Rabble Rousers 9-10-23
Rabble Rousers
Rom 13:8-14; Mt 18:15-20
Rom 13:8-14
Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Mt 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.”
Prayer – God of grace – each week we pray to you asking you to forgive us for our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. But we confess that we don’t always want to forgive both friends or enemies; in fact, as the psalmist says, sometimes we want to kill them. Other times we would prefer to pray that you would get even with them since we would like for them to get theirs. Help us to practice forgiveness for that is the foundation of your church. Help us to pass the peace of Christ with even those we would just as soon not have peace. May we be struck by your miracle of grace and bring reconciliation throughout your world – amen.
If another member of the church sins against you . . . just talk about them behind their backs in the parking lot. If another member of the church sins against you . . . just call a bunch of people in the church to complain about them; you may even want to start a letter-writing campaign against them. If another member of the church sins against you . . . just send them a nasty email. Copy the pastor unless of course it is the pastor who ‘sins’ against you and then make sure you CC the Presbytery Exec. If another member of the church sins against you . . . don’t say anything. Just avoid them. Unfriend them on FaceBook. And if you can’t avoid them on Sunday’s, then just leave the church.
Chapter 18 of Matthew’s gospel is the beginning of a teaching block on how to become and be a church. The disciples stand out, not because they are perfect but because they are frail and fallible and still they follow and are ‘on the way’ to understanding. This discourse is directed at those early disciples as Jesus begins to form them into the new community that Matthew calls ‘the church.’ Of all the gospels, Matthew is the only one that speaks explicitly about the church. This section of Matthew’s gospel is about how to be the church and makes it clear that discipleship is not worked out in isolation but in life together.
What kind of community is the church supposed to be? How are they to conduct life together? Chapter 18 gives us some clues – this new community is supposed to be where the least of these are the greatest and the little ones come first and the lost get found. It will never be the perfect community – let me repeat that – it will never be the perfect community. Nevertheless, the church is to be a community where people follow the way and practice accountability and forgiveness.
Now for anyone that has been in the church for awhile you know that the church is full of troublesome people, rabble rousers if you will. I can remember talking with a ‘church counselor’ years ago and she gave me some sound advice. She said to me, the first 10 people who come to see you when you start at a new church will be your biggest problems. In several churches I’ve served in the past, those words were quite true. In my first church the first person to come see me as the new associate pastor, she told me that I needed to talk to the senior pastor about how much golf he was playing. Really, first person – I suggested that she make an appointment with him and discuss her concerns directly with him. She left in a huff. The second person who came to see me was very active with the youth group and I kid you not she did her ever loving best to seduce me in my office on my third day at the church. I should have sent my resume out that afternoon because when I read between the lines and turned her away, my fate at the church was sealed. I later learned she had had an affair with a previous pastor – yep, sure did. She worked very hard to sabotage any work I did there and eventually led to my leaving.
Since then I have become more in tune with spotting those church rabble rousers, identifying their destructive habits, and trying to work around some of the destructive ways they seek to destabilize our faith communities. Church hurt has a particularly sharp sting and for a long time after that I didn’t want to have anything to do with ‘the church.’ Perhaps because as a new minister my aspirations were so high, and learning that the distance between how we ought to love one another and the way we actually try one another become especially hard to take. Perhaps my vision of the beloved community made it even more surprising that one of my siblings in Christ could cause harm, hurt, or offense. Perhaps I always believed the church was a safe place until I felt wronged within the confines of that community.
Like some of you, we have seen churches be totally undone by backbiting and whisper campaigns. It can be devastating and not just to attendance and finances but it is devastating to the Christian witness of that congregation as the reputation of that ‘problem church’ can last for a long time in a community. Too often when backstabbing or problems arise in the church, the church can quickly can cease to be a place of forgiveness, grace and mercy. One might say it ceases to be a church for any discernable future.
Any community, even faith communities don’t offer ease of relationships. Even when participants commit to shared values, norms and ways of being together, conflict will arise. Humans, like all living creatures, have competing interests and disagreements, can be rabble rousers. Individual shortcomings, misunderstandings, and brokenness can lead to offense against another, Jesus, having extensively described a vision of the reign of God on earth, holds no illusions that human discord and acrimony will be obliterated by the establishment of the church.
In seminary I learned that sin may be defined as separation from God; or put differently, God is offended when we live apart from God. As Jesus begins this discourse, he affirms that sin involves separation from one another, particularly in the faith community. Living apart from the community is cause and consequence of offending one another in actions or attitudes. And in this case, Jesus directs us to repair that separation through reconciliation. For Jesus, restoration of the community after the separating impact of sin is the priority. A broken church limits and derails the reign of God.
As I’ve reflected on our passage this morning I noted how this chapter of Matthew’s gospel insists on the church as community is central to the reign of God. Perhaps not surprising today, many people frame discipleship in terms of individual salvation and emphasize their ‘personal walk with the Lord’, to such an extent, that in actuality, there is no place for community. And I must acknowledge that these individual understandings protect against the manipulative communal practices found in far too many churches, they have no room for humility, accountability and interdependence envisioned by Matthew 18. This chapter also challenges ecclesial understandings that see the ‘true’ church constituted by certain rituals, or structures of ministry, order and authority, or doctrinal tests, or positions on social issues. That is not to say that these things don’t matter, they do, each is important for church life. But in Matthew’s vision, they don’t matter as much as relational community that sustains and embodies disciples on the way to the cross. Jesus’ words in Matthew’s gospel urges followers to nurture such communities.
Now I suppose you may be wondering why I am talking about church member’s sinning against one another and how church folks can be a gathering of rabble rousers as much as being a gathering of followers. I am not pointing any fingers at individuals here at Trinity Grace, but many of you were here when there were conflicts and communal challenges. Part of the reason for our name change grew out of a lingering recognition that for some in Mansfield, TPC was that problem church. But all you have to do is look across the landscape of churches today, both here in Mansfield and the global landscape and realize that church conflict is perhaps the norm rather than the exception. Recently, the Methodist church here in Mansfield split, leaving the denomination over the ordination of LGBTQ followers. Years ago, there were churches that left the PCUSA over the same issue – when I was member of the COM within the Presbytery in SC, I assisted several churches in leaving the denomination even though personally it was a non-issue for me. A similar split has occurred in the Episcopal church as well. And all of you are likely familiar with congregational churches split when a pastor or music minister decides they have a better vision for a particular church.
My question for myself today and perhaps you today, is how do we face and address conflict when we find a rabble rouser or two in our own lives. Do we begin a secret campaign against them . . . whispering in the parking lot about whatever outlandish thing the preacher said during discussion time. Do we come to them personally and try to resolve those differences, sometimes agreeing to disagree, but remaining equal participants in the community of faith as Jesus directs us, seeking first forgiveness and reconciliation.
Our text this morning is a reminder that sometimes we don’t always get along, in church and outside of church. But as a church we are called to higher calling – a calling that is grounded in forgiveness and reconciliation. Jesus is warning and assuring those of us inside the church that we both stand inside and outside of the main streams of religious and civil practice. Perhaps the most important lesson from our passage this morning is that when rabble rousing occurs within the confines of the church, we are instructed to follow a path of reconciliation rather than condemnation. As Christians, our core principle is unity based on God’s love and not exclusion based on someone else’s rabble rousing. So don’t let the rabble rousers in our church, in the church down the street, in the church anywhere across the world deter us from seeking the path of forgiveness and unity – that is what the kingdom of God reflects – thanks be to God – amen.