008

This past week the majority of schools across our nation had their first day of classes after the summer vacation.
All across the nation, students were returning to their classes with their backpacks filled with notebooks and hopefully a pencil or two.
Meeting those eager students were teachers and administrators equally eager to get down to the task of educating young and inquisitive minds.
But, before the basics of the three “R”; Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic could be addressed, there was one other “R” that needed to be addressed; the Rules.
In talking to my kids about the first day back they reminded me how the first day is almost exclusively dedicated to laying down school rules, regulations, policies and procedures.
Personally it sounds like a crummy way to start off the New Year, but I suppose it has to be done.
It never hurts to clarify your expectations and the parameters of what will be allowed or tolerated early on within the classroom and the school grounds.
I suspect that it also never hurts to clarify the consequences of inappropriate actions as well as the failure to act.

Rules are funny things.
It’s as if we have a love/hate relationship with them.
We hate it when we are told what we can and cannot do.
We hate them when they restrict what we perceive to be our freedoms.
And yet, we expect them to be enforced when someone else crosses the line and refuses to play fair.
We expect them to be enforced when we think we have been slighted or offended.

Some years ago author and pastor Robert Fulghum wrote a piece that became very popular entitled All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten in which he lays down some uncommon thoughts on common things.
As far as rules so, they are great.

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don’t hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
Say you’re sorry when you hurt someone.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life—learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and the little seed in the Styrofoam cup—they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned—the biggest word of all—LOOK.

I’m mentioning all this in light of today’s gospel reading, a reading that personally I would not have picked for Rally Sunday, yet, after some thought maybe there is some uncommon wisdom here for us.

It has often occurred to me that Rally Sunday is a lot like the first day back at school.
After a summer of traveling and playing it is time to get back in the swing of Sunday worship here at Zion.
And so like eager students we return, maybe not with backpacks, but with the same level of enthusiasm to grow in faith and to serve our neighbors in need.
And what do you get?
You get a gospel reading dealing with conflict. Yuck!
What a crummy way to suck the wind out of our sails.
Kind of like hearing about all the rules and regulations at school.

Maybe not the good news you wanted to hear, but perhaps necessary news nonetheless.
I say that because like a school, the church is a similar community and the church is a lot like a family, and as we all know, where two or three are gathered there is a pretty good chance that someone, at some time, is going to get bent out of shape, someone is going to get their feelings hurt and somebody is going to feel slighted and this will cause all sorts of anger, frustration, brooding and pouting.
Right?
Ever known a school that didn’t have conflict of some sort, most often money?
Ever know of a community that didn’t have its citizens taking side on one issue or another, especially during an election year?
Ever known a family that was divided and hurting and refusing to talk to another due to sins and hurts of the past that never got resolved?
Have you ever known a church to split over something as trivial as the color of the carpeting or the arrangement of the furniture in the sanctuary?
Or, over something as personal and sensitive as issues regarding sexuality or even more sensitive and of even greater importance—your money.

The reality is conflict happens.

So maybe we too, like our children returning to the classroom, need to lay down some ground rules regarding possible conflicts.
With that thought in mind, let’s look at what Jesus says: and Jesus starts off pretty optimistically when he says: “If another member of the church sins against you…”
I like that word, “If”.
It could just as well say, “If the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening…”or “If the water in the Sea of Galilee is wet…”
No “If’s” about it, another member or the church, or your family, or your community WILL sin against you…and you WILL sin against someone else.

Sin here includes all of its various meanings.
Sin is missing the mark, as crossing a boundary, as breaking a rule.
Sin is lying, stealing, gossiping, and bearing false witness.
Sin is hurting another person intentionally, sin as anything that is done or left undone that tears down a relationship and builds up a wall of resentment.

This passage is as I said, decidedly optimistic.
Not only by using the word “if” rather then “when” but also by suggesting that such relational damage can be repaired.
It isn’t easy and can’t be done alone.

The first step, and often the most difficult step, is going directly to the person who offended you and clearly communicating what happened and what you didn’t like about what happened.
If it works, you have your friend back.

In these hard words Jesus invites us…no, it is stronger than that…Jesus tells us that when someone has sinned against us (real or perceived) then we bear the responsibility of confronting them directly.
Directly.
Fact to face. 
When you are alone.
So you have the time and space to clear the air, fill in the missing facts, share your distinctive perspective on the matter, and perhaps negotiate a solution.

Do you know what the number one cause for divorce is?
According to the research I have read, it isn’t infidelity or fights about money but the “habitual avoidance of conflict.”
In other words, the unwillingness and inability to take this simple first step outlined in Matthew 18.

It happens in marriage and it happens in the church.
Through my years as a pastor I have seen it happen again and again and again.
People get their feelings hurt through some real or imagined slight and they bail out on the relationship altogether rather than taking that first step of facing someone and getting honest.
If it works, you have your spouse, friend, brother or sister back.
But if you don’t take that step, everybody loses.

As is often said at the end of AA meetings, “It works, if you work it.”
Far too often, people don’t even get that far.
They just bail out. Again and again and again.

Jesus then says, if that doesn’t work, try again but this time bringing “two or three others.”
My sense is that we tend to get these two steps backwards AND sideways.
Rather than beginning with direct communication and confrontation with the person who offends us, we would rather go sideways and begin by talking ABOUT the offending person with two or three other witnesses.
But, with good reason, that isn’t what Jesus suggests.

Brining two or three others is rooted in the Jewish wisdom that one witness isn’t good enough to establish guilt or innocence.
But more than that, it is rooted in the reality that the relationships of our lives are more like spider webs than targets.
Brokenness in one corner damages the whole.
Resentment harbored in one-person spills out to inflict damage in the whole community.
And quite frankly, Jesus wants better for us than that.

And because Jesus wants better for us he makes a statement that has been misused and abused over the years.
I’m talking about the third step and the part about taking the offender to the church and “if the offender refuses to listen to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
It has been my observation that we have taken these last words and made a case for shunning and ostracizing others.
And this, my friends is not Jesus idea of family, community or church.

So what is Jesus talking about when he tells us that we are to treat the offender as a Gentile or tax collector?
Do we shun them?
Do we kick them out of our churches?
Do we make their lives intolerable?
I don’t think so.
Instead, consider how Jesus treated Gentiles and tax collectors.

Let’s see, there’s the Samaritan woman at the well and her history of multiple husbands.
There’s that wonderfully scandalous story of the Good Samaritan that behaves far better than the religious officials.
There’s the tax collector Zacchaeus with whom Jesus ate dinner at his home.
There was the Canaanite woman whose daughter was ill and Jesus healed the daughter and praised the mother.
And then there is Matthew the author of this Gospel who had been a tax collector.

So when Jesus said that we are to treat the offender as a Gentile or tax collector I believe that Jesus is not telling us to excommunicate them or have nothing to do with them, we are not turn our backs on them—but rather to treat with the same love and grace afforded to them by Jesus himself.
The same kind of love and grace that God extends to each of us.
It is my understanding that Jesus wants us not to seek out ways to banish and distance ourselves from others but rather we are to seek ways toward reconciliation and forgiveness.

Despite the sentiments of some—Jesus really is not all that intent upon punishment and damnation, but rather, Jesus came that we might have reconciliation—that each of us might be brought closer toward one another and toward God our Creator.
Jesus came to show us what grace and mercy look like and what forgiveness feels like and what the power of compassion can do in the lives of those like us who are broken and unclean.

By now, the kids back at school are well on their way toward mastering those three R’s Reading wRiting and aRithmetic.

And here, we are given another “R” to focus on: Reconciliation.

As the body of Christ we recognize that we are hardly perfect.
We recognize that we are both saint and sinner.
And we recognize that when two or three are gathered in one place our toes might very well get stepped on and chances are we will probably step on a few toes ourselves—and because of this we need a rule for reconciliation if we are going to live in community.

So, on this Rally Sunday, for some a first day back, we have covered the rules and now we can move onto the really fun stuff of growing in faith, living graceful and generous lives and serving our neighbors in need all to the glory of God.  Amen

Pastor Stephen P. Blenkush
Zion Lutheran Church
Milaca, MN


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