Sermon

Article 14 and Matthew 18 in 2014

September 07, 2014
Matthew 18:15-20
Speaker:

When I turned to the lectionary for this week and saw that the gospel is this text from Matthew 18 I wanted to laugh, and scream, and cry. Really? The last meeting of the Reconciliation Discernment Committee was a week ago and the very next Sunday we are given this text. Oh the irony.

This text from Matthew 18 is what propelled the complaint against our congregation and the process that followed. Eleven years ago this congregation was accused of sin by a pastor in the conference. (The sin was our membership practice.) We listened and shared our experiences, we were open to conversation after conversation with an ever-widening circle. We tried to follow the process as outlined in Matthew 18 but we here at Hyattsville Mennonite were unable and unwilling to call our membership practice a sin. After a vote where the conference delegates voted that yes, this congregation is sinning, the expectation was that we, the recalcitrant sinners, would become to the conference as gentiles and tax collectors. What does that mean?

When I read this passage I zoom in on the sin, or the process to name the sin and the sinner, the attempt to get the sinner to admit their wrong doing and change. My automatic reading of this text is not without reason. Mennonites have used this text for generations as a way to ferret out sin. It is codified in our most current Confession of Faith in Article 14 Discipline in the Church. Our best thinking in 1995 was to put it this way:

We believe that the practice of discipline in the church is a sign of God’s offer of forgiveness and transforming grace to believers who are moving away from faithful discipleship or who have been overtaken by sin. Discipline is intended to liberate erring brothers and sisters from sin, to enable them to return to a right relationship with God, and to restore them to fellowship in the church. It also gives integrity to the church’s witness and contributes to the credibility of the gospel message in the world.

That is only the first paragraph of Article 14, Discipline in the Church but so much of it troubles me, rings hollow and hostile, that I find it unhelpful to go any further with this line of thinking in Matthew 18.

And I credit you all for that. In this congregation I experience Matthew 18 so differently. It is a relief and an inspiration that in this congregation we don’t use the Matthew 18 methodology very often. It is already the habit for most of us to go to each other, to speak directly with each other before there is a crisis that demands that more and more people be brought into the process. It is a gift that we have developed a culture here where people speak their minds in direct and usually gentle ways.

It is not that we are perfect but we don’t immediately jump to the conclusion that something that makes us uncomfortable is sin. We don’t feel the need to change the behavior of other people if it is not disturbing order or safety. If something something puzzles us, troubles us or heaven forbid, angers us, we don’t automatically go talk about it with other people, and spread gossip. In fact, I once heard someone complain that we do not have enough gossip in this congregation. One person who had not been to church for a few Sundays felt like she couldn’t find out what was going on with people. No gossip.

Thank you my friends, thank you sisters and brothers, for treating each other respectfully, for talking with each other instead of about each other, for trusting each other, for knowing yourselves well enough to know when to speak and when to hold your tongue.

When you can’t hold your tongue, when you really do have to confront someone because you think they have sinned then, according to Matthew 18 you go talk directly to the person. If the person will not listen to you then you take one or two other people with you as you speak together.

It is important to remember that this process is not made up out of thin air by Jesus and the writer of Matthew.This business of taking someone with you when there is a problem comes right out of Jesus’ own Jewish tradition.  Deuteronomy 19 reads: A single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection with any offense that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained. Out of this Jewish law, we get the “Matthew 18 process. ”

We might look at this process as a way to use witnesses to catch someone in sin, even bully someone into admitting sin. Or we might take a step to the side. From another angle we might see that having two or three witnesses is a way to ensure that each person treats the other with respect.

Once we notice that two or three people are gathered as witnesses, we might take another step back and look to the end of these verses in Matthew. “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am among them.” Once again this goes back to the Jewish tradition. Reginald Fuller writes that there is an old rabbinic saying about the Torah: “If two or three sit together and the words of the Law are spoken between them, the Divine Presence rests between them.” (Reginald Fuller, “Matthew,” in Harper’s Bible Commentary, 1988, p 971.) For the readers of Matthew’s gospel Jesus is the new law that they speak of when they gather; Jesus’ divine presence is among them as they speak.

This week I was part of three different groups where conflict could have arisen, where we might have gathered to name sin and witness to sin. But instead these gatherings of “two or three” were not events to catch people in sin but opportunities to witness to God among us in the gathering.

On Wednesday I attended the monthly meeting of the Capital Area Anabaptist Network. This month it was a small group, eight pastors and MCC Washington office staff. We represent several conferences and various Anabaptist traditions. The spirit is present among us as we study the bible and pray together. After a vigorous bible study, the question was asked, “Shall we talk about sexuality in this group and the questions that are roiling Anabaptist churches?” As we talked the sense of the group was that we are not a group formed to witness to or call out sin in people or congregations. We are a group that gathers to witness God among us.

Thursday, Michelle and I drove to Hagerstown to meet with the Casselman Region pastors group of Allegheny Conference. The group meets five or six times a year to read the bible and pray together as well as to share what is happening personally and congregationally. This time we were only six people but we are promised that it only takes two or three for the spirit to be present. Despite our different understandings of scripture, our different theological language, our very different congregational contexts, we gather to witness God among us rather than to try and catch one another in sin.

Friday evening six people from this congregation were in Lancaster to meet with MC USA moderator Elizabeth Soto and executive director Ervin Stutzman.  We gathered so that Ervin and Elizabeth could listen to LGBT people and allies. We heard stories, pleas, wonderings, ideas. Some people came fearful of what might unfold, others came hopeful that finally their voices could be heard. We were many more than two or three. We gathered not to be witnesses to sin but to listen to each other.  And God was in our midst.

It may sound as if I am advocating that we avoid conflict and just have happy Jesus circles where we do not have any hard conversations. That is not quite it. I think we have tried avoiding the conflicts for many years in the conference, in the denomination. Avoidance doesn’t seem to work any better than finding the sin in another and gathering folks to witness to it.

So what are we to do? It seems to me, that while sin can show up anywhere, we are in a better position to talk with others about that sin, that perceived breach with God, when we already have a relationship with the person. And if that doesn’t work then we take several people that also know the person as we try to listen and hear each other. In other words, we work out this Matthew 18 process at the very local level, in the smallest circles possible.

And then if the person is not able to see what the others believe is sin, then the person becomes as a Gentile or tax collector to the gathered body. As Anabaptists we have interpreted this as shunning the person or shutting them out of the community. But that is not how we see Jesus relate to the Gentiles and tax collectors. Jesus ate with them, visited, healed and invited them to join the community of followers. The relationship was not cutoff; Jesus was always available to meet them where they were.

What would it look like to trust that sin will be named and dealt with as needed at the most local level, where people are known and loved, where witnesses are known and loved, and where we not only witness to the sin and sinner but also the work of God among the community.

What would it look like if in this season of our life as Mennonite Church USA, instead of looking to bolster cases against sin by bringing in witnesses, we gathered to be witnesses to the Christ among us, to witness how we – who are all sinners – are also the hands and feet of Christ in the world.

The rabbis tell us, Jesus tells us, that where two or three are gathered the Spirit of God is there, the Spirit of Jesus is there. Thank you God, that you are present in this gathering of Hyattsville Mennonite Church. Thank you that you are working in and among us, your broken and blessed gathered people.