Last spring I played in an adult soccer league over in Pensacola. We were an interesting team, a mish-mash of people who knew each other, people who knew the people who knew each other, and people who showed up and joined the team when we were down a few players; people who didn’t know anybody. One of the guys who was in the “knew the people who knew each other” category was a guy named Brian, but he goes by BK. BK is a rough and tumble sort of guy. He is a Marine who served two tours in Afghanistan and two tours in Iraq. I think he is a gunner on a helicopter. He is tattooed all over. He is built like a Rugby player. He wakes up at 4am to begin his PT routine with a 6 mile run, and he finished his PT routine with our games on Tuesday nights. BK has a bit of a temper, so when he was asked to leave the field so that someone could sub in for him he often rattled off a series of curse words and then sulked on the bench. Most of us didn’t really care what BK did or didn’t do, but BK’s wife, Missy, played on our team also, and she cared. One evening when BK threw his usual fit there were a group of small children nearby who no doubt heard his string of profanity. Missy gave him a stern talking to and then sat down next to me, and knowing I am a priest apologized, thinking that I was offended by his off color rant. Having grown up on the soccer field I am not unfamiliar with rants the like of BK’s and so it really didn’t strike me as terribly offensive, though the children nearby probably didn’t need to hear the f-bomb used so liberally. My response to her was, “It is ok. The Church is in the forgiveness business.”
Missy sort of laughed that off, and I think that maybe this week’s gospel lesson popped into her mind that evening. These five verses have throughout history been used by those in positions of authority to punish, excommunicate, and shun. Perhaps most famously among protestant theologians, John Calvin wrote in his commentary on Matthew’s gospels that “by mentioning [the Gentiles and tax collectors], Jesus was indeed flagging those people who at that time the Jews regarded ‘with the greatest hatred and detestation… unholy and irreclaimable men.’ Jesus wanted, to remind his disciples of folks with whom one may never associate.” To be fair, Calvin was writing in a time when those who were sinning against him were great in number. He had been called everything name in the book in rants that sounded a lot like BK’s. For him it was nice to have a holy and sanctified “three strikes and your out policy.”
There are plenty of people in our own lives and in the larger context of the
National Church and the Anglican Communion with whom we’d like to use the “three strikes” policy, but I’m afraid that reading Jesus’ recommendations this way is to not see the forest for the trees. If we read these verses all by themselves, sure, they could be “three strikes and your out,” but to read them in the context of chapter 18 and quite frankly Matthew’s entire gospel we get the sense that Jesus’ plan of church discipline is a little more open. This teaching comes “in a chapter (as well as within a gospel) that urges patience, that recommends an abiding and long-term grace, that highlights the need to seek, and seek, and seek the lost and wandering.” It is hard for me to imagine Jesus, having just told the parable of the shepherd leaving 99 sheep to find one that was lost, would then teach his disciples how to keep the 99 happy by excommunicating and shunning one that is lost. It is hard for me to imagine Jesus, who immediately followed this teaching by telling Peter that he is to forgive not seven times but seventy-seven or seventy-times-seven, would tell his disciples to give up on someone after only three attempts at restoration. It is hard for me to imagine Jesus, who responded to the accusation of eating with sinners and tax collectors by saying that he came to call not righteous but sinners, teaching a pattern of life in which the righteous are given the power to define who is in and who is out.
Instead, I imagine Jesus, the friend of sinners and tax collectors (MT 11.9) offering the path of discipline this way:
“Unfortunately the Church will be made up of people who are human and will, from time to time, fail to live up to the vision of the Kingdom of God. If and when that happens, address that person in private; don’t make a big deal of it to make you look good and the other look bad. If that doesn’t work, and it won’t always work, take a couple of spiritual elders with you; still try to keep it quiet, there is no sense in making an example of someone who sinned since all have sinned. If and when that doesn’t work, then you have no choice but to bring in the larger community. Let the person know that he or she has failed to live up to the communities rule of life by not loving God and loving their neighbor as themselves. It will be hard, and it may not produce fruit, but the sinner should be educated in the error of his or her ways. Finally, if and when that doesn’t work, treat them as a Gentile or tax collector; make them the special focus of your outreach and love. Follow my example, not the example of the Pharisees and welcome them back into the community, teach them the ways of the Kingdom, and show them grace and forgiveness as often as it is needed.”
The Church is in the forgiveness business, despite almost overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We are called to the business of forgiveness by Jesus who promises that when two or three are gathered in his name, he will be there also. “In the language of the day ‘name’ does not mean the literal name of a person, but that person him or herself; their ‘character’ or their ‘spirit’. When Jesus speaks of ‘gathering in his name’ he doesn’t mean that people are going to be mentioning his name literally (though we do often), but rather they will gather in his spirit; in agreement with his teaching, following the model he set forth. Into these gatherings Jesus promises he will come; communities built on a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation.”
Being a member of a Church brings with it a lot of responsibility. While it would be a whole lot easier to write off those who have hurt us, have called us names, have not loved us the way we think they ought, we are called instead to live as a community in the character of Jesus. We are called to love God and to love one another. We are called to reprimand, to teach, and to forgive. We are called to live lives modeling the Kingdom of God so that others might come to know Jesus as he lives among us. Key to that Kingdom living, it seems is treating those who sin against us as Gentile and tax collectors by offering grace and forgiveness at every chance. The Church is in the forgiveness business. Amen.
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