Teach me O Lord, the way of your statutes

Sermon   Proper 18 A    All Saints    9-6-20

Ezekiel 33: 7 – 11      Psalm 119: 33 – 40      Romans 13: 8 – 14      Matthew 18: 15 – 20

Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes….

The authority and teaching of the Anglican community – us as Episcopalians, in particular – rests on three things:  Scripture, Tradition, and Reason.  Sometimes this is called the three-legged stool.  Scripture, of course, is obvious.  Reason reminds us that God gives us intellect and comprehension so that we can invite the Holy Spirit to help us discern the meaning of what we read.  Tradition – that is, what the Church has taught in the past – reminds us that Christians who have gone before us were not idiots: therefore, we do not have to reinvent the wheel every time we read Scripture.  We have 2000 years of experience and written texts to help us.

St. Matthew’s Gospel presents us with a reading requiring full application of Tradition and Reason along with lots of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is speaking to His own disciples in these verses – not to unbelievers nor describing a tactic of evangelism.  Jesus is giving believers a procedure to deal with sin among ourselves, not out in the world.  In some of the earliest manuscripts that we have, verse 15 reads:  “If another member of the church sins….”   The words “against you” do not appear.  Because we know that Jesus is talking about us, us inside the church, it does not seem strange that “against you” could have been added because the early readers of this text would have understood that interpretation.

The procedure Jesus describes is very reasonable.  First, you go to the person who has done wrong, explain the problem to them privately.  If that does not work, you take along one or two others to witness the exchange.  That comes from the Jewish law requiring that there be a minimum of two witnesses before a decision is rendered.  If this second visit does not go well, then you turn to the church for judgment.  If the sinner does not listen to the whole church as it comes together, then you treat the sinner the way you would treat a Gentile and you withhold fellowship from them.  

And there it is: a simple plan for church discipline and excommunication made complicated by the 18th verse:  Truly, I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.  

Remember a couple of chapters back when Jesus asked the disciples what the people around them were saying about Him?  Peter’s answer was: You are the Messiah, the One sent by God.  Jesus then says that His church will be built upon that “rock” and Peter is given the keys to heaven.  Jesus also tells Peter that what he binds or loosens on earth – that is, whatever is forbidden or permitted on earth – will be bound or loosed in heaven.  Here Jesus uses the plural for of “you” addressing the Apostles, giving all twelve men power to allow or forbid.  And that drops us right into the middle of many modern church conversations.

Did you know that we have the power of “excommunication” in the Episcopal church?  It is rarely used, however, because we seek redemption and reconciliation – which is the goal of the three-step process in verses 15 – 17 to give the sinner ample space to repent and to behave differently.  

Now.  I am going to say things that you may not like or agree with but hear me out.  Call me after this service or during the next few days if you want to talk.  Remember I am learning along with you and I am not always right.

When I was growing up, the sin most preached against was alcohol.  I could not count on all my fingers and toes added up the number of church films I saw and men who came to give their testimonies about the evils of alcohol and how Jesus saved them from that life.  Always men, as I remember.  As I entered my 30s and since, it seems that the sins we talk about the most are sins around sex.  We are finally talking about spousal abuse – occasionally.  We are finally forgiving divorce – mostly.  We are talking openly about child molestation and abuse – not often enough.  

While we were focused on alcohol, we did not talk about racial discrimination or spousal abuse.  But we hammered alcohol, and we made it all about sin, not about illness or addiction or treatment.  Now that we are focused on sexual sins, we are still tiptoeing around racial issues, uncomfortable about facing our history of support of slavery, and unwilling to look too closely at our present-day societal structures.  We are still pretending that we do not see what we actually see, just as we did in the church of the 1950s when we avoided spousal abuse and alcoholism among women.  

We are not the church of the 1950s and we never will be again, blessed be God!  We are sadly no longer the first-place people go when they move into a new community.  We have much to offer to the those in need, much light to shine into the darkness, much grace to be shared with those who are estranged from family and from God.  But we must wake up and grow up and fulfill our purpose.  As Bishop Benhase said to us many times:  

It is not that God’s church has a mission, it is that GOD’S MISSION has a CHURCH.  

We must begin to bind the sins of hatred, of dehumanization, of silence and deliberate ignorance.  We must focus on what it means to be faithful to God’s mission in this world as it actually exists with all the dirt and fear and hopelessness that separation from God brings.  It may be that government at all levels is responsible making laws for safety.  But it is the task of the church to LIVE the morality of God so that the world sees the light of redemption.  

In many movies, crime stories and detective series, there is someone who says:  my search for the criminal, my autopsy of the victim, my search of the crime scene happens because I know that I must speak for the dead.  The Church – worldwide, apostolic and holy – MUST SPEAK for the weak and the oppressed who cannot speak for themselves.  We often blame the poor for their poverty without investigating what got them there and why it is so hard to pull themselves up.  Then when we attempt to help, we become angry because not everyone makes the decisions we think they should.  

If you want a revealing experiment, try feeding your household on $50 for seven days.  But you can also only use one-burner on your stove because the rest are broken.  Or you have only a small microwave to heat anything.  And you have only a beach cooler to keep things cold.  And your pantry consists of salt and ketch-up packets.  Try it for yourself and see what you learn.  Listen to what feelings and frustrations you encounter.  Expand that to the next month or year and check your feelings.

St. Paul reminds us:  all commandments are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”   Do not withhold from your neighbor anything you want for yourself or your loved ones.  If it would cause you suffering, stand up for your neighbor who bears that pain and say ENOUGH!  STOP!!  Fight for God’s children who cannot fight for themselves.      And may God have mercy on us all.            

Amen.