Matthew 18:15-20
Proper 18 (23) - Year A
It is difficult to keep paying attention. Catching a glimpse of the dangers inside the community is particularly difficult. We huddle in individual households, we talk behind one another's backs, we let one another go so easily. Whether we talk first of forgiveness or freedom, we don't easily come to these until injury and slavery are well inflicted and institutionalized. May we be blessed with catching our distancing of one another early and persist in steadfast actions that acknowledge the presence of GOD, that catalyze freedom and forgiveness.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2005/08/september-4-2005-year-pentecost-16.html
It is not the desire of GOD that any be lost. So says 18:14. That is sometimes so much easier to hear in regard to "unbelievers" (of course that means, not believing in what I believe in, not that others don't believe). So we are intentional and manipulative in missionary work to get folks to believe as we do.
Let's believe for a moment that we have been successful in our strategies and implementations to have uniformity of belief.
We quickly learn that unbelief is not a solution to the human condition. What are we going to do when one of our very own believers “sins” against another believer? Well, first, recognize that believers are not equally humble and willing to admit that their belief might not cover their behavior - check out any addictive facility that deals with clergy and other religious and ask whether belief is a support for addiction. Response, Yep.
Second, we need to recognize a need that goes beyond uniformity of belief to that of uniformity of behavior (mine, of course, being the standard). In some sense it takes two to sin. Just as there is a question about the sound of trees falling in the forest, so we need to ask how we know we have been sinned against. (No, I am not interested in justifying or excusing behavior, but to be aware of my own sensitivity to be sinned against - some have their sense of being sinned against set on high.)
Third, whether or not reintegration into the community is effected in our time frame of acceptable return, we still affirm that it is not the desire of GOD that any be lost.
Beyond our intentions against another or the receiving of behaviors against us, beyond our being processed into or out of community, we find that there is no magic technique that has more strength than a basic understanding that it is not the desire of GOD that any be lost.
If this is our desire as GOD's partner as well, then we keep working on ourselves and with others to make those very practical decisions that go beyond belief and behavior to finding that spot where so many have found life - seeing the nature and the identify of GOD as love.
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=12885898&postID=112526142588130069
It sounds so simple, so straight-forward and fair, this process of judiciously proceeding in matters of conflict. It is seldom seen to work as easily as described because of all sorts of pressures on complainant and defendant. We do need more assistance from JustPeace and other intentional restorative justice and conflict resolution processes.
This vignette brings all manner of real life difficulties. Two days ago my role as symbol of the church was railed against by someone whom I had not met before and the police eventually had to take away for evaluation. Among the complaints of how the church had forced them to be damned was the locking of our doors when there was no regular business going on. They also had their finger on the greed that will be the downfall of this and every system and how the church had abandoned the poor. These accusations of having been sinned against are accurate, no matter the source or the number of witnesses.
So often we read this passage as though we were the good guy who had been sinned against, have rallied a couple of witnesses of our righteousness, and had the power to stay while they were exiled. But this outline of a process takes on a whole new meaning when we consider that we are the ones doing the sinning. Just how willing are we to change our ways when confronted by our complicity in injustice? No wonder we don't even hear the cry of tens and hundreds of thousands of witnesses against our sin. We would loose our place.
These words from an introduction to John Wesley's sermon 87, "On the Danger of Riches", comes at this from another, but, related, angle to describe a breakdown in this "scriptural process":
"Many, if not most, of the newly rich Methodists were stubbornly, though quietly, unconvinced that their affluence, in and of itself, was a fatal inlet to sin. Thus it was that they simply ignored Wesley's insistence that they part with all but their 'necessaries and conveniences'. Moreover, their views had lately been fortified by the immense influence of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations(1776). this turn of events was, for Wesley, both perplexing and frustrating.
"Something of this mood is suggested by the fact that the very first 'original sermon' published in theArminian Magazine is this one [On The Dangers of Riches]. It had been written in the late autumn of 1780 and appeared in the January and February installments of Vo. IV (1781) without a title. That was subsequently added when he included it in his "Sermons on Several Occasions", VII. On April 16, 1783, in Dublin, he preached from the same text. In 1788, he wrote and published yet another sermon, 'On Riches'. Then, in the very last year of his life, he wrote out yet another anguished warning on, 'The Danger of Increasing Riches'. If this trio of 'late sermons' is added to 'Sermon on the Mount: VIII'; 'The Use of Money'; and 'The Good Steward'; and if these are then placed alongside the other frequent blasts against riches in other sermons and other writings, an interesting generalization suggests itself: surplus accumulation leads Wesley's inventory of sins of praxis. It was, in his eyes, an offense before God and man, an urgent and dire peril to any Christian's profession and hope of salvation. This is in clear contrast to the notion, proffered by the Puritans, but approved by others, that honestly earned wealth is a sign and measure of divine favor. What is interesting is that Wesley's economic radicalism on this point has been ignored, not only by most Methodists, but by the economic historians as well."
Separation from the experience of life of the poor leads to complaints aplenty against one more tax cut or other "benefit" to widen the gap of what "common good" means. Now it is the one with the witnesses who is sent, bound, away. We are in the midst of community mourning, not for wind and water, but for sin revealed and unconfessed.
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=12885898&postID=112526142588130069
What time is it? Time to not let sin continue unchallenged.
A part of this is to remember the gift of blessing that came first so that we might sing a new song to one another and not just bring suit against one another, no matter how many witnesses we are able to round up.
There is more than enough to be divided up among us. To continue acting as though G*D and a religious impetus is a zero-sum game is false to the strongest and most steadfast tenet we have - wholeness / love.
So what will we bind on earth (another to our way of thinking) and what will we loose (a new song that is an old song - honor)?
= = = = = = =
my lamb is served with mint jelly
your lamb is tofu with mint leaves
both may be apportioned
according to the number present
both lambs are without blemish
in themselves or in our eyes
both remind us of the fragility
of life and death and beyond
both prepare us for a new journey
we will remember until the next
so we call out to one another
owe nothing but love
the lambs are gone into a good night
and awaken in honor fulfilled
of the flesh we are born and grow
with such flesh we travel together
for life takes pleasure in life
and adorns the humble with honor
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007/09/pentecost-15-sunday.html
If another member of the church sins against you – work it out by outnumbering them and putting them in a bad PR position. Where you are working this plan your "two or three greater than that one" will have Jesus among you.
Consider for a moment those times when it isn't a member of the church sinning against you, but the whole of the church. What then?
This is the position many find themselves in on one identity issue after another. First it was the Jerusalem part of the church against gentiles. All too quickly it began focusing on gender and social position (slavery) and race and currently includes sexual orientation.
In this instance the only part of this Ann Landers / Miss Manners advice that holds up is the identity part of it – let your "yes" be "yes".
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008/09/matthew-1815-20.html
If another member of a deeper than casual relationship who could turn you in to the authorities for being a member of a subversive group (and what is a church if not subversive?), should not treat you as they would want to be treated (its all too easy to eternalize and external and call it sin when against you and well-intentioned misunderstanding when you behave the same way) it would be wise to find a way to deal with that before betrayal gets added to the mix.
Of course this presumes that a magic spirit can be organized to resolve conflicts and if it cannot that the course of action left is to dismiss them with prejudice (note how “majority rules” works here). In this case it is understood that both would have a strike against them if they now went to the authorities, so casting out a minority is a recommended way to go.
Question: Does this process work in such conflictual settings as the politics of today’s church that models all too closely public institutions (versus being in tension with said institutions as the earliest church was)?
Question: Does this process ultimately bind or loose what might be meant by a “kingdom of heaven” coming to earth?
Question: Is leaving us as the deciders of binding and loosening, an action of a binding or a loosening by G*D?
Where two are company and three are a crowd and the inherent tensions of both can flare up at any time over any issue, it is comforting to know that whatever this heaven to earth business might be about is already underway. So gather together for an opening - practice being ready for it and jumping before it is fully present.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/08/matthew-1815-20.html
Thank goodness these instructions are in the context of finding a lost sheep. They put us in the position of a privileged shepherd, right in being affronted by another loser (uh, lost one). The obvious work to be done is to get them to acknowledge the hurt I have received and make it good. I need my boo-boo kissed.
So a logical way of doing this is to start by providing the least embarrassing option of a personal apology. However, the odds are that if I am feeling the need to straighten out their behavior I would like a little more than a private conversation. I have already escalated this to having talked with my friends and gotten their agreement that I am the aggrieved party.
So we are already on our way to a separation. By the time I can muster saying, “You hurt me.” The possibility of a lesser encounter is long past. I am no longer able to start with a clarification of what I took to be an injury or to say, “I felt hurt when....”
So it is that our experience of being discounted (whether we were or not) gets tied up with universals and eternals and I am ready to bind another, forever, if they have any different picture than I do about their fault I am lovingly pointing out to them for their betterment.
We are here well past the beginning humility of this chapter, causing another to stumble. We are all too ready to say, “Yes, I messed up a little with that kid, but you messed up big time with me!”
What do you think was in the mind of the lection committee when they stopped at verse 20 and didn’t go on to Peter and forgiveness in multiples of 70? It would seem we are more intent on another’s confession than our own affirmation or practice of premeditated mercy.