September 14, 2014 (Welcome Back Sunday): May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
Today we celebrate – sometimes not so joyfully – our move from the beaches, parks, and campsites to the schoolyards, classrooms, cubicles, offices and (hopefully very joyfully) – church and all the regular church programs.
Now, before I get started here, I just want to point out that it is September 14 – 2014, the 14th Sunday after Pentecost, we are reading from Exodus 14, Psalm 1-14, and Romans 14. For those wanting to buy lottery tickets – 14 might just be a winner! Just don’t forget to share with the church (and your friendly pastor) if you win, okay?
So here we are again…in a sort of Paul and Jesus: Episode VI-The Return of the Jedi (or in this case, Apostles), because the readings from last week and this week are sort of a two-fer. Last week, Paul was telling us that we owe one another love, and we considered what that would mean for us and for the world – if we owed a debt of love. And, Jesus was telling us how to take our differences outside – dealing with one another directly, one-on-one, rather than poisoning a group with gossip and finger pointing. And this week, we get a bit more of how we should act toward one another in our communities of faith – with Paul telling us to stop judging one another over religious customs, and Jesus telling us to forgive repeatedly.
Now, one of the things that strikes me about these texts is the idea that they have to talk about it in the first place. What I mean by that is similar to something a friend of mine said once in a commentary on a much detested passage of 2 Timothy – you know, the one about how women should keep silent in church. Yeah, that one. Anyway, this friend – Dr. Joanna Dewey, is a Markan scholar, a former seminary dean, a professor of NT Greek, and a member of the Jesus Seminar – yeah, in other words, way over my head. Anyway, she once said in a published commentary on that passage from 2 Timothy (which, btw – Paul did not write – redeems him a bit in my view), anyway, Joanna wrote that to understand that, or any passage of text, we need to read between the lines – at what is not being said. In other words – if one is telling women to be silent in church…that means they are speaking out – a lot! They were leaders in the early church.
So, why am even talking about 2 Timothy when our texts today are from Romans (which Paul did write) and Matthew? Because it always strikes me as odd that folks sometimes dream about us being a single church – all united again – you know, holding hands and singing kumbayah. Well, starting just after that first Easter morning, we were divided and have been ever since – followers of different disciples going in different directions. So much so that Paul and Peter were practically engaged in an all out brawl over who eats what when and with whom – as were their followers, which is what we are hearing about in today’s epistle.
It reminds me of a great little cartoon. It features stick figures of children in a Sunday School class. The teacher is pointing to a diagram that shows Jesus…and then all the many many denominational splits through the centuries, and the teacher points to one little branch way at the bottom and says “That is when WE got the bible right!” To which a child says “Jesus is SO lucky to have us.”
Why is it that the church – whether the earliest followers of Christ, called The Way, or the multi-denominational church of the modern world – why is it that we seem to fight and hurt one another? Well, for one thing, as I mentioned last week, we are a family, and families, being so close, can often, intentionally or not, hurt one another. But, I think the biggest reason, is what the bishop refers to as the “Killer B’s” – Buildings, Budgets, Boilers and Boards. Or, as we joked about in seminary – “Baptizing Babies & Balancing Budgets.” We can sometimes, even when very well intended (because, let’s face it – they may be Killer, but those Bs are important), we can sometimes forget what church is really about. And that can lead us to spend far too much time sweating the small stuff. They say, just to change a light bulb in an Episcopal Church it takes 8 people. One to call the electrician, and seven to say how much they liked the old one better.
And St. Paul in the epistle is talking about this small stuff. Today, we could easily substitute Paul’s words about fights over feast days and dietary law with well…we don’t have to change anything really – do we. Today, people all over the world are killed in inter-religious conflict. Just look at the Middle East or the history of the world in the last 100 years. Or, we could substitute feast days and dietary restrictions with women or gay priests and the date of Easter.
With all this conflict, one might begin to understand those who say they don’t believe in organized religion – which always cracks me up because, as anyone who has ever been in a church office, or serving as an acolyte on Palm Sunday can tell you – there is nothing organized about it – just take a peek in just before a service… or drop by the office before Holy Week…seriously.
But before more secular folks get all, well, “holier-than-thou” we could also substitute into Paul’s letter: Vegans and Omnivores, or conservatives and liberals. So why bother then? Let’s all go out and be spiritual, not religious on our own – that’s better, right? I am reminded of a story about “…a Rabbi, and one of the great theologians of this century, Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel, [who] once gave a lecture at the University of California on the relationship between religion and ethics. When he had concluded his remarks, a faculty member stood and asked, “Why do I need religion? I am a good person. I treat others decently. I lead an honest and ethical life. What does religion have to offer me?” Professor Heschel replied, “That is the difference between you and me. You are a good person. I am not.”1
See, the reason we come together as a faith community is because it is a place where we can be reminded of who we are, and restored to go out and live into that. And we need this place – this home – this restoration. It isn’t that one cannot come into the fullness of relationship with God on their own – of course you can…it is that life is filled with joys and sorrows, and those moments are best lived in community. Just last Friday, we celebrated the life of Lorraine Billings with a funeral here in the morning, and in the evening, we celebrated the wedding of David Drislane and Leo Toledo (who really have been married for some time in the eyes of God – the State just needed to catch up to what God was already doing in the world). These are the ways in which we are family – the moments of life so dear to us, and so needing to be shared. And yes, in community, in families, in life, really, we will sometimes be hurt or hurt others.
I don’t know anyone who has not been hurt in some way – by spouses, friends, co-workers, and yes, people in their faith community. See, being hurt is the result of being invested. If anyone lived a life without hurt…well, if that were even possible…it would mean they existed – but they never really lived. To not be hurt, or to not hurt, it means that we have walled ourselves from society….and no, not even convents or monasteries count. I have far too many friends who have been monks or nuns, and I assure you, living in close community, however isolated, is NOT a way to avoid conflict and pain. We will experience pain, or cause it, as we live. But our community of faith, offers us respite from the world, from our busy lives, and from that pain. Our church also offers restoration.
You all know I grew up Baptist, and one of the things I love about the Episcopal Church (and other similar denominations) is the confession we have as part of our worship. I didn’t have that growing up – nope, we were all going to hell. Probably a good thing I didn’t have to go to confession too, as I am likely to have been a source of great amusement to my local pastor, like this one kid was to a Catholic priest friend who was hearing first confession – when little kids come to the priest for the first time to make confession. I may have told you’all this before (I know the Worship Without Walls folks heard it), but this one little kid came into the confessional and said. “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.” “What is this sin, my son?” The little boy said, “I have committed adultery.” Trying his best not to break out laughing, he said, “No, my son, you did not commit adultery.” “Oh yes I did, Father!” the child replied. “I assure you, you did not.” “But Father, I did commit adultery.” My priest friend thought a moment and said, “My son, tell me what is adultery?” “Being mean to adults, Father.”
I suspect we might all be able to confess that from time to time. Now, I know, sometimes this whole “sin” thing has been used in the past, and in some places today, to beat people up, but that isn’t what sin is about. Sin is really about turning away from the love of God – turning away from recognizing ourselves and others as beloved children of God, and redemption – a turning back. I remember the first time I heard the confession as we do it in the Episcopal Church, and I thought…wow, I could say that every day! Every day, I know that I have not loved my neighbor as myself, and in that same way, that I have not loved God with all my heart.
Now one of the things that Jesus is making clear here, as is Paul, is that you can’t go to the church and hope to get forgiveness, if you are still out there judging people, or if you haven’t first gone to the person you have harmed and sought forgiveness. In other words, the church is not about cheap grace. That is why we have the Passing of the Peace in addition to the confession, because each of us need to greet one another before we go to share in the Eucharist. We need to say “I’m here because I need to be reconciled to all of you,”.
That’s all well and good, but to be honest, we all know that forgiveness is hard – really hard. It isn’t something that happens during a two minute greeting of The Peace during a Sunday morning worship service. Part of the reason it is so hard is that pain is inflicted on us is a wound that must be honored, and often, we are harmed by people or forces that do not seek forgiveness, or just as bad, issue the lame “I am sorry you feel that way” response…honestly, does anyone really ever feel better when someone says that? All that means is that the person is annoyed that the one in pain creates a sense of guilt that somehow is unpleasant to them. Geez…how did we ever get so narcissistic as to think this is a proper apology?
But, is forgiveness about receiving an apology? Apologies help, but Jesus never mentions it when talking about forgiveness. The reality is – forgiveness is never about the person being forgiven…though I do like the saying that we should forgive our enemies…nothing will annoy them more. Forgiveness is about freeing ourselves from captivity.
Maybe the reason why it can sometimes be so hard to forgive is that we have the mistaken belief that it means the hurt is forgotten – that somehow it never happened if we forgive the person. Nothing could be further from the truth. Forgiveness isn’t about forgetting…forgiveness is about saying that we will no longer allow it to enslave us. It is the decision to break the shackles of anger, resentment, and pain and place them squarely in the past. It is letting go of the ongoing pain that keeps us from moving on. It is not erasing the past, but letting go of the idea that the past can be changed.
And all of that is a courageous act. And so is seeking forgiveness and accepting it – really accepting it.
It takes courage to confront someone who has hurt us. It takes courage to admit wrongdoing. It takes courage to step forward and commit to loving others even when we don’t feel it deeply – but faking it till we make it. And through it all, Jesus tells us that we don’t do it alone. Whenever we find ourselves with another, Christ is there with us.
But I think the hardest thing of all…is to forgive ourselves. We can be so hard on our own mistakes, that even long after we have been forgiven by the one we harmed, we continue to beat ourselves up. The wonderful author and Christian thinker C. S. Lewis once said, “I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than [God].” Mr. Lewis has a point, but it is so hard to break out of this cycle of beating ourselves up on our own. We need others to help us out of this cycle of self-abuse.
And it is here, in this community of faith, that all of us can come – with our brokenness, our pain, our memories and guilt for having hurt others, and having been hurt ourselves – all of it…and we can find peace, respite, restoration. Here, in our spiritual home, we can let it go, and let God. Here, in the care of our faith family, we come to understand that we are loved and accepted for who we are – not who the world wants us to be. And in this place – Christ Church – we don’t care what you eat, how you dress, who you love, whether you sing like bird or like a car horn, are a cradle Episcopalian or spiritual-but-not-religious who happened to wander in here by mistake. Everyone is welcome here!
This is a place where we are forgiven, healed, and restored to new life at this table with the body and blood of Christ – who taught us how to love one another, love God, and love ourselves. Welcome back home everyone! Amen.

Note: Sermons are as written, and not necessarily as delivered on any given Sunday.

The Rev. Diana Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
September 14, 2014 – Welcome Back Sunday
Pent 14, Proper 19 – Year A – Track 1
1st Reading – Exodus 14:19-31
Psalm 114
2nd Reading – Romans 14:1-12
Gospel – Matthew 18:21-35