The Reverend Donald L. Hamer
September 14, 2008
The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 19, Year A

Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35

This morning we continue our journey with Scripture by asking ourselves how we fit into the story – how we as contemporary Christians in 2008 continue the drama that is played out before us in the Bible.  This morning, we are asked to consider the importance of the two Biblical principles of forgiveness and reconciliation.  On the principle of forgiveness, we will turn to the passage from St. Matthew; St. Paul in his letter to the Romans goes a step beyond forgiveness to actual reconciliation and its importance to the work of the church.

Peter asks, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive?  As many as seven times?”  Jesus answered:  “Not seven times, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.”  Another translation says, “Seven times seventy times.”  Now, one of the interesting things about this interchange is that it is not about people who are natural enemies “sinning” against one another.  It is about people who are members of the same church sinning against one another by dismissing their religious practices as silly, or erroneous, downright sinful.  Let me repeat that in another way to be clear:  The discussion between Peter and Jesus concerns members of the Body of Christ complaining about each other!  Remember St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians where he talks about each part of the body having a unique and important role to play in the mission of the church?  Well, Peter and Jesus are talking about the arm saying to the shoulder, “I don’t need you – I’m going straight to the neck!”  If you have ever tried to do without your shoulder, you know what I mean.

Well, it didn’t work in Jesus’ day, and it doesn’t work any better in our day.  As a warden before I was ordained, and as a pastor, it has been my observation that what I refer to as “intra-ministry warfare” arises whenever one member of the Body of Christ comes to believe that he or she alone understands what it is that needs to be done, what it is Christ is calling us to do, or how Christ is calling us to do it.  And Jesus’ answer is a not-so-subtle reminder that none of us, including clergy – perhaps especially clergy – EVER fully knows the mind of Christ – not on the first time, not on the 77th time – or according to the other translation, not on the 490th time.  We will only BEGIN to understand the mind of Christ – and build up Christ’s body – when we understand that we ALWAYS – past, present and yet to come – have to join with one another, using our gifts not as chips in a game of Texas Hold’em, to meet our needs and serve our own advantage – but to think of our individual gifts as pieces to a puzzle that can only be completed when every piece of the puzzle is there and we work together to find the right fit.

But not hurting each other is only the beginning – and I hope we are all on the same page so far.  The passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans picks up where Matthew leaves off, and then takes us to the next level when he exhorts us to be reconciled to one another.  Paul is addressing a church where the members are having fierce disagreements over what to them are life and death issues:

* Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables.
* Those who eat despise those who abstain, and those who abstain pass judgment on those who eat.
* Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be the same – clearly an argument over observation of the Sabbath.

Paul reminds his readers that God has welcomed them all.  Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another?  How we serve the Lord, Paul says, is less important than how faithful we are when we serve God. Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord.  Also, those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God.

Paul calls us to go beyond tolerance to reconciliation.  That word “reconciliation” comes from the Latin word, “conciliare,” “to bring together, unite in feelings, make friendly.”  It goes beyond letting go of the hurt – real or imagined -- that another has caused you.  It goes beyond tolerating their behavior, or ignoring it and doing your own thing in spite of it.  I’ll share a story to illustrate the point.

“The man I ate dinner with tonight killed my brother.”  The words, spoken by a stylish woman at a Prison Fellowship banquet in Seattle, were amazing.  She told how John H. had murdered her brother during a robbery, served 18 years at Walla Walla prison, then settled into life on a dairy farm, where she had met him 20 years after his crime.  Compelled by Christ’s command to forgive, Ruth Youngsman had gone to the man who had been her enemy, and she pronounced forgiveness.  Then she had taken him to her father’s deathbed, prompting reconciliation with the father of his victim.

Some wouldn’t call this a success story:  John didn’t dedicate his life to Christ.  But at that Prison Fellowship banquet, his voice cracked as he said, “Christians are the only people I know that you can kill their son, and they’ll make you a part of their family.  I don’t know the Man Upstairs, but He sure is hounding me.”

John’s story is unfinished; he hasn’t yet accepted Christ.  But just as Christ died for us without regard to our actions or acceptance, so Ruth forgave John without qualification.  Even more than that, she became his friend.  Albert H. Quie, President of Prison Fellowship Ministries, Jubilee, p. 5.

Reconciliation, like forgiveness, involves letting go of something:  the anger, the hurt, the injustice, the pain, the loss.  But beyond forgiveness, reconciliation involves us doing something to make us one with that other person or group.  It is that mutual self-abnegation, that mutual giving up of something that has in the past been important to us, in order to discover the greater gift that God has in store for us.

John’s story is unfinished.  So is ours.  We continue to write, through our daily lives, the ongoing stories of God’s creation and God’s wondrous work in the world.  It is work that seeks, ultimately, to bring all creation into harmony with itself.

Reconciliation calls us to actually come together, to bring what may be unfamiliar, inconsistent or even conflicting ways of doing things and discovering Christ in the midst of that rich array.  It is the way we live out the prayer we say each week, and that I hope you pray each day:  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Today is a day in which we celebrate the many and varied gifts with which God has blessed us, and the many ways in which we offer those gifts back to God to make “God’s kingdom come.”  At our annual ministry fair, you will have an opportunity to learn more about how we as a congregation work together to make Christ a reality in our lives and in the lives we touch through our ministries.  In our diverse community of faith, it is through our ministries that we bring the many threads of God’s creation into a rich fabric.  And here I will make my annual plea:  I pray that each and every one of you will visit the exhibits, talk to the folks who work in these ministries – and find the one where you can place YOUR piece of the puzzle that moves the picture one step closer to completion, another page in our ongoing story.  These are ministries that bring us as a congregation together, unite us in feelings, provide opportunities to make us friendly with one another. 

You know, Garrison Keillor has said that going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than sitting in a garage makes you a car.  That is NOT to demean the importance of our worship.  Our worship is the central act of this church, the most important thing that we do.  But it is not the end of what we do – it is the foundation for everything else that we do.

It is through joining together in ministry that we move beyond being nameless faces to one another in church and we move toward getting to know one another, getting to understand one another, to learn and appreciate each other’s traditions, getting to trust one another – in other words, to be reconciled with one another.  Only then can we attend to the work of  reconciling the world to the love of Christ.  AMEN.
      
      
© Copyright 2008 by the Reverend Donald L. Hamer