September 7, 2008
(Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 18)

Into the Midst

by The Rev. Sam Portaro

Ezekiel 33:7-11  •  Psalm 119:33-40  •  Romans 13:8-14  •  Matthew 18:15-20
(From The Lectionary Page)

Wherever two or three are gathered together peace will be a relative thing. That's not a biblical quotation. That's simply an observation on human nature. In these final weeks of this season of discipleship we know as Pentecost, or what the older terminology calls "ordinary time", we turn our attention to the day-to-day business of being God's people. And nothing could be more ordinary than the diversity that is at one and the same time our greatest blessing and our most painful bane. Wherever two or three are gathered together there's bound to be difference.

And in that difference there’s unending capacity for pain. When human beings rub up against one another, sparks are generated. Like flint and steel, our beings and our personalities are hard and contain within them the properties for generating both light and heat. When we’re at our best, the collisions of our lives produce the breathtakingly pure light of human grace, compassion and ingenuity. Struggling together, the natural friction of creative collegiality has produced no end of illumination, lighting the path which has led us to the present, a place which may not be the apex of human achievement and civilization, but is certainly an advance over other times.

But when we’re at our worst, this same friction becomes destructive, wearing us down and sparking controversies that smolder and occasionally burst into flame, consuming vast amounts of human energy, destroying individuals, and retarding our progress like the forest fire that lays waste the landscape.

Some believe that the mission of the faithful, the task of the people of God, is to eradicate this friction. Styling themselves "peacemakers," they seem to believe that the optimal state of humanity is inclined toward the absence of conflict. Ministry and discipleship for these believers consists primarily in glossing over differences, at best, and at worst, enforcing a rigid conformity aimed at eradicating difference entirely.

At the extremes of both liberalism and conservatism we encounter such discipleship in different guises.

For the extreme liberal, peace consists in embracing all differences unquestioningly. Live and let live. All one big happy family. The only problem is that this extremity denies all difference, even trivializes differences by making them of no consequence. In the end, such a position renders each of us inconsequential by blending us in some cosmic Cuisinart until the ideal society is a puree smooth enough for the toothless and tasteless to swallow.

For the extreme conservative, peace consists of embracing all with whom one finds agreement, coercing any who are wavering into acquiescence to one's position, and rejecting all the rest. Ironically, the end result is the same: a homogenous and palatable porridge of people.

Such visions of peace are, frankly, unnatural. If history be a reliable index, the hard evidence supports the notion that such extremes are not only unnatural but impossible. The reality of human existence is that each of us is different and that whether we like it or not, life on this planet will forever consist of such eclecticism. We profess ourselves to be the handiwork of a creative God. It ought not surprise us, then, to learn that we’re not mechanistically cranked out of a single material in a common shape, like cookies on a conveyor belt, but that we’re individually formed with all the nuances that make each work unique, and that make each of us a true work of art.

It’s obvious that those who wrote our readings today accepted this reality. Their words address the difficulty of discipleship in a world full of differences. The prophet speaks of a God who holds each person accountable and thus abhors the palliative of the extreme liberal, and a God who desires that every one of these creative works be supported in life thus denying the vengeful eradication of difference represented in extreme conservatism.

So, too, the apostle Paul address the Romans on the means by which friction in community is to be resolved. In Matthew's gospel we encounter words that are probably not those of Jesus, but are rather the words of the early Christian community as it struggled to establish a means for negotiating human differences consonant with the ideals and teachings of Jesus. Of that passage it’s the final sentence that is most evocative in its notion that wherever two or three are gathered, Jesus is present.

That passage is both evocative and provocative in that it points to a reality we’d sooner deny, but to which we might recommit, especially as we mark today the resumption of programmatic life in this community. After a summer season, much of it likely and logically spent away from contention and among family and like-minded friends, this passage brings us back to an essential component of life among the more common diversity of Creation, this year made all the more contentious by the quadrennial cycle of presidential politics. That final sentence in the reading from Matthew today points to a reality that calls us away from the extremes and back to the central focus of our God and of the gospel. For what this single sentence establishes is that quite contrary to our most cherished notions, Jesus will not pander to our selfish extremes. Neither is he cowed by our conflicts; the cross is ample testimony to his courage and willingness to step into the worst we can devise. Jesus is present in the midst. Jesus is present in the differences. Jesus is present in the sparks, in the friction. And if we consider again the many times where the person of Jesus and the power of God are likened to light and fire, alternately blinding and illuminating, refining and warming, we more clearly comprehend that presence of Jesus in the midst.

Discipleship, then, leads us into the midst. We’re called not to some unnatural peace, but into the fullness of life. Discipleship consists not so much in the establishment of peace as in the exercise of dialogue. Our ministry as mediators and reconcilers doesn’t consist in smoothing out the rough places or in eliminating the controversies. It doesn’t mean that we seek a place of rest or even the union of common creed; our ministry is pilgrimage and conversation.

Such discipleship is hard. It’s laborious, and it’s dangerous. Standing in the midst of the people of God means standing in the midst of liberals and conservatives, in the midst of women and men, in the midst of children and the aged, in the midst of gays and straights, in the midst of whites and blacks and the entire spectrum of human pigmentation, ethnicity, religion and politics. Discipleship calls us to the differences. And there, in the midst of them, we meet Jesus—just where he said he would be. AMEN.

Reconciliation

by The Rev. Bruce Hall, Deacon

You cannot remain long in an Episcopal church before hearing the terms “lex orandi, lex credendi” to convey the understanding that how we worship and pray (lex orandi) reflects what we believe (lex credendi). This is taught in our adult education classes, to our youth, and, it is rumored, to our clergy from time to time. Most books and pamphlets written for those inquiring about the Episcopal Church make sure to place this pedagogical summary early on, as if to reassure the reader that despite the bowing, kneeling, crossing, and mincing that may be going on in the pews around them, Anglicanism can be fun and easy to learn. It's comforting, too, to discover that beneath all the beauty that is the liturgy, and through the veils of incense, this denomination may also believe in the better known slogan, “practice what you preach.”

Today, we in the Anglican Communion are being called to do just that while in the midst of a very public family argument over what it means to be truly Anglican. Many are asking, “How can we remain a communion when, as a community, we believe different things and disagree not only on matters of church polity and process, but also on more central questions of faith and scripture?” If you ask me, that’s an excellent question and the answer will be found not so much in the content of the answer, but in the process by which the church constructs her response.

There are any number of answers to be had for our taking:

  1. Wait and see (not likely, in my opinion)
  2. You go your way, we’ll go ours
  3. Missions, within provinces, within dioceses
  4. Let’s fight over property and then be rid of one another
  5. Change denominations
  6. Something yet to be determined

Whatever form change assumes in what is only one of the most recent changes in the Church’s 2,000 year history of change and what may be most important is the way in which we make our choices and less the choices themselves. It can be that the way we say good-bye and bid one another peace could be the deepest expression of what we truly believe — that we should love each other. Or, if the communion is able to remain more-or-less intact, how was this done? If it was completed through genuine dialogue (a word so overused and disrespected it stands in danger of being meaningless) and sincere compassion, then whatever the particulars of the compromise, what will be most indicative of who we are as a people, is how we came to our shared agreements. Or to put it crassly, “How We Argue, is How We Believe.”

Today’s gospel provides us a model for how to be reconciled not only within the communion but to one another within our congregations. In what has been called “the ecclesiastical gospel” for its teaching on church discipline, we hear of a process by which members of the church, or “brothers” who are at odds with one another might be reconciled. First, we are to go to each other as brothers, one-on-one, in private, and if that doesn’t work to bring a few friends, and so on. While this seems a tidy process, I don’t think Christ intended it as a “how-to manual” for solving disputes, but rather a great call for us to be reconciled to one another even in the face of our conflicts and disagreements. The passage that follows in Matthew reminds us to forgive someone not just 70 times, but 70-times-7. Mind you, I think speaking privately at first with a person with whom you’re having some sort of difficulty is a very good idea for all kinds of reasons. But if all you get from today’s Gospel is just another rule to add to a list of “Things I Must Do to be a Good Christian” then you’re missing the larger point here about loving your neighbor. In fact, if you insist on reducing this powerful teaching to a mere addendum the commandments of “Do’s & Don’ts” of your modern Decalogue, you might as well get busy slaughtering baby sheep and smearing blood around your front doors for all the good it's likely to do you. And that IS the point; we are not being given a rule but A WAY TO RELATE with one another, among all our differences, within our unavoidable humanness that is forever dependent on God to enable us to live with and love each other. Thankfully, Jesus does not qualify when he will be with us as in, “when two or there are organizing coffee hour or Rally Day, I will be with you,” or, “when two or three are praying for healing, I will be with you.” How might our sense of community be altered had Christ been more specific and mentioned that “When two or three of you complain about another, I will be with you?” When we come together, even in our gossip and sniping, Christ is present calling us to live the Gospel. It is His presence in the mist of our conflicts, arguments, and committee meetings that calls us to a life of charity and offers the means -- the only means --  to attain it.

In life, and in congregations, you will be hurt by others; this is an inevitable consequence of our human nature. The fact that you have been hurt by others is not unique or exceptional. I’m reminded of a time when I and the man I was dating contemplated a particular ride at the local water park. Owing perhaps to the litigious society we had become, patrons were duly warned: “You WILL Get Wet. You MAY get DRENCHED.” There was no getting around it, if we got on, we were going to come out wetter than we began. To join with others, either in a congregation, dating, marriage, or simply enjoying the Roaring Rapids on a summer evening, we open ourselves to relationships in order to connect more deeply with others knowing as we do so that we may be hurt along the way as can our friends, fellow parishioners, spouses, and playmates by OUR actions, OUR words, or OUR neglect. To enter into the intimacy of human relationships creates the glorious prospect for the wonders of knowing others more profoundly and genuinely and, at the same time, creates the equal potential for suffering, injury, and loss. This is the human condition and it is through love that we find both the purpose of intimacy as well as the means of healing within our relationships.

It is through this love, Paul tells us, that the Law is fulfilled, not by the slavish attention to the rubrics of the law but when we choose to come to one another personally to confront the hurt we believe has been done to us that we can begin to see the deeper meaning of reconciliation. This is often a hard thing to do. It would be easier to simply complain to another, avoid or deny the conflict, and to leave the sentiment of Christ’s words divorced from action. But in those moments when we enter into the vulnerability that accompanies honestly exploring damaged relationships, we encounter each other as human and imperfect, brother and sister, as the family of God.

And it is by such an example that the world can learn the meaning of reconciliation and peace. Recall that today’s gospel echoes last week’s when it invests not only to Peter, but to the corporate community of Christ, the authority to bind and loose and petition God. Of all the things that need to be loosed upon the earth, reconciliation and peace surely are among them. But the truth of the Gospel and our common heritage as God’s children will not be conveyed in the end by sermons such as this but by the incarnation of Christ’s teaching in the lives of those who believe in Him. People are less interested in what we preach than it what our actions tell them about our true convictions. The world is watching attentively to see if we live out the Gospel. Not only to see if we “practice what we preach” but because the world is hungry for its salvation just as the early disciples where hungry for the words of Christ. Today the world looks to us to live the gospel not only in our common ministries but in our conflicts as well.

The world is looking for a way out of war and darkness, and we, you and I, are called to point the way.