Westwood Presbyterian Church

January 20th, 2008

197 Browning  Boulevard, Winnipeg, Manitoba  R3K 0L1

REV. PETER BUSH's SERMONS

Matthew 18: 10-20

 

     You may have heard of the two Christians who were stranded on a desert island. Within two months they had formed three churches.

     Conflict is going to happen within the life of any group of people, and it is going to happen in the church as well. Conflict is inevitable. And in fact at times conflict can be a good and healthy thing. Conflicts help us define what is important and what is not, we are challenged to be clear about what we are about – what matters – who we are. Conflicts also stretch us to see things in new ways, to try new things, to walk in someone else’s shoes for a while. So conflict is not something that we should avoid. But conflict can become unhealthy – destructive – and it is thinking about how to deal with unhealthy conflict that we turn to this morning.

 

     One of the first signs that a conflict has become unhealthy – even destructive – is people stop caring about the people they are in conflict with. We know that a conflict has reached a point where it is unhealthy when we would be just as glad to not see the person we are in conflict with. We have all had this experience – thinking “I really don’t want to go to such and such a place because if I do go there I will meet the person who I am in conflict with and I don’t want to do that.” Or maybe we have this experience – we are in the mall, and we see someone we are on conflict with walking ahead of us – they have not seen us – so we duck into a store to make sure that we will not have to interact with them.

     Jesus will not let us do that. Jesus will not let us sit back and not deal with the conflict. That is what his parable of the shepherd and the lost sheep in Matthew is saying. Remember that this whole chapter is about life in the church, so while Jesus is the good shepherd who seeks the lost – sinners – people outside the church and bring them in. In this context Jesus is talking about lost sheep in the church – people who are already part of the body of Christ but who are lost. Lost to us – lost from relationship with us – lost in that we do not have connection with them – lost in that their life within the church is not complete.

     And Jesus tells of this absolutely crazy shepherd. This shepherd has 100 sheep – and one of them gets lost. And so the shepherd leaves the 99 and goes to find the 1 that is lost. The shepherd is willing to risk losing the 99 to find the one. The shepherd is willing to risk life and limb – and his reputation as being sane – to find the one sheep that is lost. The shepherd goes – the shepherd acts.

     When we are in conflict with someone in the church, Jesus is calling us to go to them and find ways to bring the relationship back into wholeness. And this cuts to the second sign that a conflict has become unhealthy. We know a conflict has reached unhealthy stage when our attitude is, “I am perfectly willing to reconcile – once they make the first move towards healing.” Or more bluntly, “I am perfectly willing to forgive them, once they ask for forgiveness.” Again the attitude is one of sitting back and waiting – Jesus says, “Go, make the first move.” Even though we may lose face, even though we may be regarded as weak and a push over – Jesus says, “Always be ready to go – to seek healing for the lost relationship.”

     As we will see, the commitment to making the first move, to being the one who goes is not for the faint hearted. It is in fact the road that requires more guts.

 

     Jesus gives us a pattern for renewing broken relationships within the church.

     We wish Jesus had laid out a process that looks something like this:

If we feel we have been wronged by someone, we are supposed to complain about it for weeks with our friends, who will tell us how wonderful we am and how terrible it is that we have been done this wrong – and that way the person who has wronged us will hear via the back door how upset we are and will come to us and say, “I am so sorry, I am wrong, you are right.” And we will be completely vindicated.   

     Now we know that is not how things usually work out. The first part is close – until we get to the part where the person who has wronged us is so convicted by hearing the gossip being spread about them. And at that point they usually start to tell their friends about what happened and how we have wronged them by spreading rumours and innuendo and misrepresenting what happened. And now what was a little brush fire is a flaming inferno of charge and counter-charge and rumour and counter-rumour – and things are out of control.

 

     Jesus lays out a very different pattern. He says, “If someone in the church wrongs you, go to them and talk about it.” We need to hear just how simple that is. Now I didn’t say it wasn’t scary – we will come to that – I want us to think about the simplicity of this action for a moment. I am hurt by someone’s action or words – I go to them directly, not after having complained to friends and neighbours, I go and say, “I was hurt by what you said or did. And I haven’t talked to anyone else about this because as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ I think we can work this out.” No fancy flow chart – no elaborate grievance process – filing of incidence reports – rather two people in Jesus Christ talking about how they are going to be the people of God together. This is radical.

     The radical nature of what is in view is why it is so scary. It is safer to complain, it is safer to hope that someone will carry our complaint to the ears we want to have hear our concern – but following the safe route means that the relationship never has an opportunity to grow. Never is there a chance for the joy of reconciliation and healing that can be the result of face to face interaction.

     This first step does two other things – first it kills gossip and innuendo. Someone comes to us to complain about what someone else in the church has done, our immediate response is, “Have you talked directly to the person who has hurt you?” If the answer is “no”, then we need to say, “Go talk to them.” That kills gossip.

     The second is that since I need to go directly to the person who has hurt me; it is going to make me more willing to simply ignore minor irritants. It would have to be something fairly important for me to go to someone directly and say, “We need to talk.” This builds patience and the acceptance of the minor things that are often the subject of our complaints.

 

     Jesus is not naïve. He knows that there will be situations where people within the church are acting in ways that hurt others and they don’t seem to care – who through their actions, words, and lifestyles are causing damage to others and to the church. And Jesus calls the church to be serious about this.

     That is why the pattern of dealing with conflict in the church does not end with step one. If step one – going directly to the person who has wronged us does not lead to reconciliation – then we are to take two or three other people with us and go visit the person who has wronged us. Again Jesus is very wise. This is a small group, it is not a wide conversation involving many people. Such a group will also be able to act as both mediators and witnesses to what happens.

     Often in stressful situations we are unaware of how we are acting, how our words may be interpreted in more than one way. And we are often so focused on what we are trying to say that we are not aware of how the other person is responding. Therefore having other eyes and ears is useful.

     Notice as well that if we are the wronged party we have to make a decision: Is this matter so important that it is something that I believe I need to have two or three wise people from the church come and help me with? Is this worth taking to the level of asking them to give their time to? It may well be that it is worth their time and effort, but the question is at least being asked.

 

     If the visit by three or four does not lead to reconciliation then the group that visited needs to meet and decide if this matter is worth taking to the church – worth removing the offending party from leadership in the church and from receiving the sacraments. Because that is what is now at stake in the third step in the process.

     Let’s be clear, excommunication is not banning someone from worship services. Worship services are public events to which everyone – even the excommunicated are welcome to attend. The Word is preached to all regardless of how open or closed they are to hearing the Word. Excommunication is about participation in communion – about making vows to God before people. In taking communion we are saying that we submit to God’s guidance in our lives, in accepting leadership roles in the church we are saying that we will be subject to God’s will, in bringing our children to be baptized we are saying that we will live lives following God. And the church is the body of Christ in the world, the place where we hear God’s Word, where we meet the people of God, and my lack of willingness to live by the patterns of the church indicates that I am not willing to live by the patterns God desires for people.

     This is not a claim that the church is always right, it is not, it is a claim that the church is the body of Christ and anything or anyone who damages the body and is unwilling to change their pattern of life needs to be confronted and called to a different pattern.

     So what things might be so significant as to cause a church to excommunicate someone?

A church leader who physically and emotionally abused their spouse, and refused to hear the call to change their pattern of life should be excommunicated.

A church member whose destructive gossip creates feuds between members and discloses personal information which causes embarrassment, and who is unwilling to change how they speak, should be refused having their child baptized since they will be making promises they have no intention of keeping.

A Sunday school teacher who teaches that Jesus was a good teacher who said cool things, but that He was not the Son of God, and that he did not rise from the dead, and who is unwilling to change what they say to students, should be removed from teaching and from participating in communion until they are willing to recognize the meaning of the bread and cup.

 

     I realize that this sounds harsh, unloving, and maybe even unchristian. But I would argue the opposite – loving parents exercise discipline over their children; a loving God disciplines us, the people of God; and a loving church calls us to live in ways that are good for us and for the community. It is not loving to say, “Oh it does not matter what you do, so we won’t try and stop you from following a path that will destroy your life.” The church that exercises discipline is in fact the truly loving church.

 

     The church that exercises discipline is driven by one goal – the thing that is Jesus’ goal in laying out this pattern – reconciliation and healing. The text ends by saying that to the church has been given the power to bind and to loose – the church has been given the role of being agents of reconciliation and healing – to be the people who live out this pattern of healing in the world – this pattern of reconciliation – to declare the renewal of broken relationships.

     As the people in the world who are called to bind up the broken relationships, to loose people who are caught in shame and guilt and destructive patterns of life we are called to take that healing good news – to go as the people of God seeking the lost and bringing them into renewed and healed relationships with us, the church and with God. Jesus’ promise is that where two or three of us gather Jesus is with us – the Jesus who came to bring reconciliation and healing.