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!
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