Don Friesen
Alberta and Saskatchewan are experiencing a very dry summer, optimum conditions for fires to start, if enough grass could be found to start a fire! The story is told of a farmer whose grassland started on fire and who called the fire hall at the nearest small town for help, but the firefighters found the fire too big to handle. He called upon the rural volunteer firefighters to assist them, though he doubted they could help. The rural force was small and ill-equipped, and the farmer was even more discouraged when the rural force arrived in a dilapidated old fire truck. They drove the truck straight towards the fire, however, and didn't stop until they were in the middle of it. The volunteers jumped off the truck, started frantically spraying water in all directions, and soon had snuffed out the centre of the fire, thus breaking the blaze into two, more manageable parts.
Well, the farmer was so impressed with their work and so grateful that his farm had been spared that he presented the volunteer firefighters with a cheque for a thousand dollars! When asked by a local reporter what they planned to do with the funds, the captain of the volunteer fire department replied, "Well, the first thing we're gonna do is get the brakes fixed on that blasted fire truck!"
The volunteer fire fighters' rush to the rescue was not as heroic and well thought-out as it first appeared!
The Rush to Deal with Deviance
I'm reminded of this story when I hear today's gospel reading, for this text has often been used as a weapon in our rush to deal with deviance in our midst. Our gospel reading records some instructions from our Lord on how the church family should live together, especially when they disagree. Just like prairie fires, things get hot in the faith community from time to time; people flame each other, and get burned! That's to be expected. Jesus didn't seem all that surprised that this would happen, and in Matthew, chapter 18, he offers a three-step program for dealing with these situations. He would have stretched it to twelve steps, but three seemed quite sufficient.
The gist of his instructions is this: don't let these untoward experiences poison the life of the community. Don't let these personal, relational wounds fester! And, for goodness sakes, don't handle these situations so poorly that you make them worse! If something comes between any two of you that needs attention--if one of us has sinned against you--step #1, says Jesus, is to go talk about the problem one-on-one with that person. If that doesn't resolve things, then proceed to step #2. In step #2 you take a few other people with you and you talk some more. If that doesn't work, there's always step #3, which is to bring the matter before the whole congregation. Only if that doesn't work is a form of censure to be applied. If "the offender refuses to listen even to the church," says Jesus, "then let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector." (Matthew 18:17)
Now, I know that I've glossed over the nuances of this biblical procedure, but neither nuances nor the context of this text have ever kept the Church from modifying these steps according to its own satisfaction. In fact, we've often added a fourth step. Step #4 consists of maligning the other person in the Court of Common Gossip, and too often this step is substituted for step #1! Sometimes we've scrapped the three-step programme altogether, content to let grand inquisitors take care of the riff-raff among us in one step!
I would prefer the Church to be a disciplined church, much as an athlete submits to self-discipline in order to reach a goal. I'm less excited about the Church being a disciplining church, perhaps because I've been the recipient of such discipline. I was baptized at the age of fourteen, a rather young age, for it wasn't until the age of eighteen that I developed a few thoughts of my own! Just a few, mind you, but I grew fond of them and shared them in a letter to the editor of our national church paper. The editor of the paper did not share my fondness for these thoughts, and wrote me a two-page, single-spaced letter outlining, in great detail, my great folly! My own congregation didn't bother with a letter, asking, instead, that I appear before the church board to explain myself. It seemed to me an unfair contest--a teenage boy armed with but a few thoughts, appearing before twelve men--and they were all men--experienced men, for whom I was but snack-sized fodder for their discipline mill. It discouraged me from nurturing any more thoughts of my own, and I've had very few since then.
A former minister of this congregation had some thoughts about changing the nature of Mennonite worship. His reforms--carried out elsewhere first--met with great resistance, the most hurtful the reaction of his own Christian father, who refused to talk to him for two years!
We legitimate much discipline by telling those we are disciplining that it's for their own good. This is not to dismiss the function of helpful warnings. There would be no point having a fire alarm that operated silently so as not to disturb anyone. If I was heading toward the edge of a cliff, unaware of it, I would, no doubt, welcome your intervention. There are some circumstances in which we welcome intervention in our lives, but more often than not these interventions are nothing more than an intrusive rush to judgement!
It reminds me of a story I came across this summer about a married couple who decided to work on their disagreements by noting the causes of friction between them on slips of paper which they dropped in what they called two "Fault" boxes -- His-and-Hers. For a month daily irritations were duly noted, each of them dropping slips of paper in their own Fault Box. The wife diligently noted things such as "left the top off the jam jar," "wet towels left on the shower floor," "dirty socks not in hamper," and so on. The husband too deposited daily slips, and at the end of the month they exchanged boxes. The husband opened his box and reflected on the many things he had done wrong. And then the wife opened her box and began reading. On each slip of paper she took out were the words, "I love you!"
Now, call me cynical, but it doesn't take a Ph.D. in human relations to realize that this woman is living with either a fool, or with a sanctimonious jerk who will stop at nothing to gain the upper hand! Similar games are played in the church. At one church there was a young man who continually went around confronting anyone whom he thought was falling short of Christian standards. He berated you until you cried, "God, have mercy!" because the young man certainly had none. When his minister tried to temper this approach, the young man replied that each member of the church has a ministry, and his was the ministry of rebuke. It's not a ministry listed in any of the New Testament lists of spiritual gifts, but that seldom stops anyone fired with more zeal than knowledge. Ministers of rebuke are but one step away from the Saturday Night Live character who said, "I don't think God put me on this planet to judge others. I think God put me on this planet to gather specimens and take them back to my home planet."
Jesus Slowed down the Rush to Judgment
It is ironic, and moronic, that our passage in Matthew 18 has been used to rush to judgment, because its context suggests otherwise, and there are at least three indications of this. Firstly, Jesus takes the traditional wisdom about how to deal with deviance, and qualifies it. The emphasis is upon the restoration of the person who has done wrong. Jesus takes the usual approach to wrong-doing, or perceived wrong-doing, and stretches it out in the interests of due process. He inserts safeguards that will slow down any rash rush to judgment.
Secondly, Matthew sets Jesus' instructions in the context of several stories stressing compassion and forgiveness. Preceding Jesus' instructions is the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Matthew 18:10-14), a story of unlimited mercy and concern suggesting that we take extraordinary steps to restore the community member who goes astray. Following Jesus' instructions is the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:21-35), a story encouraging unlimited forgiveness. Matthew's context suggests that any corrective gesture or actions we undertake be done with great gentleness and love.
The third reason to decelerate our rush to judgment is Matthew's sense of humour. No doubt he chuckled to himself as he wrote Jesus' final instruction. "If the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector." (Matthew 18:17) Matthew was a tax collector, and was welcomed and accepted by Jesus. The conventional response to Gentiles and tax collectors was to treat them as inferior, as outsiders, outcasts! If you look at the Dead Sea Scrolls or the literature of other exclusive communities of the time, the ultimate punishment was to be treated like a Gentile or a tax collector, but that was not how Jesus treated Matthew!
Gathered in Love
I like Jesus' closing statement in his three-step instructions; he says, "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." (Matthew 18:20) The verb, "gather," sounds rather passive, but in a positive way. It too conveys a gentle approach. We get the sense that the one gathering us is not going to stoop to coercion to get us together. God is not going to hunt us down. God is a Gatherer rather than a Hunter, Francis Thompson's wonderful poem, "The Hound of Heaven," notwithstanding.
Gathering is a word and idea found often in the Scriptures. The Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah, spoke of the gathering of the saints for the messianic banquet! (Ezekiel 37:19) The prophet, Isaiah, wrote that God "will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep." (Isaiah 43:15). The prophet, Joel, wrote, "Gather the people... assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast." (Joel 2:16) "With great compassion I will gather you," says God, in Isaiah (54:7). Many people find the God of the Old Testament a rather menacing God, but even there God is a gathering God, a God whose impulse is to gather His faithful ones by appealing to that which draws them to Himself.
This Godly impulse is also evident in Jesus. He began his ministry, not by twisting the wrists of his disciples, but by drawing to himself those who found him so appealing that they left their careers to be with him. Jesus gathered crowds; he gathered disciples; he gathered children to his side and encouraged his disciples to be like them! And Jesus told stories depicting God as a Gatherer of prodigals, outcasts, tax-collectors, prostitutes, publicans, Samaritans, and sinners of every conceivable stripe!
The Apostle Paul encourages this same spirit when he says in our reading from Romans: "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 neighbour as yourself.'" (Romans 13:8-9)
Storyteller Bill Harley tells the story of a children's T-ball game he witnessed a few years ago. On one of the T-ball teams was a young girl named Tracy, who ran with a limp and couldn't hit the ball to save her life! On the occasion of her team's last game, Tracy did the unthinkable. She hit the ball! Tracy's coach began hollering for her to run the bases, and she landed on first base, only to be told to keep on running. She rounded second base, and the fans stood to their feet and cheered, urging Tracy to head home! As she neared third base, however, Tracy noticed an old dog that had loped onto the field and was sitting near the baseline between third plate and home. Moments away from her first home run, Tracy stopped, knelt in the dirt and hugged the dog. She never made it to home plate, but the fans cheered for her anyway. Love was more important than winning. ("All Things Considered," National Public Radio, July 11, 1995)
Similarly Jesus makes it clear that restoration of fellowship is more important than being right. Jesus' instructions in Matthew, chapter 18, were not intended for punitive purposes, but for restorative purposes. They were intended to restore love and harmony to a community. Christian fellowship was not designed to be a fellowship of denigration, whereby we gain friendship and intimacy with one person by denigrating another person in the community. Such a community soon destroys itself. Christian fellowship was designed to be a fellowship of love.
Why Do we Gather?
In some North American churches the Sunday after Labour Day is referred to as Gathering Sunday, and it may be helpful to reflect on why we gather together in this place. I think about it often, because not everyone among us is convinced that it's all that important to gather together. I thought I came upon a good idea a few years ago--yet another idea to call my own--when I came upon the idea that the church is one of the few places where you can sing together in wonderful four-part harmony! It occurred to me that the attractiveness of singing might convince someone whose motivation-to-gather needed a boost! Then last winter I discovered Rasputin's, a coffee-house type hole-in-the-wall on Bronson Avenue where Sacred Harp music lovers tend to congregate--and sing in wonderful, four-part harmony--and I thought to myself, "Who needs the church? I can sing here!" Yet another of my few ideas come to ruin.
We have wonderful music at our church and we are very fortunate to have so many good singers and talented musicians, carrying on a fine musical tradition--but music alone isn't reason enough to gather, are least in God's name.
A year from now, God willing, we will be meeting in a new building, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to having the choir sit a little further away from me. I'm looking forward to having enough room at the front so that when we dedicate babies, as we will in two weeks, we're not stepping all over choir members' toes! I'm looking forward to having enough seats for everyone, and a foyer that can accommodate our coffee time, and Sunday School rooms with more space and light! We're going to have a house of worship worthy of our congregational life, much like our homes are worthy of our family life. We have an exciting year ahead of us, and the building itself will no doubt draw more people to our congregational life--but you know as well as I that a family does not need a fantastic house to make it a home. Similarly, the physical house of God alone will not draw us together for long; our interest will begin to wane right about the time that the first mortgage payment comes due.
The church is not the building in which we gather, or the doctrines we expound when we gather, or the programs we run when gathered--the Church is those who have gathered! And if Christians don't gather, there is no church!
There are a variety of reasons to gather together. It may be that we want to mix with our own kind, whatever kind that may be. We gather to enjoy the company of people of the same background, people who understand us, who understand our jokes, our expressions, our language, our style of worship. There is comfort in that, but the history of our own tradition shows that whenever two or three like-minded people gather in God's name, they soon discover distinctions among themselves that become important enough to separate into two or more groups of like-minded people, one of which is even more like you than the other! Like-mindedness as a motivation to gather in God's name will neither sustain nor revitalize Christian community.
Sometimes a minority community--which active Christians are, increasingly--can find deep motivation in being against something, against the majority, in most cases. Our tradition has some experience in this as well. Recently I read a column in a paper founded by a Mennonite in which the author chided evangelicals for focussing on sexual sins, causing him to exclaim, "There's a lot of other things we're against!" (ChristianWeek, August, 2002) I agreed with him, especially when he cited the seven deadly sins, indicating that lust is but one of the seven, but his awkward way of expressing it made me realize that while being against something may fuel a movement for a while, it is incapable of providing an ongoing reason to gather as God's people.
If the community of faith is nothing more than a protest movement, however noble the cause, it will soon wither. Negative motivation does not provide a compelling reason to keep the church alive.
Over a century ago Robert Lowry was a pastor at a church in Brooklyn, and one afternoon, the weather oppressively hot--like today--Lowry laid down for a rest. He was exhausted, but his exhaustion didn't prevent his imagination from taking flight. He writes, "Visions of the future passed before me with startling vividness. The imagery of the apocalypse took the form of a tableau. Brightest of all were the throne, the heavenly river, and the gathering of the saints… (and) I began to wonder why ...hymn writers ...said so much about the "river of death" and so little about the "pure water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God...." As Lowry mused, the words to a hymn began to form, and we have this afternoon of imaginative musing to thank for the hymn, "Shall we Gather at the River?" (1864; #615, Hymnal: A Worship Book)
The hymn begins with enquiry: "Shall we gather?" A question answered by the resounding chorus, "Yes, we'll gather."
A positive image provides a much more compelling reason to gather than a negative one. Thomas Merton likened the nature of God's love to a gravitational force that draws us, that attracts us. The love of God is not a dominating or controlling spirit, but rather a creative, liberating, and enabling spirit and power.
Why do we gather? I think Jesus provides the answer in our gospel reading; "For where two or three...(gather) in my name, I am there among them." (Matthew 18:20) We gather together with some expectation that when we do Christ will be among us. We gather together expecting to meet God in our midst. We gather together believing that God enjoys our gatherings! God likes it when we get together!
We gather together to acknowledge our Creator, our Sustainer and Redeemer, but we also gather together because we are answering a deep, inner call to gather. We share a deep, inner summons to contemplate that which transcends our earthly existence. God summons us to see in the ordinariness of our existence the extraordinary hand of providence. God summons us, gathers us together to discern among the jumble of thoughts and activities in which we are engaged a pattern that is more enduring than today's meetings, or this week's classes, or this month's project--or even this life! God summons us to discover within flawed human beings that which is lovely, honourable, and of lasting beauty!
Our reading from the psalms gives expression to this irrepressible need to gather, saying to God, "Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. ... Confirm to your servant your promise, which is for those who fear you. Turn away the disgrace that I dread, for your ordinances are good. ...I have longed for your precepts...." (Psalm 119:35, 38-40)
We Gather Together to Ask the Lord's Blessing
We gather together, not to judge one another, but, in the words of another old hymn, to ask the Lord's blessing, for what are we but a bunch of spiritual beggars looking for bread with some fibre. What is Christian community but the community of the lost who have found their way home, and who gather together to find comfort, sustenance, loving companionship, redemption, and joy!
Lowry's hymn continues, giving comfort and hope:
As we gathered for worship this summer, I was moved deeply several times, as a number of you shared your faith in the face of various life experiences, some of them very difficult. In spite of suffering deep, deep personal losses, your faith shone through, sometimes in very few and modest words, but the economy of language served only to enhance the message.
We gather to nurture each other in the gifts and graces of new life in Christ; to hold each other to fidelities too fragile to be held alone. We gather together so that if afflicted, we will not be crushed; so that if perplexed, our sisters and brothers will keep us from being driven to despair; so that when struck down, we will not be destroyed.
We are at our best when we gather, not because we are captive to guilt or tradition, but because we are drawn to each other--drawn together by the One who draws all people to himself. We are gifts to each other, not to be presumed upon, not to be held onto, but to be treasured while God allows these earthen vessels to hold precious life.
I pray that in the year ahead of us each one of you will feel drawn to gather in Christian fellowship, and having gathered will leave each Sunday feeling uplifted, strengthened, and blessed by God. AMEN
"Shall we gather at the river,
Where bright angel feet have trod,
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing by the throne of God?"
"Yes, we'll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river;
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God."
Ere we reach the shining river,
Lay we every burden down;
Grace our spirits will deliver....
("Shall we Gather at the River?," #615, Hymnal: A Worship Book)
All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.