Living together as sinners
A Sermon for Trinity 12.
Let me start with a little quiz. It’s very easy, simply try and tell whether
these statements are true or false.
1.
Christianity is about following the teaching of
Jesus.
2.
Christianity is based on God’s love for us, seen
in Jesus, overflowing into how we treat other people.
3.
For the whole history of Christianity,
Christians have never disagreed with one another.
I’m glad you laughed!
Christians do, in fact, disagree. They have done since the very beginning of
the Church. The first major disagreement
comes at the beginning of the sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles,
although there are lies creeping already at the beginning of the fifth
chapter. And of course, there are many
stories in the Gospels of the 12 disciples, the pillars of the church,
disagreeing with one another (normally about who will get to sit in the best
seats once the Kingdom of God comes!).
Our Gospel reading this morning takes it for granted that
Christians will disagree, and even takes it for granted that Christians will
hurt and sin against each other. It has
happened, it does happen and it will happen.
The Gospel is for sinners, it’s hardly a surprise when we sin. But what happens next? Jesus teaches us in the Gospel this morning
that what happens next is what is really important. We should not be surprised when we sin or are
sinned against. What is of Gospel
importance is how we react to this.
And how do we react to this?
How are we to deal with our differences with our fellow Christians, and
the hurts and sins that we inflict upon each other. The first thing that Jesus tells us to do is
to go and tell the person who hurt us that that is what they have done. Talk face to face. There is no rocket science in this. We need to speak to one another.
That’s not as simple as it sounds, however. It takes courage to face someone that has
hurt you. It takes honesty to admit that
you have been hurt. We have to admit to
the way in which things aren’t perfect, to admit that we have differences, to
admit that we hurt one another. There’s
no political spin on making the church look perfect. Rather we deal with its imperfections. And it is done in private, at least at
first. It is not something that we do by
telling everyone what a brave and honest person we are; nor do we look for
safety in numbers. Rather quietly, and
privately, we seek out the person who has hurt us and we tell them what they
have done.
Can you imagine the difference it would make if Christians
actually behaved like this?
There would be less of an attempt to make the church appear
to be a place of uniformity and niceness.
Rather, the church would be a place where hard truths were confronted
and dealt with; and where people could grow as people, and in respect for those
with whom they differed. The Gospel does
not give us the recipe for an easy life.
Rather it gives us the path to take for a life that is real, truthful
and life-giving. It’s a hard path, but
it is the way to life.
The passage goes on and leads to listening, speaking in a
larger group and finally, if the other refuses to stop sinning against you, to
a form of excommunication. It could
sound like a legalistic path for entrenching Christian disagreement and
hurt. But this is not the path of
legalistic enforcement of an arbitrary discipline. But put yourself within this series of
events. You have been hurt, sinned
against. You go to see the other and tell them what they have done. That is not the end. Because you have chosen to speak honestly and
privately with them, they have the chance to apologise, to explain what they
meant, and to tell you how you hurt them.
As the conversation goes on, there is the chance to involve others so
that more of the Christian community can support and help you both. The final sanction only comes with a refusal
to listen to the whole church. That kind
of unanimity is rare, I suspect we all know.
But even if the whole community does agree to discipline the offender,
Jesus tells is that we need to treat such a person as “a Gentile and a tax
collector”. And we don’t need to read too
far into the Gospels to see Jesus healing Gentiles, eating with tax collectors
and describing both as close to the kingdom of God! Immediately prior to this passage comes the
parable of the Lost Sheep. This is not about throwing people out, it is about
how hard we work to keep them in!
This is not a new legal system for Christians. It is a reminder that we are to be truthful,
honest, brave and clear sighted in our dealings with one another. It is when we gather together that Jesus is
present amongst us. That is so when we
gather for worship. It is also so as we
meet in other ways, and perhaps especially when we have these difficult but
honest and courageous conversations about how we hurt one another. Our worship and the quality of life we have
together are very closely linked. In a
few moments, we will share the peace together.
That whole part of our service comes from the Sermon on the Mount, where
Jesus tells his disciples that “when you are offering your gift at the altar,
if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave
your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or
sister and then come and offer your gift” (Matt. 5.23-24). As we share the peace, the most important
people to greet are not those who we like, our friends and the easy
people. If we are to be true to Jesus’
commands, we should most of all be greeting the people we find difficult, and
the people who find us difficult.
The Christian life is not the path of least resistance. But it is a difficult and hard path of
honesty and truthfulness with one another.
And in there, we will find Jesus is with us. Those who devote their
lives to living in Christian community as monks and nuns have much to teach
us. The earliest Christian teacher who
lived as a monk was St Anthony the Great.
He said that, “Our life and our death is with our neighbour. If we win our brother, we win God. If we cause our brother to stumble, we have
sinned against Christ”. We win our
brothers and sisters by keeping our neighbours before us, and by doing all we
can to help them see God. The Christian
life is not one in which we seek to win, beating those around us, being proved
right or in which we are shown to have been the victim. The Christian life is one in which we travel
with our brothers and sisters, with all the hurt and difficulties that brings. We come to life only with our fellow
travellers. We win them, by remaining with them in the presence of God. We win them by not allowing them to carry
with them what hurts us and is an occasion of sin. They win us in precisely the same way – by
showing us what we do that hurts others and is an occasion of our sin.
I want to end with a story from the desert monks of the 4th
Century. This is a story of Abba Moses
(father Moses): “There was a brother at
Scetis who had committed a fault. So
they called a meeting and invited Abba Moses. He refused to go. The priest send
someone to say to him, ‘They’re all waiting for you.’ So Moses got up and set off; he took a leaky
jug and filled it with water and took it with him. The others came out to meet
him and said, ‘What is this Father?’ The old man said to them, ‘My sins run out
behind me and I cannot see them, yet here I cam coming to sit in judgment on
the mistakes of someone else.’ When they
heard this, they called off the meeting.”
We are a community of sinners. We gather together this morning to worship God
and to share together in the life of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. He is present as we gather, as we are honest
about our own nature as sinners, as we seek to win one another for Christ, and
as together we seek to walk the difficult way of living truthfully as brothers
and sisters in Christ. Amen.
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