If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 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. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.
(Matthew 18:15-20)
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It was in some ways an innocent comment made as a post in a Facebook group that I belong to for ministers. The subject under discussion was the concept of the church as a family. That's an image that happens to be very important to me. I think it says something about both our relationship with God and our relationship with each other; I think it gives us some guiding principles about how to live our lives of faith together as a community. It also helps to explain both the strengths and weaknesses of the church as a whole and of individual churches, because - let's face it - just as families can be healthy or unhealthy, functional or dysfunctional, so can churches be all of those things. "Family" then, I believe, is an important image for the church. So I was a bit troubled by some of the comments that were being made in that online discussion. One person - whom I know a little bit - said that we have to be very careful with the image of the church as a family because we have to remember that the family connection in the church isn't by blood. But do families have to be blood relatives? As an adoptive parent, I'd obviously have to say "no" to that one. Families are much more than just the people you're related to by blood and genetics. But it was someone else's comment that bothered me the most. It was from a person I went to theological college with years ago but haven't seen since I graduated in 1994. She said flat out, with no hesitation, that "we are not a family." And when I read those words I thought - "that must create a warm and happy and caring environment, when the minister states flat out to the congregation that 'we are not a family.'" I found that comment very sad, and it caused me to do a lot of reflection upon the image of the church as a family and why that image is important. Because - to me - it's absolutely vital. I say that we are, indeed, a family.
Our passage from Matthew this morning doesn't specifically use the language of family to speak about the church, but it does speak about the relationships we have within the church and how those relationships should be lived out. And, to me anyway, our relationships within this community are always conducted within the context of a Christian family. Families are complex things. Some are closer than others, and within families some family members are closer than other family members. Within families, there's a sense of connection and belonging - sometimes whether you like it or not! Remember the old saying: you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family. Our families give us the basis for how we identify ourselves. Within families there's usually a lot of love - and the reality of that means that there can also be a lot of flareups, and I've known family fights that have turned into very long-lasting and unpleasant situations because when we feel let down by the poeple we also feel we should be closest to, it's difficult to let go of. Church fights are a lot like that as well. Church fights can easily get out of hand - I've seen that happen - because we know what this community is supposed to be all about. We know that we're supposed to love each other and serve each other and support each other and encourage each other. And usually we do a pretty good job of doing that - but when we fail to do it (when we choose instead to judge or to criticize or to attack; or when we unintentionally hurt someone by a thoughtless word or a careless act or an inadvertent slight) then the community - the church family - is battered and bruised. And the unfortunate reality is that even though this is the church and even though we're followers of Jesus every now and then we do slip up and we do say or do things we shouldn't do or we do forget to do something that we should do, and the hurt that gets caused can be devastating, and it can take a long time to heal - if it ever really heals. And we all have the potential to be a part of the problem. As Eric Barretto (a New Testament scholar) wrote,
We are rather expert at spotting those rabble rousers around us, identifying their destructive habits, and condemning the ways they seek to destablilize our communities. Noticing when we are engaged in these very same behaviours is another story. After all, some of those troublesome people are us.
But if we do have the potential to be part of the problem, then we also have to remember that we all have the potential to be part of the solution when a problem arises. When things happen that are destructive of the community and that have the potential to pull people apart, that's when it's most important for us to think like a family and to start to pull together as a community and to find a way out. I believe that's what this passage from Matthew's Gospel is telling us to do.
Was Jesus intending to give his disciples a step by step manual for conflict resolution? I don't think so. What I do think Jesus was trying to do was instill in his disciples' hearts the importance of the church being a true community among and between very diverse people who - in spite of their differences - could all agree that they were bound together by their faith as children of God, and therefore as family to one another. Jesus, I suspect, expected that there would be differences and divisions and even conflicts within this family he had called into being. Jesus said, "truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven." Most people take those words out of context. They don't take the time to consider the setting into which Jesus spoke them. They come in the context of how to deal with divisions among believers. If you read those words in that context, it's actually a rather sobering verse. In that context, it sounds less like Jesus saying with authority, "... if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven." Instead, it sounds like Jesus wistfully saying, "... if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven." Do you see the difference that the emphasis makes? The way I've come to read this passage, it's actually Jesus lamenting that it was going to be hard for his band of disciples (whether the 12 he had at that moment, or the billions he's had since, including us) to find even two who could be in complete agreement on anything - which is kind of sad when you think about it.But I suspect it's true. It's both a strength and a weakness of the Christian faith. It makes Christianity more approachable for some people because it gives them the freedom to explore and think and pray and come to their own conclusions about many things. But it also means that we then have to live in relationship with those with whom we disagree, and it's easy for our positions to become entrenched and we can become far too convinced that we're right and that everybody else better shape up or ship out, so to speak.
The point of this passage seems clear, and it isn't the specific step by step details it lays out that matter - that's being far too literalistic. What Jesus is telling us is that we need to work together as a community to ensure the health and well being of the community. Problems need to be dealt with, disagreements need to be acknowledged, concerns need to be shared and conflicts need to be addressed. As children of God - all of us a part of the family of God - we're called by Jesus to work together to keep the family healthy. It's love that requires that we address the challenges that sometimes arise within the family unit. It's not enough to sweep them under the rug and pretend that they're not there. That just allows the pressure to build and eventually blow up, and that makes even a Christian community unable to function as God calls us to. The first Sunday after Labour Day is often looked upon as a kind of unoffical start to the church year. Events start to appear on the calendar, committees start to meet, groups come back to life. A lot happens in September, and a lot's going to continue to happen in the months to come, and, as in all families, when things get busy from time to time we're going to have disagreements, and we need to remember to take Jesus' advice and to work together as a community to resolve any differences or disagreements when they arise without making anyone in the community feel as if they're unimportant or not being heard.
I was taken with the words of Rev. Quinn Caldwell that I included as food for thought in our bulletin today:
There are problems in this world that a body cannot handle alone. There are situations that cannot be saved by a single person. There are currents you can never swim your own way out of. Which is why ... God gave us the church, the place where we link ourselves up, make our bodies into the Body, and perform miracles that none of us could perform alone.
The church has important things to do. In fact, there are things that need to be done in this world that won't be done if the church doesn't do them. And in order for us to be about God's work in the world, we need to be able to function as the best of what a family should be - in a relationship of love and caring and support that makes each one of us bring out the best in all of us. Simply because we are a family - the family of God!
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