Slow to Anger...Abounding in Love? No Fair!

Jonah 3:10-4:11
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.
He prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.
And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."
And the LORD said, "Is it right for you to be angry?"
Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.
The LORD God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush.
But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered.
When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live."
But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die." 
Then the LORD said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night.
And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"

Matthew 20:1-16
"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.
When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went.
When he went out again about noon and about three o'clock, he did the same.
And about five o'clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why are you standing here idle all day?'
They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard.'
When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’
When those hired about five o'clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage.
Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage.
And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.'
But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.
Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?'
So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

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You know, what kind of God is this anyway?!

This is the question that is not only on Jonah’s mind, but he has actually said it out loud to God. And, as I hear him saying it, it’s through gritted teeth:

I knew it – I knew this about you all along. How you are a God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. I just KNEW it.

And what he knows, because of this, is that God is going to be merciful to those blasted Ninevites. No matter how much Jonah thinks they really do need to be blown away, obliterated by God, he can just tell how this is all going to turn out. And boy, is he ticked off about it.

The story of Jonah too often gets reduced to the fact that he was swallowed by a big fish because he would not obey God, and that he eventually he was thrown up out of the fish onto the land (I know, it’s gross), and in that way he was saved by God so he could try and start over again, turn a new leaf. But even in the brief four chapters of this book – only two pages in your pew Bible – and I am glad for that, because my second Hebrew class in seminary involved translating the whole book of Jonah from Hebrew and interpreting it – even though it’s this short, it is packed with important messages for us about who God is, about the nature of God’s character, and about how that often results in outcomes that we are not so crazy about. But thanks be to God that that’s the way it is. God is not fair, because God is merciful beyond our comprehension – and for that we are thankful.

This message can be found throughout each chapter of Jonah. In the first chapter, we get to see how Jonah cannot bear to bring the word of the Lord to his enemies, the Ninevites, and so he tries to escape the will of God for his life by getting on a boat that is going in the opposite direction from Nineveh. But God pursues Jonah, not
with wrath, but with conviction (!), and ultimately provides an out for both Jonah and the sailors who became unwitting accomplices to Jonah’s ill-fated scheme of getting thrown out of the boat to keep it from capsizing. The Psalm that Jonah prays in Chapter 2 reflects his recognition of God’s salvation, and of course Jonah is saved from the belly of the fish, allowing him another chance to show his obedience and trust in God.
In Chapter 3, the narrator lets us see that even the Ninevites can be awakened to the word of God, even when that word is coming from the likes of Jonah, who really hopes they will not repent. We see that God does accept a contrite heart, and that salvation, even of the Ninevites, belongs to the Lord. And Chapter 4, which we just heard, which at first is so confusing, becomes a lovely, personal, one on one dialogue and teaching moment between God and Jonah. As we hear Jonah focus on his personal plight, vent his frustration
with God, and settle himself into a front row seat to watch for Nineveh’s destruction, God does not thunder at Jonah, but asks him gentle questions, all the while giving him
relief through the shade of the plant, and then using the removal of the plant and the other actions and
questions as a living parable about God’s loving kindness, compassion, power and might, and the use of God’s power to reconcile all people to God.

Jesus’ parable is saying the same thing about God’s mercy, and as usual, he gives it to us in a way that, frankly, makes us uncomfortable.

This landowner goes out in the morning and selects workers for the day’s harvest work, promising to pay them fairly. Then, in a way that is strange for a landowner to do, he goes back out at noon, sees how many workers are still there, and tells some more to come back with him and work for the rest of the day. And then he goes and does it again, in the afternoon, and finally once more, late in the day, expressing his wonder at why these last workers have not yet gone off to work somewhere? And when they tell him nobody hired them, well, he brings them back with him too and puts them to work for the last hour of daylight.

Before we even get to talking about how they get all paid at the end of the day, there is already something unusual or atypical in the story that is worth pointing out.

It’s very strange to have the landowner going out multiple times a day to hire day workers. Usually all of that would be delegated to the manager. But for whatever reason, the landowner made the first trip. And when Jesus tells us that he continues to go out to the marketplace, over and over, this becomes a point of interpretation that has received much attention by theologians. Kenneth Bailey, who spent much of his life in the Middle East, wrote a beautiful book about the parables of Jesus, and he gives this parable a different name than what it is typically called. Rather than calling it “The Laborers in the Vineyard”, he names this parable “The Compassionate Landowner”. In doing so, he is helping us shine the light on what this parable tells us about the character of God. Just like in Jonah. God’s fairness is the kind that tends to make us shake our heads, and even question how it can really be considered fair. The second half of this parable is where this really gets uncomfortable for us.

Because whatever the reason that the landowner decided to hire all the workers that he found, what are we to think about the way the manager handles their payment at the end of the day?

The ones who came last, who worked the least, are paid first, and they get the “usual daily wage”. And so on, each group is paid, all the way up to the first ones, who have been running calculations in their head the whole time they are standing there in line, and figuring out what they should be getting if those 1-hour guys got the usual. But, as it turns out, each set of workers gets the usual daily wage.

So the guys who got hired first, they are grumbling about this, and they take their complaints to the landowner. And they say “you made those one-hour guys equal to us, after we worked all day in the scorching heat. How is this fair?”

Now, are any of us hearing this and shaking our heads, saying, “I can’t believe what those all-day guys are saying”? No – because this is the way we all understand how things are supposed to work, right? The truth is, we see the world as being all about getting what you earn.

But the kingdom of God turns that upside down, because grace cannot be earned.
And so, the landowner responds gently to these grumbling workers, saying “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree to the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go. Don’t cause trouble about what I choose to give to the others. Isn’t it mine to do as I choose? Or are you envious because I am generous? (The more accurate Greek translation of this sentence is “Is your eye evil because I am good?”). Envy was often described as “the evil eye”, the way we look at others when we are envious of them. “Is your eye evil because I am generous, I am good?”

The problem that the all-day workers are having is the same problem that Jonah is having. When God calls Jonah the prophet to go tell Nineveh to repent, he detests Nineveh so much that he would rather go to the other end of the earth than have anything to do with them. But when God continues to “pin him down”, so to speak, or to “hem him in”, not letting him escape but giving him another chance to do what God has asked him to do, he goes, walking about a third of the way across Nineveh and saying “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And then, the thing is, Nineveh responds! The people of Nineveh proclaim a fast, and put on sackcloth. Even the king of Nineveh takes off his royal robe, covers himself in sackcloth, and sits in ashes. He proclaims a fast for all people and all animals. Even the cows put on sackcloth and fast from food and water.
And – what do you know?

God sees them turn from their evil ways, and he relents, and changes his mind, and decides not to overthrow Nineveh.

And Jonah’s response, which is told in the last chapter, is to get totally frustrated with God’s nature, “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”, and so he marches up to the top of a hill, and sits down, determined to watch and hoping that Nineveh will be destroyed. But God not only saves Nineveh, but God teaches Jonah about his love, first growing a shade plant for him, then killing the plant. He says to Jonah, “are you angry because I killed the plant? How much more should I care for the people of Nineveh, one hundred twenty thousand people who have lost their way, and even their cows, than you care for that plant?”
God is saying, are you envious because I am generous with my grace? Is your eye evil, Jonah, because I am good?

And there the story ends, leaving us to ponder the outcome.

And Jesus also leaves us with the question from the landowner – “are you envious because I am generous?” and this conclusion – The last will be first, and the first will be last.

Again, we are faced with the paradox that is the kingdom of God – we do not earn God’s favor. There is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less. That is amazing grace for us – and it is also amazing grace, for those whom we define as “undeserving”. God doesn’t use our definition. God is love, loving us all, and calling on us to love one another, suspending judgment on the other, letting God be “slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love”. Thank God for that mercy, for it is by that mercy that we are all saved!

Paybacks

Romans 14:1-12

Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions.

Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables.

Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them.

Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds.

Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God.

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.

If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.

For it is written, "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God."

So then, each of us will be accountable to God.

Matthew 18:21-35

Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?"

Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

"For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.

When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made.

So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.'

And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.

But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, 'Pay what you owe.'

Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you.'

But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt.

When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place.

Then his lord summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.

Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?'

And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.

So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

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When Jesus taught in parables, he was not telling stories of things that had actually happened, that he had just happened to see taking place at some point in the past. He was telling fictional stories that he used to make a point. And so it was not unusual for these stories to include extremes, hyperbole that would capture people’s attention, make them realize there was a lesson to be learned, a reason for the extreme, the exaggeration. And the use of exaggeration is definitely part of this parable, which is considered to be one of the most challenging teachings of Jesus. When we read it, we don’t immediately recognize the exaggeration, because the units of currency mentioned here are not anything that we are familiar with. But the amount this slave owed the king was equal to 150,000 years of annual earnings. If this was written today, it might go something like this:

One day a man opened up a letter from the IRS and read, to his utter shock and horror, that he owed the government $15 billion dollars.

And the king initially has no mercy for this slave, but intends to sell him and his whole family as well as all his possessions. This is bankruptcy with no opportunity to ever start over. This family’s life together is done. And of course what the king will receive for selling all this is not even a drop in the bucket compared to what is owed.

Naturally the slave tries to keep this from happening, but the promise he makes to pay back everything he owes is, frankly, ridiculous, because everyone listening to this story knows that he could never make a dent in that sort of debt.

So in this story we already have three aspects of it that are outrageous to the listener – the amount the slave owes the king, the payback that the king has demanded, and the promise of the slave to pay it all back. All ridiculous.

And then….drum roll… comes the most ridiculous thing of all. The king says, never mind, just forget it, forget the entire debt. You owe me – NOTHING.

Well, if the slave was shocked before, when he heard what he owed, that was nothing compared to the shock and disbelief he must have been feeling when this order came down from on high. Forget about it. I forgive you this entire debt. The whole thing.

Now, you know those times when Jesus said to someone, your sins are forgiven; now go and do likewise?  Well, that seems to be what the king had in mind, at least in the way Jesus is telling the story. Because what happens next is just as important as what has already happened.

The slave goes out, and runs into another slave who owed him money – much less than what he owed the king, but a decent sum nevertheless – one hundred denarii, or about three months labor. He asks for the money, just as the king did of him. The second slave uses the same words that the first slave had spoken to the king – be patient with me, please, and I will pay you back. And in this case it is actually possible that he could do just that. But the first slave shows no mercy, and orders the second slave to be thrown into prison. And when the king learns about this, it is this failing of the first slave that becomes the tipping point for the king. And he orders this one whom he has just forgiven, to whom he has just shown mercy, to be tortured until he can pay the entire debt. Which, of course, is many, many lifetimes from now. An eternity, essentially.

It seems that the matter of paybacks makes more sense to us than radical mercy or forgiveness. We can calculate “an eye for an eye” or “a tooth for a tooth”. When someone hurts us, we tend to come back, over and over, to how they really ought to pay for what they’ve done. A spouse cheats on us, or someone damages our property or steals from us or injures us, and we want them to pay, not just to make us whole, but to be sure they suffer the way they made us suffer. This makes sense to us. When we think about forgiveness, or mercy, in our minds it translates to “them getting away with it, when they don’t deserve it”. 

Artist, author and Methodist minister Jan Richardson wrote this week in a post called “The Hardest Blessing” about the myths of forgiveness that many of us have absorbed:

·      “That forgiveness means excusing or overlooking the harm that has been done to us and saying that everything is OK.

·      – Forgiveness means allowing those who have hurt us to persist in their behavior.

·      – Forgiving requires forgetting what has happened.

·      – Forgiveness is something we can do at will, and always all at once.

She goes on to say,

“If we have absorbed any of these distorted beliefs about forgiveness, it can come as both a shock and a relief to learn that such ideas would be foreign to Jesus. Clearly he expects us—requires us—to forgive. Yet in his teaching about forgiveness, nowhere does Jesus lay upon us the kinds of burdens we have often placed upon ourselves—burdens that can make one of the most difficult spiritual practices nearly impossible.

The heart of forgiveness is not to be found in excusing harm or allowing it to go unchecked. It is to be found, rather, in choosing to say that although our wounds will change us, we will not allow them to forever define us. Forgiveness does not ask us to forget the wrong done to us but instead to resist the ways it seeks to get its poisonous hooks in us. Forgiveness asks us to acknowledge and reckon with the damage so that we will not live forever in its grip.”

Living forever in the grip of the damage that has been done to us is the real and unending torture that comes from insisting on payback rather than forgiving, as Jesus describes the punishment of the first slave when he is not able to forgive the second slave, to show mercy.

Jesus uses this parable to help Peter understand why forgiving does not end after seven times, but seven times seventy. He uses it to remind us that we are called to forgive our brother or sister from our heart, sincerely and completely.

Jesus gave us words in the Lord’s Prayer to explain this – forgive us our debts, trespasses, sins, as we forgive our debtors, those who trespass or sin against us. We ask God to forgive us just the same as we forgive others. It is incumbent on us to forgive others because God has forgiven us.

Jesus spoke words from the cross that also reflect this – “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” With an offense as horrendous as the crucifixion of God Incarnate, Jesus still says, Father, forgive them. No paybacks. Just mercy.

We love, because God first loved us. We forgive others because we have been forgiven. And the debt or sin we have been forgiven is as extreme, as outrageous, so big as the description of the slaves incredibly large debt. We have been forgiven the sins that would have led to death. We have been saved from death by forgiveness, by mercy. And all we are asked to do is to love and forgive others, all others, as we have been loved and forgiven. Paul’s words from our passage last week were “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” He uses words of debt and payback. This week he says “Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.”

It is up to God to judge. It is up to us to seek to forgive and to love, even our enemies. In a season where we remember the terrorist acts of 9/11, where we grieve the brutal deaths of so many innocent people at the hands of ISIS, this is indeed a hard lesson, a hard teaching indeed from Jesus. But as C.S. Lewis wrote, “to be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”

So this is the payback to which we are called, individually and as a community – to forgive as you are forgiven, as we are forgiven.

I will close using the words of David Lose, professor at Lutheran Seminary,

"This Sunday we remember the events of September 11 … when four hijacked airplanes wreaked such destruction and woe. But we will also remember the events of 2000 years ago, when God's own Son, surveying a field of broken lives and desolate hearts, chose to call down from heaven forgiveness, not vengeance, and in this way opened a future marked not by judgment but by mercy, not by calculations but trust, not by despair but hope, not by fear but courage, not by violence but healing, not by scarcity but abundance, not by hate but love, and not by death but by new life. That's what forgiveness can do. May God give to all of us a palpable sense of the forgiveness in which -- and by which -- we live and grant us the faith and courage to walk into the future such forgiveness creates.” 

Sources:

http://paintedprayerbook.com/2014/09/09/the-hardest-blessing/#.VBXQflzvbnc

http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1595

Compassionate Conversations in Christian Community

Romans 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.

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."

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Will Campbell was a white Southern Baptist preacher born in the 1920s and raised in Mississippi. His life’s calling was racial reconciliation. He was one of the closest friends of the young Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and he was the only white person present at the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that led the charge for civil rights in America. The day that nine black school children walked through hostile crowds to integrate the public school system in Little Rock, Arkansas, Will Campbell was one of four people at their side.

I’m telling you about him today, using  information from Sojourners Magazine written at the time of his death in 2013, 

because Will Campbell is the best example I know of someone who understood the need for compassionate conversation, even in conflict, even with the enemy. You see, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, this man who spent his ministry to help win freedom for blacks did something that no one could have imagined. He chose to redirect his ministry to those who were considered the new lepers of society, the defeated hooded enemies of integration, the Ku Klux Klan. He became known as the chaplain to the KKK. He marched at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and once the law was changed, he turned his ministry to sipping whiskey with the good Ol’ Boys on the front porches of the Ku Klux Klan. (Source: http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/06/06/remembering-will-campbell)

Our passage from Romans today has Paul interpreting, or explaining, Jesus’ commandment to love your neighbor. He considers that commandment to be the summary of the second set of the ten commandments. The first four of the ten commandments are all about how we are to love God. The last six are about how we are to love our neighbors. And since Jesus used a parable to define our neighbor as anyone with whom we interact, this means that we are called to love anyone with whom we interact. 

According to Paul, it’s the only thing we are obligated to do - it’s all we owe. “Owe no one anything except to love one another.”

And this is not the greeting card kind of love that Paul is talking about. It’s the love that is shown in how we treat others.

Paul says we are to live honorably, as in the day, stepping aside from the works of darkness and putting on the armor of light, putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. 

And what are the works of darkness? In today’s language of the Common English Bible, Paul’s list of things that disappoint God 

include partying and getting drunk, sleeping around and obscene behavior, fighting and obsession. 

All these are self-absorbed, self-gratifying behaviors; seeking one’s own pleasure, regardless of the harm it does to others, and trying to be better than, stronger than, richer or more important than others.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives us a more excellent way than quarreling or fighting, a way to love our neighbors even when they sin against us. Even when we might think there should be an exception made to this rule about loving our neighbors, loving our enemies. Jesus does not provide a way out for us.

This passage is part of a section where Matthew is listing the things Jesus has said that can help in the life of the church. It comes right after Jesus tells the disciples that prominent leaders, to be great, should be like little children. Then he tells them not to be a stumbling block to anyone’s faith. He tells them how, if one lamb goes astray, the shepherd will leave the other 99 and go search for the one, and rejoice when it is found.

And then comes this passage, about how not to lose anyone who is sinning against their brother or sister. About how exclusion or removal is not what Jesus desires for the sinner. And so we are given a series of ways to reach out individually to the brother or sister who has sinned against us, to have a compassionate conversation, in keeping with Christian community.

First, if you have been sinned against by a brother or sister in faith, you are to go to them, in private, trying to avoid embarrassment or shame for the offender, to try to reconcile. 

It’s not enough to wait for the offender to see the error of their ways. The one who has been hurt by another is called upon to begin the healing process. 

If this does not work, then try again, but bring two or three others along with you. This comes from Jewish tradition, and is mentioned in the book of Deuteronomy, although the purpose here is not to provide witnesses for the defense, but rather to validate the conversation, or to add support to the words of reconciliation being brought to the offender by the offended.

If that doesn't work, then tell the church, and if your brother or sister won’t listen to the church, then let them be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.

The really interesting thing about this verse is the way Matthew describes Jesus as saying, “if they still won’t listen, then let them be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector”.Now first of all, Matthew himself had been a tax collector. So that is sort of interesting…..

But when we stop and think about how Jesus treated Gentiles and tax collectors, we know that they also receive mercy upon mercy, grace upon grace. So even this is not a basis for excluding someone.  It does not mean, “three strikes, you’re out”. In fact, in the Message by Eugene Peterson, he translates this verse as: “If your brother won’t listen to the church, you’ll have to start over from scratch, confront him with the need for repentance, and offer again God’s forgiving love.”

It’s a do loop. A redemption cycle, not a vicious cycle. And it keeps circling around until the forgiveness cycle takes hold. This is why, in the very next verse, Peter asks Jesus for clarification. He says, “how many times do we have to forgive, Jesus? Like, seven times?  That must be enough, isn’t it? And Jesus says, try seven times seventy. Try so many times you lose count. Just keep doing it.

We have been through a lot of challenging times here over the past three years. Sometimes it has seemed that we just could not bridge the gap, to understand one another across the campuses, to really walk in one anothers’ shoes. And yet, in twos and threes, in small groups and large, and even as a whole congregation, you have kept on coming together, kept trying to learn the language of love and reconciliation and forgiveness, tried to get past the hurts and offenses along the way. 

You have kept on trying to walk in the light, to respond to the obligation to love one another, to go around and around as many times as it takes until we speak to and hear from one another with the language of love. 

We don’t always get it right. 

But we keep on trying. 

And when we do, in twos and threes, seeking agreement and reconciliation, Christ is right there with us, all the way. God is pleased when we try to live by the rule of love, the rule of Christ. Indeed, these verses have been called the rule of Christ, because they redefine the goals of confrontation or intervention, in seeking to rescue and forgive, and to offer care in a spirit of humility.

You are showing yourselves to be capable of living by this rule of Christ. And this is what makes us the church, makes us the body of Christ along with the church universal.

This is the Good News of the gospel, that even through conflict 

we model a new way to the world, we model for the world how to bind and loose one another appropriately, how to love one another even in the midst of hurt and sin and disagreement, 

how to keep practicing forgiveness and resurrection, reflecting the love of Christ not only to our friends, or to those with whom we sympathize, but with everyone we encounter, all the days of our lives. 

This is the kingdom of God, the new covenant,here in our midst. We are sealed in it through our baptism, and we are renewed in it through the bread and the cup, the Eucharist, the great Thanksgiving. Thanks be to God!