Pentecost 15

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Pentecost 15
PROPER: 18 A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: September 5, 1999

TEXT: Matthew 18:15-20 = Conflict Resolution
"For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."

ISSUE: This passage would indicate that the early church had to deal with significant conflict. Conflict was a significant part of the Middle Eastern cultural structure. At one point there is the call to treat unrepentant sinners as Gentiles and tax collectors. Yet Jesus himself both ate and associated with Gentiles and tax collectors, and advocated forgiveness seventy times seven. The passage reveals the tension between having to stand up for justice, and yet doing so with great interpersonal compassion. Struggling with issues will be as much of being Christian as taking up the cross. The passage also reminds us of the constant presence of Jesus Christ with us, and we live ourlives with his presence in mind.
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Today's passage of Scripture from Matthew might be described as a hard nut to crack. It appears to be a statement by Matthew about how people might deal with conflict. It gives a formula for dealing with disputes. However, at the end if the dispute cannot be resolved according to the formula than the offending persons is to be treated as a Gentile or tax collector. They are to be excommunicated and a declared an outcast. What is peculiar, however, is that Jesus had a relatively strong affection for Gentiles and tax collectors, even in Matthew's account of the Gospel. This is not a particularly easy passage to interpret. Yet, to have some idea of the culture of the period is helpful.
In Jesus' time conflict was a significant part of the culture. There was a lot of feuding that went on. It was a culture where the highest value was a person's honor. To have someone diminish your honor by name calling, or gossip, or by not giving appropriate status were insults. The use of dishonorable actions or words against another person was what it meant "to sin" against them. It was then appropriate if not expected that the offended person would attempt to defend their honor and maintain their status. This defensive action could lead to perpetual feuding, violence, blood shed.
For the early Christians, and for the early fledgling church community that was struggling to survive in the midst of a hostile environment where they were accused and persecuted, it was very important that they have within the community ways for resolving conflicts among fellow Christians who were referred to as brothers. Here are some of the kinds of things that had developed along the lines of preventing bloodshed and perpetual feuding within the group.
1. Jesus himself was known to fume and threaten but did not take any violent action. In Matthew 11:20-24, Jesus is in the town of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Caperanum where Jesus performs a number of miracles he is met with unbelief, or disloyalty. His honor is threatened, and he declares that God's judgment will come down upon them. Jesus fumes and threatens that it will be better for evil Sodom on the day of judgment than for these ungrateful and dishonoring towns. There is threat but no action on Jesus' part. Ventilating anger had its value then as now.
2. Jesus also taught in Matthew 5:38-41 that if someone insults you or slaps you on the cheek, it was better to turn the other cheek. If someone takes you to court to sue for your shirt, give him your coat as well. If the Roman military wants you to carry their pack for a mile, carry it two miles. Rather than continue in perpetual agitation, violence, and feuding, it was thought better to take a more pacifist role. All this seems to be an effort in the teaching of the early church to bring an end to the perpetual violence of the time.
In this agonistic (feuding) culture, it was certainly likely that the early church made up of human beings would not escape contention. Moments of dishonoring one another were likely to happen. Thus, a formula for settling such disputes was instituted:
A. If you felt someone had sinned against you, dishonored or insulted you, you were to go to that person and talk it over. The issue was to be dealt with privately. To make a public issue of an insult was much more likely to lead to the violence that came from having to save face in public. If the alleged dishonoring could take place in private no one loses face publicly. Such incidents may well have been unintentional or simply a mistake. Keeping the Christian community in tact was a high priority.
B. More help is spelled out. If you cannot settle some dispute private, then you call witnesses. You take two or three other people who witnessed the situation. The role of witnesses was very important in the ancient world. Rmember the commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor. If a witness was caught lying, they were to receive the same penalty of the accused person. Witnesses had a lot of clout. If you could not settle issues alone, then you would be expected to honor the testimony and recommendations of the witnesses for settling the dispute.
C. If the dispute were still not settled, you called on the gathering of the whole church, which would have the final say, and there was no further recourse. The final say of the community would be binding. What was decided by the church gathered in community would be binding and respected in God's heaven, the Kingdom, God's domain. And if the accused person would not be respectful of the church's decision and recommendation then that person was excommunicated, thrown-out, treated as a Gentiles and tax collectors were treated by Jewish communities of the time. They were shunned, and considered outcasts. In this time that was a very serious penalty. It was essentially a death penalty. You could not survive in that world without a family or community support system.
The passage gives us a clear indication that the early church was desperate for being an agent of reconciliation. Where two or three are gathered, Jesus Christ is there. It is as if the Christ who calls for turning the cheek, giving more than is demanded, and who calls for walking the extra mile is present always with the church and its members calling them into negotiation and reconciliation. "Blessed are the peacemakers, God calls them his children." (Matt. 5:9)
This Jesus, who is present when two or three are gathered together, is the same Lord who embraced the outcasts, the Gentiles and the tax collectors. Matthew was one of those tax collectors who becomes a disciple. Jesus converses with and heals the Roman soldier's servant. (Matt. 8:5-13) Jesus converses with and restores the Canaanite woman's demonic daughter. He responded to the mother's plea: "Yet even the dogs gather up the crumbs from the master's table." (Matt. 15:21-28) What we seem to have here is the need for the early church members to be disciplined enough to respect the means by which judgments are made for the purpose of reconciliation, and for the stands it must make to maintain its identity as a Christian community. At the same time, Jesus immersed the church in a sense of, or heightned the value, of being a negotiating, gracious, and compassionate community.
In our world and our time we are not always as gracious in our deliberations with one another as we might be. We are not as respectful of the community as in times past. Graffitti in public places, road rage, violence against one another are symptoms of our time. We are individualistic and are often set in what we believe. One of little childrens' first sentences is, "Make me!" People of differing persuasions simply walk out on one another and discount one another. This kind of acting-out occurs in marriages, families, and other friendly relationships.
Even the church today does not deal well with the issues of conflict. We are not always particularly good listeners to the prophets among us who call for justice. We get locked into a rigid way of thinking that compounds violence and unhappiness. American Christians absorb pop-culture. The banners we fly say: "I'll got it alone." or "I gotta be me." or "Do it my way." or "See if I care." If we feel uncomfortable about what happens in one church community, we just pick up and go to another church. At that rate nothing is ever resolved, and the Christian community in the world doesn't look any different than anything or anybody else. It becomes absorbed by the world's indifference, and appears fractured, weak, and without clear authority that gives meaning and hope for an already disheveled, violent, and dishonoring world.
We might keep in mind the words of an old hymn: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." ("Once to Every Man and Nation" - Hymnal 1940, #519) Christians have a responsibility to stand for justice and what is right. That has always been the prophets work, and Jesus was himself a prophet. The church shares in that role. At the same time we must always be aware that what was sometimes considered acceptable and right in one age becomes dated and inappropriate in modern ages, and our understanding of what is truly Christian is altered. Take for instance the way in which women and slavery have been regarded in ages past. New enlightenments do come.
The early church knew only to well that there would be conflict. The Book of Acts speaks of conflict, especially between Paul and Peter. We know conflict still exists today in the church, but the formula of the church calls for negotiation. The church stands for certain things, which we believe to be in keeping with standards from ancient times. We need to stand up for them. We have to make a stand on certain issues. That is sometimes very tough to do. Why there was not more of stand taken by the church in Nazi Germany when Hitler came to power is questioned today. There were those that did, but it was done by a small minority easily extinguished by the Reich. The church was slow to stand up to Governor Wallace of Alabama, and against racism in general, and Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia. Sometimes the church in the world misses its prophetic calling for standing for justice. We are slow today to address violence and gun control in our time.
At still other times we do face uncomfortable issues that create tensions. We face litugical issues like changing Prayer Books. We face issue of the place of women in the church and in the ordained ministry. Much more needs to be done around strengthening marriages and families. The issue around the gay and lesbian issue creates heated debate and conflict for the church.
Sometimes the church has to take a strong stand, and we're not always comfortable with that. Conflict, however, is not to be avoided. It is to be entered into with negotiation, and testimony, with people witnessing, and entering into prolonged debate. At times the church must make its clear decision on issues that either appear or at odds with the world, and at odds with what we as individual think and believe. But we are called upon to be constantly alert to being reconciling. We are called upon to respect the judgments and deliberations of the councils of the church, and we are to remain forever compassionate, open, understanding, as Christ himself was and is. At all costs we need to avoid bigotry, and a self-righteousness that is all consuming, closed, and without sensitive listening, problem solving, and compromise.
Our belief, as we find it in the Scripture, is that Christ is with us whenever the community is gathered, and in whatever conflicts we may face. Christ is there bearing witness to his own suffering, to his own conflict, to his longing for what what just and right in his ministry. He is there with his great compassion and understanding. Last week, we learned that we needed to take up our cross and follow him. We sometimes have to die to our old ways in order tyo truly live with Christ a meaningful existence. For the Christian there is no giving up of the cross. At the same time there is no giving up the struggles, the conflicts in our lives and in the life of the church. We persist in negotiating, listening, witnessing, and being compassionate. We prevail in being forever reconciling, as Christ himself was the great reconciler in the early church as well as in the church of today.