Where two or three are gathered...
Text: Matthew 18:15-20
While technically we have at least three more weeks of summer, the Labour Day weekend in Canada is the traditional end. We may try to eke a few more weekends out of our respective cottages, but now our thoughts turn towards the fall. The children are going back to school, students are back at university, and similarly many of us get ready to “come back to church.” Earlier on in the summer I had a number of people who apologized to me in advance, that during the summer months attendance really drops off. I have to be honest; numbers don’t bother me, because I’ve had experiences in the past where I have had to lead worship where there have been far fewer present. In those experiences, the words from Matthew today “where two or three are gathered” had a far more literal meaning. As both a summer student and as a chaplain at a University, I have worked with some rather small groups of people. Numbers don’t concern me… but community does.
The trouble is, where two or three are gathered is a statement that deals with far more than simply numbers. It’s about community; it’s a reminder that there is no such thing as a solitary Christian. We cannot be authentically faithful to Jesus Christ apart from the community of faith. It’s about ethics… not in the sense of right and wrong, but in the sense of living and being together in good and healthy relationships.
Every once in a while, we get a glimpse into the faith communities in which the gospels were written. This is less about Jesus and the disciples as it is about the writer of Matthew and the early Christian community that he was a part of. This is the lens through which Matthew’s community saw Jesus, and occasionally the lens gets a speck of dirt on it through which we can learn something about these early Christians.
Where two or three are gathered comes at the end of a series of guides for resolving conflict:
It starts like this:
“15If 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. 16But 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.”
In the same way as placing Moses upon a pedestal, if we portray the early church as an ideal community without faults… we lose some very important insights. They had all kinds of pitfalls, and it seems clear from these words from Matthew, that they needed guidance on how to resolve conflict. Personality differences certainly existed, as they do today. As these early Christian communities developed, something was needed to nip those conflicts in the bud before they would explode into intractable problems.
The health of personal relationships within the community affects the health of the community as a whole. Conflict between individuals has a terrible potential of becoming conflict amongst congregations, as two or more sides attempt to pull people to their point of view rather than deal with the issue. Ultimately, these conflicts left unchecked cause rifts between people, split the church, and undercut the entire purpose of Christian community. Matthew was trying to provide a healthy way of dealing with conflict in the church early on, reminding them of Christ in their midst before things got out of hand. This is about the health of the body of Christ.
The key to this is those first words:
“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”
This is about those personal relationships within the church community. If someone in the church has done something that for whatever reason has hurt you, then here are some steps to try and resolve that hurt. The whole point is the individual personal relationships within a community are vital to the life of the community as a whole. If someone does something that hurts someone else, and that wound is left untreated, then it has the potential to fester and grow like a cancer. The whole body of Christ is at risk.
This really is a sobering thought… and gives us pause to consider all those things that make us a healthy Christian community. The early church wasn’t immune to it, so why are we so surprised when it happens in our own congregations? It is a reminder that we are human, and all human relationships need to be intentionally grown and nurtured.
“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”
This first step, if someone sins against you; go and talk to them directly. If someone does something or says something that hurts us, then the first step is for us to go and talk to them in person. Yet how often do we really do that? More often than not, our tendency is to let it go, let it slide… or worse yet… tell someone else who isn’t involved. Then the rumours get started. The first step is to go directly to the person who hurt you and tell them, otherwise they may never know. As humans, we’re not telepaths; we don’t mind read. We don’t automatically know when something that we have done has caused pain or hurt. We need people to tell us when something has gone off the rails. Sometimes the hurt can be caused by something that was quite innocent, but the damage can potentially be just the same.
One summer during my years at seminary, I was serving as a student minister at a summer charge in Alberta. I had been living in the downstairs of one of the families in this very small congregation. They already had a toddler, and were expecting their second child sometime during the summer months while I was there. The congregation as a whole were curious and concerned as to when baby was due, and as the apparent date approached I was asked through the announcement time if there was any news. I reported what I had observed, that there was no baby, but the woman’s mother was now visiting. I didn’t provide any more details than that, and didn’t think anything more of it.
A few days later, she came to visit me. As someone who was a very private person, she was quite angry and hurt that I had shared things publicly about her without her permission. Yet she did the right thing, she came to me first, and told me how hurt she felt… rather than let it fester. I was able to take steps, to apologize, and also work to heal the relationships before they became something greater. I had intended no harm by it, to be sure, and I felt terrible… however, the crisis went no further than that. She had come to me, and shared how she felt. Had she not come to me, I would not have known and I may have carried on, oblivious to it and may have even done even more damage… especially had something gone wrong with the arrival of the baby. Had she not told me, I would not have known. Not only did I apologize, but I thanked her for being honest with me, and sharing with me of how she felt.
What we learn from Matthew is that there can be no community without truthfulness. Without being honest with one another, we can learn to have that sense of trust that becomes the glue that holds us together. If someone sins against us, if someone does something or says something that hurts us, then we need to tell the truth in order to heal the relationship with them.
United Methodist Bishop William Willimon makes this observation about this passage:
“that the goal of all this truth-telling and truth-receiving is to gain a “sister” or “brother” (v. 15). Truth-telling sometimes results in the revelation that our friend was not as good a friend as we first thought. What we thought was friendship was only a relationship that couldn’t survive the truth. But sometimes, and these times are wonderful, in truth-telling we discover that we have a better friend than we first thought. The telling of truth becomes revelation of the very deepest relationship. The easiest thing, in the face of offence, is to say and do nothing, to remain estranged, strangers to lick the wound, to curl all up in yourself, to cherish the hurt, to absorb the injustice, to say in your own life and stay out of mine. But faithfully to do what Jesus commands, to risk the truth, to say, in effect, “ ‘In the name of Jesus the one who is the way, the truth, and the life,’ I care about you enough to confront you, to tell you the truth that no one else cares enough to tell you.”
What Jesus is constantly concerned about is healing and reconciliation, being willing to be truthful with one another is a big part of that. Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I also… it is the wholeness of community, that sense that all of us belong, and feel comfortable enough with one another that we can be genuinely honest about how we feel. In the context of this text, whenever two or three of us are gathered to tell the truth to one another, to risk relationship on a more truthful level than usual, to seek repentance and to offer and receive forgiveness, then Jesus is there with us.
Amen
While technically we have at least three more weeks of summer, the Labour Day weekend in Canada is the traditional end. We may try to eke a few more weekends out of our respective cottages, but now our thoughts turn towards the fall. The children are going back to school, students are back at university, and similarly many of us get ready to “come back to church.” Earlier on in the summer I had a number of people who apologized to me in advance, that during the summer months attendance really drops off. I have to be honest; numbers don’t bother me, because I’ve had experiences in the past where I have had to lead worship where there have been far fewer present. In those experiences, the words from Matthew today “where two or three are gathered” had a far more literal meaning. As both a summer student and as a chaplain at a University, I have worked with some rather small groups of people. Numbers don’t concern me… but community does.
The trouble is, where two or three are gathered is a statement that deals with far more than simply numbers. It’s about community; it’s a reminder that there is no such thing as a solitary Christian. We cannot be authentically faithful to Jesus Christ apart from the community of faith. It’s about ethics… not in the sense of right and wrong, but in the sense of living and being together in good and healthy relationships.
Every once in a while, we get a glimpse into the faith communities in which the gospels were written. This is less about Jesus and the disciples as it is about the writer of Matthew and the early Christian community that he was a part of. This is the lens through which Matthew’s community saw Jesus, and occasionally the lens gets a speck of dirt on it through which we can learn something about these early Christians.
Where two or three are gathered comes at the end of a series of guides for resolving conflict:
It starts like this:
“15If 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. 16But 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.”
In the same way as placing Moses upon a pedestal, if we portray the early church as an ideal community without faults… we lose some very important insights. They had all kinds of pitfalls, and it seems clear from these words from Matthew, that they needed guidance on how to resolve conflict. Personality differences certainly existed, as they do today. As these early Christian communities developed, something was needed to nip those conflicts in the bud before they would explode into intractable problems.
The health of personal relationships within the community affects the health of the community as a whole. Conflict between individuals has a terrible potential of becoming conflict amongst congregations, as two or more sides attempt to pull people to their point of view rather than deal with the issue. Ultimately, these conflicts left unchecked cause rifts between people, split the church, and undercut the entire purpose of Christian community. Matthew was trying to provide a healthy way of dealing with conflict in the church early on, reminding them of Christ in their midst before things got out of hand. This is about the health of the body of Christ.
The key to this is those first words:
“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”
This is about those personal relationships within the church community. If someone in the church has done something that for whatever reason has hurt you, then here are some steps to try and resolve that hurt. The whole point is the individual personal relationships within a community are vital to the life of the community as a whole. If someone does something that hurts someone else, and that wound is left untreated, then it has the potential to fester and grow like a cancer. The whole body of Christ is at risk.
This really is a sobering thought… and gives us pause to consider all those things that make us a healthy Christian community. The early church wasn’t immune to it, so why are we so surprised when it happens in our own congregations? It is a reminder that we are human, and all human relationships need to be intentionally grown and nurtured.
“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”
This first step, if someone sins against you; go and talk to them directly. If someone does something or says something that hurts us, then the first step is for us to go and talk to them in person. Yet how often do we really do that? More often than not, our tendency is to let it go, let it slide… or worse yet… tell someone else who isn’t involved. Then the rumours get started. The first step is to go directly to the person who hurt you and tell them, otherwise they may never know. As humans, we’re not telepaths; we don’t mind read. We don’t automatically know when something that we have done has caused pain or hurt. We need people to tell us when something has gone off the rails. Sometimes the hurt can be caused by something that was quite innocent, but the damage can potentially be just the same.
One summer during my years at seminary, I was serving as a student minister at a summer charge in Alberta. I had been living in the downstairs of one of the families in this very small congregation. They already had a toddler, and were expecting their second child sometime during the summer months while I was there. The congregation as a whole were curious and concerned as to when baby was due, and as the apparent date approached I was asked through the announcement time if there was any news. I reported what I had observed, that there was no baby, but the woman’s mother was now visiting. I didn’t provide any more details than that, and didn’t think anything more of it.
A few days later, she came to visit me. As someone who was a very private person, she was quite angry and hurt that I had shared things publicly about her without her permission. Yet she did the right thing, she came to me first, and told me how hurt she felt… rather than let it fester. I was able to take steps, to apologize, and also work to heal the relationships before they became something greater. I had intended no harm by it, to be sure, and I felt terrible… however, the crisis went no further than that. She had come to me, and shared how she felt. Had she not come to me, I would not have known and I may have carried on, oblivious to it and may have even done even more damage… especially had something gone wrong with the arrival of the baby. Had she not told me, I would not have known. Not only did I apologize, but I thanked her for being honest with me, and sharing with me of how she felt.
What we learn from Matthew is that there can be no community without truthfulness. Without being honest with one another, we can learn to have that sense of trust that becomes the glue that holds us together. If someone sins against us, if someone does something or says something that hurts us, then we need to tell the truth in order to heal the relationship with them.
United Methodist Bishop William Willimon makes this observation about this passage:
“that the goal of all this truth-telling and truth-receiving is to gain a “sister” or “brother” (v. 15). Truth-telling sometimes results in the revelation that our friend was not as good a friend as we first thought. What we thought was friendship was only a relationship that couldn’t survive the truth. But sometimes, and these times are wonderful, in truth-telling we discover that we have a better friend than we first thought. The telling of truth becomes revelation of the very deepest relationship. The easiest thing, in the face of offence, is to say and do nothing, to remain estranged, strangers to lick the wound, to curl all up in yourself, to cherish the hurt, to absorb the injustice, to say in your own life and stay out of mine. But faithfully to do what Jesus commands, to risk the truth, to say, in effect, “ ‘In the name of Jesus the one who is the way, the truth, and the life,’ I care about you enough to confront you, to tell you the truth that no one else cares enough to tell you.”
What Jesus is constantly concerned about is healing and reconciliation, being willing to be truthful with one another is a big part of that. Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I also… it is the wholeness of community, that sense that all of us belong, and feel comfortable enough with one another that we can be genuinely honest about how we feel. In the context of this text, whenever two or three of us are gathered to tell the truth to one another, to risk relationship on a more truthful level than usual, to seek repentance and to offer and receive forgiveness, then Jesus is there with us.
Amen
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