THE SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

September 7, 2008

Napa Valley Lutheran Church, Napa, CA                                             “GETTING ALONG”

David Hamilton, Pastor                                                                            Matthew 18:15-20

“God damn America!”  Well, that got your attention, didn’t it?  Those three words also got the attention of most of the United States last spring, when in the midst of the presidential primaries, video surfaced of Senator Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, shouting those words from his pulpit at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.  And it led to a question or two from some of you when we preachers here asked what you wanted to hear about in the sermons this summer.  We come to the last of those questions for the season today, which are these:  What’s with the seemingly hateful rhetoric you hear sometimes from preachers, especially those who hang around politicians?  And a second, more general, question related to the first – Why are Christians so often the meanest, most judgmental people around?

Ouch!  That seems like a mean, judgmental thing to say!  But seriously, my first reaction is a defensive one.  I want to say, wait a minute – we’re not any more “mean and judgmental” than your typical Democrat or Republican, or TV or radio talk show host, or newspaper columnist, or even the average person on the street.  Are we?  But then I think, “Well, maybe not – we’re not any worse; but are we any better?”  And shouldn’t we be better?  Well, I hope some of us are better than that.  But the second question reflects the stereotype with which we Christians live – that we may talk a lot about love and understanding, but we’re really all about judging and rejecting.  That’s what a lot of people outside the church would probably say – which is one reason why so many of the people outside the church have chosen to stay outside the church.

So I’m choosing to put aside my natural defensiveness over this question, and accept it at face value.  There is at least one person out there who has experienced the church as mean and judgmental, judging from the question; and I’m sure that there are many more who would agree.  So, let’s do some thinking about that issue this morning, and see what we might discover.

We have sort of an attitude – sort of an idealized picture - of what a Christian ought to be like.  I think for most Lutherans we could describe the attitude that we’re aiming for as “nice.”  We want to be nice people.  Someone recently described the Lutheran Church as “a nice person standing up in front of a room full of other nice people urging them to be… well, nice.”  And someone else suggests that in response to that, Jesus might say something like this:  “I didn’t go to all the trouble of dying on the cross just so people would be a little nicer.” 

Now don’t get me wrong - I have nothing against niceness, and I suspect that Jesus doesn’t, either – as far as it goes.  But there’s a deeper value embedded in our faith that could be called something like “truth-telling,” which transcends the value of niceness.  Now, fortunately, with a little training and practice, you can often work with both at once – telling the truth in a nice way – and maybe that would be the ideal.  I think they call that something like “diplomacy,” which some would say is a lost art.  And it sounds from the questions that were asked that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for the church as a whole, and for us individual Christians within it, to recapture something of that lost art of diplomacy – to be able to speak the truth, honestly and forthrightly, without unnecessary rudeness or offense.

But sometimes it’s the truth itself which is offensive to a person, no matter how politely and diplomatically it might be said.  This is part of what got Jesus nailed to a cross, that the truth he was telling was more than the folks with the power could stand to hear, even though he was generally not being mean when he said what he said.  The truth that power is to be used in service to God, and not in self-serving ways; the truth that God stands at the center of all life, and not any human institution or authority; the truth that idolatry is alive and well even among those who like to think of themselves as God’s chosen people – it was those sorts of truths that got Jesus in deep trouble with the powers-that-be.

To go back to Jeremiah Wright for a moment (and not to compare him to Jesus, of course!) – I don’t know the man, and I’ve only heard parts of three or four sermons out of what’s been a 35 year preaching career, so I know I’m not in any position to judge him, and I’m pretty sure you’re not, either.  I managed to find about eight minutes of his infamous “cursing America” sermon on YouTube – eight minutes out of what was apparently a forty-minute sermon.  And I know that what a person likes in preaching is sort of an individual taste, and preaching varies from culture to culture and church to church, and preachers are probably more sympathetic to each other’s trials and tribulations than congregations are – but all in all, the eight minutes I saw I thought were actually pretty good.  Oh, I would have phrased the ending a little different myself – I’m not all that big on cursing during worship.  But this is what it was – it was a sermon meant to speak a truth to the institutions of power - in this case, the United States government and the dominant culture – addressing the historic racism and violence that has been a tragic part of our 230 year history and, yes, still continues today.  As a sermon, it wasn’t particularly “nice” – and if “nice” is what you value in a sermon, than you probably wouldn’t have liked this one of his very much, not even if he’d managed to say it a little more diplomatically.  Speaking the truth can be a hard thing to do, and it can be a hard thing to have to listen to.

Now this isn’t to say that every preacher who spouts off on TV or calls news conferences is just “speaking the truth” as God has directed.  I suspect that most of them would say that’s what they’re doing.  But, truth be told, there are probably as many wind-bags in the pulpits of America as there are in the halls of government.   (Oops - was that judgmental and mean-spirited?)  But let’s be real – there are a lot of people who just like to hear the sound of their own voice, and what they have to say isn’t related to any thoughts that God has ever had or expressed.  This makes it difficult for us, of course, for three reasons:  one, a lot of what the culture hears from people who claim to be Christian is mean-spirited and judgmental, and so we all get tarred with that same brush.  “This is what all Christians are like,” some people say when they hear that kind of hatred and bigotry and ignorance and a self-righteous sort of judgmentalism coming from the mouths of those who claim to be following Jesus.  “And if this is what they’re like,” they say, “then I don’t want anything to do with them.”

The second problem this gives us is that it means we have to be careful ourselves about sorting through all the stuff that’s out there so that we don’t begin to accept some of that hatefulness and prejudice as the gospel truth.  We need to be able to tell when people are speaking the truth and when they’re just using Jesus to advance their own personal authority and agenda.  And that’s not always an easy thing to do.  And sometimes, after we’ve done the sorting the best we can, a third challenge arises for us.  Now we may be called upon to speak out against that distortion of our faith.  We might need to challenge the dominant culture and the institutions of power, and then – guess what – suddenly we’re being thought of as being judgmental and mean.

And so there’s a fourth challenge – for us to speak the truth in as loving and respectful a way as we can.  And that takes some doing, because, you know, we’re people – which means that some days we might do a better job of that than we do on other days.  I think even Jeremiah (and here I mean the one in the Old Testament; and not the one in Chicago) – probably sometimes went home after a long day of preaching and thought to himself, “You know, I could have said that a little better than I did.”  (I know I go home thinking that some Sundays.) 

And here’s where this morning’s reading can fit in.  Jesus is giving instruction about how to resolve conflict, about how to work toward reconciliation in relationships and in community.  We might be tempted to read this process as though it were instructions on how to get rid of difficult people from our lives or from our church.  It has almost a “three strikes and you’re out” sort of quality to it, if you read it fast enough.  Someone sins against you, so go tell them about it; then take along a couple of witnesses; then let the whole church know what awful thing the other person has done – and bingo!  It’s all over.  You did your part.  Too bad the other person couldn’t admit they were wrong.

If you read it that way, and apply it that way, no wonder people might think there’s a certain mean-spiritedness and judgmentalism in the Christian community.  But these aren’t instructions about how to get rid of a trouble-maker.  Just the opposite!  These are instructions about going the second mile, and then the third, and then even a few miles more, to try to resolve problems and restore broken relationships.  It’s about as practical as Jesus ever gets, I think.  If there’s a problem between two people, then the two people need to talk about it together.  And if they can’t resolve it on their own, then they need to bring in the help of a trusted friend, or a neutral third party - a listening ear.  And maybe ultimately it will take the whole community talking together to finally figure out how to bring forgiveness and reconciliation to this relationship that’s been broken.

It’s pretty simple, really – the instructions Jesus gives – and they work pretty well whether you’re dealing with a church, or a friendship, or a marriage, or a national debate about war and racism.  Number One:  You don’t talk about people; you talk to them – which means we’ll spend as least as much time listening as speaking.  Number two:  It’s not about assigning blame or winning out over the other person; it’s about restoring relationships.  Number Three:  Keep on trying, because healthy relationships and a healthy community need that kind of work, and healthy relationships and a healthy community are worth that kind of work.

Peter, bless him, recognizes right away that that kind of living is going to be the farthest thing from mean-spiritedness and judgmentalism.  And so he asks Jesus (this is in the verses that immediately follow our text) “How many times do I have to forgive, if someone keeps doing me wrong?  As many as seven times?”  You remember what Jesus’ answer was to that – “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven.”  If you feel moved to do the math, you haven’t caught the spirit of the thing.  It’s not a number you can count to and then be done; it’s a way of life we’re called to live.

OK, I admit it – it isn’t that easy.  Speaking the truth in an honest and respectful way is hard enough to challenge the most mature of Christians, and maybe that’s why the Church comes across as mean and judgmental sometimes.  I guess that’s why we say we’re “practicing” our faith.  And what a lot of practice it takes!

And so we give thanks for the gospel word at the heart of this lesson, that where two or three are gathered, practicing their faith, speaking and seeking the truth, offering forgiveness, working toward reconciliation - and even when they’re a little bit grumpy - Jesus is there, too, working, forgiving, restoring.  May our witness to the world be a witness to the love of God.

Amen.