Matthew 18:15-20

“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.”

In my next life I hope to be a great novelist. I don’t even have to be a great one…I’d just love to be able to hold a book in my own hands that I wrote—an original story that makes some positive impression and impact on the larger society. I would like to write a story about reconciliation—a heartwarming tale of two individuals at odds—bitter enemies, perhaps—who come to a great reckoning whereby both people grow, change, and recognize that the other person is deserving of love and respect. It would not be a story of one person winning at the expense of the other. It would not be a story of tolerance—as though the best we can hope for in our world is to plug our noses, close our eyes, and merely tolerate the presence of someone else. No, it would be a story that makes it clear there is something profoundly beautiful, right, and holy about overcoming division and developing an authentic love for one’s enemy. But, like I said, that’s for my next life. I’m simply not creative enough to write a story like that.

This my great confession to you today—a disclaimer, really, given the nature of today’s gospel lesson. I cannot think of anyone with whom I had a serious or consequential falling out and now enjoy a restored relationship. I’d forgive you for assuming this is because I’m such an easygoing and lighthearted person that I simply haven’t made any enemies. But, alas, that’s not the case. As I’ve made enemies and had my fair share of disagreements…but not much reconciliation has resulted. What I’m trying to say is, this is an incredibly difficult sermon for me to preach!

I feel like I don’t have a deep well of reconciliation stories to draw from. It’s not something that has been modeled for me throughout my life and it is certainly hard to find today. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not really virtues that are held up by American society. Prevailing over the enemy…pursuing one’s one happiness regardless of everyone else…those are honestly way more synchronous with American values than are reconciliation or forgiveness.

This is pervasive throughout our culture. Most popular books and movies can be boiled down to the same fundamental conflict between good and evil, with the good prevailing and the evil being destroyed. Throw in some outstanding special effects and some attractive people in the lead roles and you’re guaranteed to have a blockbuster on your hands.

I can’t think of many stories that prize reconciliation—stories where conflicting parties overcome very real animosity towards one another, learn to appreciate and respect one another, and accomplish something together that they could not on their own. The only one I’ve come up with so far is the movie, Remember the Titans about the desegregated football team that unites after initial race-related struggles. I’m sure there are other stories and I would love for you to remind me of them, but I think you’ll agree these stories are few and far between—hence the need for my great novel.

We have to be careful because there are a few people who tout themselves as examples of reconciliation, but it’s often a cheap veneer. One I became aware of during my visit to South Africa is Christo Brand. He was a young white jailer at Robben Island—the prison in South Africa that held Nelson Mandela for 18 of his 27 years of incarceration. Christo enjoyed a degree of notoriety following Mandela’s release because he told stories about how he and Mandela had become friends during Mandela’s incarceration. He even wrote a book called Mandela: My Prisoner, My Friend. He has made a comfortable living off the book and speaking engagements; and today through Airbnb you can pay for a private dinner at a fancy restaurant in Cape Town with Christo where he will regale you with stories of his friendship with Nelson Mandela. Though, interestingly, I’ve read Mandela’s autobiography and Christo Brand gets exactly one mention in the nearly 700-page tome. Far from being an example of extraordinary reconciliation, Christo Brand is simply a man who has never had to atone for his role in an unjust and immoral society and instead continues to profit off his role within the apartheid system even today. That is not the kind of reconciliation Jesus holds out as exemplary.

Jesus’ idea of reconciliation involves confrontation and conflict. It involves standing up for what is right and checking your idea of right and wrong with others in your faith community. Jesus’ idea of reconciliation involves the restoration of the entire community, which benefits everyone. Jesus’ idea of reconciliation is unwavering. Recall Jesus says, “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.” This is not permission to dismiss the offender or exclude him from the community. After all, how did Jesus treat Gentiles and tax collectors? He sought them out and never stopped inviting them into the restorative community.

The Christian message itself is one of reconciliation and restoration. For me to say that I do not have many examples of reconciliation in my life is an admission that I have not let Jesus guide me. Christ-followers are to build their entire lives upon the foundation of God’s character and God’s promises. God continually seeks us out, forgives us, invites us into a restorative relationship and community, and equips us to do the same toward others. I take no pride in telling you this morning that I find that terribly difficult to do. After all, what kind of leader would pride himself on breaking relationships and not seeking forgiveness from others or from God? But I hope that my admission will invite you to examine your own life in case you, like me, have strayed from the path of discipleship.

I don’t mean for this to be a downer of a sermon. After all, you are the few who bothered to show up on a holiday weekend so I don’t want to you walk away feeling like you didn’t hear the good news. So, hear the good news. God is characterized by grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation. God’s kingdom is characterized by grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation. And God’s people are meant to live lives characterized by grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation. That is our foundation and our destination. The fact that we see so little of this in these days is an indictment of our sin; but it is also an invitation to seek God’s help as we seek to rise above our selfish impulses and restore broken relationships. God can and will change our hearts, but only if we genuinely desire it.

I pray for you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, that your lives would be infused with stories and examples of reconciliation. I pray that our country would experience reconciliation in these divisive times—reconciliation built on truth and trust in God’s character of grace. I pray that our church would be a place of holy confrontation and accountability, so that when even two or three of us are gathered, God would be among us. And I pray that my life would end up being one great story of reconciliation.

Amen.

Mark 2:23–3:6

One sabbath [Jesus] was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” Then [Jesus] said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; 28 so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

The message for today is about humility; and for once, Jesus is not the hero of the story. In fact, he is the example of what not to do.

Today’s gospel story comes in two parts, both dealing with Jesus’s confrontation with other religious people around the topic of the Sabbath.

In act one, Jesus and his disciples are walking on a journey and glean some wheat from a field. As this all takes place on the day of Sabbath, anyone who witnesses their actions is right to point out that Jesus and the disciples are in the wrong. The Sabbath day is a day of rest commanded by God. Journeying from one place to another is something that should be done on the other 6 days of the week. If they absolutely had to embark on a journey on a Sabbath day, the very least they could have done was to pack their lunches the day before. That is simply part of what it means to observe the Sabbath.

But here they are breaking long-held religious instructions in plain view. When confronted by others, they do not apologize or offer an excuse. Instead, Jesus equates himself with David, who broke Sabbath in order to feed people bread. Then Jesus goes even further by declaring that he is the Lord of the Sabbath. The religious people find this utterly despicable.

If you haven’t picked up on what the big deal is, perhaps it would help to recall that the disciples were teenagers and Jesus was likely in his late-twenties, early-thirties. This is a conflict on many levels, including generational. These young kids burst onto the scene with no respect for religious traditions, customs, or rules; and then have the audacity to say not only are they not sorry, but they are making new rules.

And so, the scene is set for act 2, in which the Pharisees watch this arrogant rebellious Jesus enter the synagogue on the Sabbath and heal a man with a withered hand.

If you haven’t found this interesting, even with me having just called Jesus “arrogant,” then maybe you’ll find this next idea compelling.

Jesus is often made out to the be hero of these stories because he makes the claim that feeding and healing take priority over the religious barriers that would have otherwise prevented them from receiving help. But here’s the catch: this is something the Hebrew people believed already. This was not a new radical approach to Sabbath living.

Scholars cite traditional rabbinic sayings including:“Profane one Sabbath for a person’s sake, so that he may keep many Sabbaths.”*

To clarify, by healing the man on the Sabbath Jesus isn’t really even breaking Sabbath rules. Even if it was technically a violation of the Sabbath, there was a precedent for doing exactly what he did. The issue is not the Sabbath nor the responsibility of feeding or healing; rather this is all about a conflict of personality.

The Pharisees see Jesus as an arrogant usurper and a dangerous youth who would tear apart everything they hold dear. Jesus sees the Pharisees as heart-hardened guardians of a faith that keeps people at arm’s length from full restoration and participation in God’s kingdom.

These are two opposing forces that believe in mostly the same things. For all intents and purposes, they are on the same team, yet they are positioned as enemies. This might take some imagination on your part, but one could equate it with conflict within a team, or a family, or a church…which always seem to be the most painful conflicts, right?

It’s the reason religion and politics are the taboo topics of today. We so closely associate our sense of self with our religious and political persuasions that we cannot entertain any other perspectives. We perceive different perspectives as direct threats to our sense of self. Even when we agree with one another 98% of the time, we fixate on the 2% in the other person that we don’t understand and refuse to take one step towards one another. And, as indicated at the end of today’s gospel, such conflicts are often drawn out to the bitter end, with the destruction one or both parties involved.

I believe the antidote is humility, and again, I don’t look to the Jesus of today’s gospel passage for inspiration.

Instead, here’s where I saw this idea play out recently.

Throughout May a group of us read and discussed a book by self-described “lunatic libertarian Christian farmer” Joel Salatin. This book is his attempt to explain his theological rationale for his farming methods, which cover topics including free-range livestock, non-GMO crops, farming without pesticides and herbicides, and many more related topics.

Very few people liked the book, to put it mildly. The primary reason was because the author comes across as very judgmental, harsh, rigid, and arrogant. The author believes deeply and passionately that his model of farming can feed the world and restore God’s creation; but he was unable to convince many of us because of his oppositional attitude and his unwillingness to compromise or empathize with the forces he was setting himself up against.

Knowing that interest in the book was rapidly waning through the weeks, I scheduled a trip to Tyner Pond Farm in Greenfield this past week. This is the farming operation that provides home delivery throughout the Indy-area, as well as the meat and eggs to the Mug restaurants as well as Grigsby’s Station in Greenfield. I wanted to introduce our book group participants to the owners and farmers at Tyner Pond Farm because they were practicing Joel Salatin’s farming techniques in a tangible, accessible, inspiring, and humble way.

As you can imagine, our day at the farm was a completely different experience than anything that had happened in our book discussions at church. Amy Baggot, one of the owners and farmers, spent the entire morning with us, excitedly taking us from farm to farm introducing us to piglets, herds of cattle, and hundreds of chickens. She spoke with passion about her calling to raise animals in a way that honors their unique role in God’s creation. She talked about loving and being inspired by her animals. She embodied the important principles the author was trying to make in his book; but which we found inaccessible due to the author’s arrogance. And even the most skeptical among us were smiling at the glory of their farm.

Our minds, and consequently our behaviors, are incredibly resistant to new information. Facts do not change our behavior. Other peoples’ insistence and/or arrogance does not change our behavior.

In order for our behavior to change we must be inspired. Typically the ones who inspire us are the ones who are most passionate – ones for whom their passion is presented not from the volume of their voice or insistence they are right, but more from their ability to draw peace and hope from their passion and let it spread across their very way of being in the world.

Today’s gospel is a warning about how easily we can become entrenched in our beliefs and how that entrenchment can lead to needless suffering and destruction. The flip side of this warning is the promise held out of just how easy it is to transform the world when our passions are expressed through expressions of humility, wonder, and grace.

Amen.

* Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 33.

O Reconciliation, Where Art Thou?

Humble Passion