Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, 2020. Year A.
An online sermon during lockdown.
Readings: Romans 13:8-14 & Matthew 18:15-20.
For where two or three of you are come together in my name, I am there among them.
This saying of Jesus’ has I think been a great comfort to many of us in lockdown over the last few months, unable to worship together as a broader church.
In its context here, however, it is saying other things as well.
It could be that Jesus is making a distinction between rabbinical Judaism, which held that ten males was the minimum required to have a worshipping community – a synagogue needed that many men to be established.
Jesus is lowering the bar considerably, down to just two worshippers. And he doesn’t even say that they have to be men – any two worshippers are enough for him to be among them.
But that there needs to be at least two tells us something important about our faith – it is a communal faith.
Which isn’t to say that God isn’t always present with us, even when we are alone. I think that we have all experienced times of total loneliness in our lives; times when we thought we were completely on our own. For some of us, the last 6 months may have felt like that. Throughout history Christians have been imprisoned and persecuted, or have chosen to isolate themselves because the demands of the world have become too loud.
In all of these cases, I think we are all aware that God is still with us, listening to us, protecting us, and enveloping us in his patient love.
For many of us, the abiding presence of God is what has got us through the last few months, and there is I think a feeling that, bereft of traditional church, people are finding God more and more in the other places of life – in nature, in domestic settings, in the quiet of the morning and the evening, even in work.
This may turn out to be a blessing from this period, that more people may come to find God in new places, and hopefully will continue to walk with God even when things return to normal.
But Jesus here is still stressing that the church is communal, rather than individual.
It might only be a small community that is required – just two people, but a community is still required.
And I think we have to go to the first half of the passage to see a reason for this.
The first half can, on the surface, be seen as a very reasonable and very practical suggestion for conflict resolution.
First you should talk things over with the person concerned, privately. Don’t make a big fuss of things. Intervene early, before problems fester. Because this isn’t about conflict resolution – this is about seeing sin in those around you.
Being judgemental isn’t very fashionable nowadays. We are asked to be inclusive and accepting of other people, and their preferences and ways and habits.
And this is a laudable aim. Jesus shows us this himself. He makes it clear, as his ministry develops, and sometimes with some outside prompting, that he is come for the salvation of all the world, and all the people in it. He is ultimately inclusive of everyone.
But this doesn’t mean that he is relaxed about everything that people do. There is still sin in the world, and still suffering and pain, and evil.
Salvation comes from God’s unconditional love and grace, and is not earned by our own deeds, but that doesn’t mean that our actions are immaterial.
Our response to God’s love and grace should be to try and reflect some of that love and grace back, not only on God, but also on our fellow beings.
We all fall short on this, but the important thing is to keep trying.
As he says, that which ties on earth, is tied in heaven, and that which is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven.
Our actions have consequences, not just now, but in eternity.
Consequences for us, for those we affect, and for God.
But, as Jesus well knew, trying to do good and avoid sin on your own is difficult.
Not just because it is always helpful to have someone else beside you, sharing the burden, as Christ does, but also because we can become acclimatised to our own sin.
Both as individuals and indeed, as we are learning more and more, as societies.
We come to accept things as normal and OK that are not.
We abuse our power, hurt others, hurt God, act sinfully.
For this reason, we need the other to question us, to make us examine ourselves, to shock us out of our complacency and acceptance that things should be as they are.
This is what Jesus is talking about at the start of our passage.
It is sometimes easier to observe sin in others than in oneself.
This could of course turn one into an insufferable busybody – always telling other people how they are falling short.
This is a trap the church has fallen into repeatedly throughout history.
We judge others on their superficial behaviour, on the things that really don’t matter to God, rather than on the things that do matter.
It is easier to follow narrow rules, than to follow Jesus in showing love and acceptance of all.
We have to avoid that by knowing, in humility, that we are also riddled with sin as well. We can see sin easily in others, because it is in ourselves as well.
The purpose of the intervention that Jesus is suggesting is not to build ourselves up, by showing how much more virtuous we are, but to build others up. We must be willing to listen, as well as talk.
If we are confronting someone else about their behaviour, we must be willing to examine our own as well, and listen to some hard truths about ourselves.
But ultimately, the community is only as healthy as the individuals who comprise it.
We are not called to be perfect, but we are called to be saints, as well as sinners. It is our faith in Christ, and his faith in us, that makes us saints, those who strive to do what Jesus has asked us to do.
But in this, we need help. We need others to guide, correct, confirm, uphold and enable us, in the love of God.
We will not always succeed in this. Jesus makes that clear in his escalating intervention.
First talk one on one, then get two or three together, and then finally the whole church. And if that doesn’t work, treat them as pagans and tax collectors. That sounds harsh, but you have to remember this is a gospel written by a tax collector. This is not a permanent expulsion.
Jesus is saying that you need to go back to the beginning in this case.
Effectively they need to be reconverted – there may be something wrong with the foundations, so start again by examining the foundation.
This passage really needs to be read in the context of the passages immediately before and after. We come into this passage from the parable of the lost sheep, and immediately after we have Peter’s question about how many times we should forgive others in the church.
The context for this passage is entirely love and forgiveness. What we do to help others should always and entirely be motivated by love – love of others and love of God.
Christianity is not a simple religion of clear legal rules that can be easily followed – it is a set of case law – stories that Jesus tells us that reveal how we should behave in certain circumstances, wrapped up in human interpretation.
And that interpretation is difficult.
Which is not to say that it should be left to others to decide for us.
We must decide ourselves what our behaviour should be, but we should also allow ourselves to be guided and informed by others, both the living and the dead, the long tradition of the church, guided by our own faith to discern what is from God, and what is not.
Amen