Making Peace

 

Matthew 18:15-20

September 6, 2020

            It all started with a ham. People got angry. People made accusations. People left the church. Over a ham.

            I heard this story a long time ago about a congregation that ended up in a major conflict over a ham. Now I want to make the disclaimer that this was not a church I served, and I do not remember where or when I heard this story, or the person who shared it with me. So, to say that this is a fully accurate depiction of what happened would be false. However, I do know that a church conflict started over a ham. I have a good imagination, so combine that with the details I can piece together from my memory, and here is what I suspect happened.

            One committee in this church was responsible for providing the meal for special church dinners, whether it was a time of fellowship or for a dinner after a funeral. Serving on this committee was a couple who always provided a ham or hams for the meal, depending on how large the dinner needed to be. That was what this couple did. That is what this couple always did, and that was the way it was supposed to be. However, a new couple joined this committee, and they decided that maybe it was time to do something else besides ham. Maybe they could serve chicken tenders or a pork roast or, for the potential vegetarians in the mix, something that did not contain meat at all. Gasp!

            Well the new couple on this committee apparently did not realize that the established folks on the committee – specifically this couple – had a particular way of doing meals, and those meals always included ham. So, when the new couple questioned the serving of ham, the old couple who provided the ham got upset. They got angry.

How did they deal with their anger, you ask? Did they approach the new committee members and tell them that they were hurt and angry that they were left out of the decision making? Did they call for a private chat to express their concerns? Did they share their hurt feelings in a calm way, and ask if a compromise could be reached? If you think that the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you are sweet – you are naïve, but you are sweet.

            No, the ham couple did not approach the anything-else-but-ham couple and talk to them directly about their conflict. The ham couple did talk to people, though. They told the people in their Sunday school class. They talked to the people who shared a pew with them. They talked to other church friends out in the parking lot. They mentioned it to the youth pastor and the choir director. They told their neighbors about it. But they never talked directly to the new couple who wanted to do something different than ham. And the conflict over this escalated. Rumors flew. People chose sides. Resentment built. And eventually the new couple left. Why? Because people got angry and hurt over ham.

            Clearly there was more going on in this situation than ham. Standing outside of this situation and looking in, it is easy to see that the couple who got so angry did not how to deal with conflict. They certainly did not heed any of the advice Jesus to his disciples about conflict in our gospel passage this morning.

            Before we dig deeper into Jesus’ advice, I also want to acknowledge that I think this conflict over ham was ridiculous. How silly, how sad, that it reached the point that it did. But how many times have I been that ham couple? How many times have I been hurt or angry, and instead of dealing with the conflict directly, I made it worse by avoiding it? How many times have I refused to make peace, and made something small into something big? More times than I can count. Perhaps you have been the ham couple too.

            The good news of this passage is that Jesus knew ham couples and anything-than-other-than ham couples would all live in the community of faith. I realize there is irony in saying it that way because Jesus, the disciples, and most people who were in that early community with them were observant Jews who would have shied away from ham completely. But you understand my analogy. Jesus knew that conflict would arise. He seemed to have no allusions that people would live in pure peace and harmony with one another. So, Jesus offered them a way of dealing with conflict when it arose.

            First, if someone hurts you go to that person directly, privately. Do not make it a big deal in front of others right off the bat. Go to that person, talk to that person. Talk about what happened, talk honestly about the conflict. If that person hears you and believes you, then it is done. The conflict has been addressed, and the path has been laid for reconciliation. But, if the private addressing of the grievance does not work, then take one or two other people who can be witnesses. A note of caution at this point; often when churches have enacted this second step, it has not been so much about having impartial witnesses to a conflict between two people, but as a ganging up on the supposed sinner. I don’t believe that Jesus was suggesting the latter. I think Jesus adds this step so that the conflict will not devolve into a we said, they said mess.

            If the person who is at the heart of the conflict still does not listen or address the wrong done, then the matter needs to be taken to the church, the larger community of the faithful. Again, a note of caution. I do not see this as a trial by the church. There may be wrongs committed that ultimately require a trial, but I do not see that Jesus was saying that in this passage. And, let’s be honest, this is probably the most difficult thing for us in our contemporary context to hear. The idea of having a conflict brought before the whole church sounds awful. It would feel like a trial, even if it wasn’t intended to be one. But again, I do not believe that Jesus was urging the community to gang up on the offender – in twos, threes, twenties or more. He wanted his followers to understand that the way for the community, the beloved community, to be whole, healthy, and functional was to bring the conflict to the light. This was not about a verbal stoning, but an addressing of wrongs and a making of peace. And remember the ham conflict? That did eventually go to the whole church, but the way it did so was anything but healthy.

            But if making peace was the goal of these steps, this peacemaking outline, than why would Jesus then tell them that it does not work, if there is still no righting of the wrong, then not only let the person go, but let them be considered a Gentile or a tax collector.

            What do we hear when we read those words? What do we imagine or envision? Shunning? Cancel culture? And yet, think, think, about how Jesus treated Gentiles and tax collectors. Think about the people he reached out to and welcomed. Think about the people he sat at table with and broke bread with. Think about how he treated the people who were most marginalized, most despised. Think about his words of forgiveness even from the cross.

            I do not think this was about canceling another member of the community. I think that it was a recognition that even if the conflict is not resolved, the door is to be left open for reconciliation, for restoration, for peace.

            Before I end this, I want to point out one more thing. When I read this passage, I automatically put myself in the position of the person who has been sinned against. Rarely, do I want to consider the possibility that I might be the one who needs to be confronted with my own sins. If someone comes to me and tells me that I have hurt them, that I have sinned against them in word or deed, do I believe them? Do I apologize or do my best to right the wrong? I hope so. But I know there are times that I have not. That’s true for me. Maybe it is true for you. It is certainly true for other individuals, and for congregations, and for the Church with a capital C.

            Making peace is a two-way street. It is about not avoiding conflict in our interpersonal relationships, whether that conflict is at home, in our communities, our congregations, or our denomination. But it is also about realizing when we are at fault, when we are the ones who have done the hurting and even the sinning. The good news is that Jesus knew this would happen. The good news is that Jesus gave us a way out and a way forward and reminded all who would listen that it is not just about us, but about the kingdom of God in our midst and in heaven. What we do, how we live, how we treat one another, how we make peace, affects us here and in the hereafter. There is a ripple effect. So, may we be peace makers – whether it is over ham or something much bigger – and may our peacemaking reverberate across this whole world, because people who can make peace are needed now more than ever.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.” Amen.

Divine Things

 Matthew 16:21-28

August 30, 2020

            Failure of imagination.

It was the early days of NASA’s space program. The mission was Apollo 1, and astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were in the test module working through simulations. The air inside the module was pure oxygen and there was a spark. I understand little about science, but I understand enough to know that one small spark in an atmosphere of oxygen can result in fire. It did. Until the explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle, one of the most devastating tragedies of the space program was the horrific fire that claimed the lives of Grissom, White, and Chaffee.

Failure of imagination.

When astronaut Frank Borman testified in front of congress after this deadly fire, he told the congressmen who were questioning him that no one working for NASA had considered something so awful happening while the astronauts were on the ground. They had considered plenty of disasters that could happen in space. They had spent countless hours planning and preparing for any number of calamitous events in space. They had looked to the heavens and tried to imagine everything that might possibly go wrong up there. But on the ground? They had not considered that something this awful, this disastrous would happen while the astronauts were on the ground. It was a failure of imagination, Borman said. And that it was.

            The phrase “failure of imagination” has been used after other catastrophic events. It was spoken after the terrorist attacks of September 11^th. It was expressed after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It was voiced after the sinking of the Titanic. It would seem that the aftermath of a tragic event makes it clear how imaginations failed. It is hindsight employed after a catastrophe that reveals the multitude of forewarnings and red flags that were present to suggest that the catastrophe could very well occur. But before the catastrophe? There was a failure of imagination.

            Perhaps it is a failure of imagination on Peter’s part that makes him so upset with Jesus’ words about suffering, dying and resurrection that he pulls his rabbi, his teacher aside, and rebukes him for saying any of it.

            From building rock to stumbling block, Peter traverses at lightning speed the distance between being praised for his confession of Jesus’ true identity as Messiah to being rebuked by Jesus as the embodiment of Satan when he failed to get what Jesus was telling him about the true meaning of Messiah.

            Jesus is not just hinting at what may happen, possibly, if he continues on his current trajectory. Jesus is not speaking in riddles. Jesus is not giving the disciples clues to a word puzzle they must decipher. No, Jesus tells them plainly, from that time on that he must go to Jerusalem. Once in Jerusalem, he must undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and that suffering will lead to him being killed, and on the third day after he is killed, he will be raised.

            Say what?!

            Peter cannot believe what he is hearing! He has just told Jesus that he is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, and Jesus told him that he was correct. Jesus told him that God worked through Peter to reveal that truth. Jesus told him that he will be the rock on which his church will be built. But now Jesus is saying terrible things about going to Jerusalem and suffering and dying and something about rising again, which makes no sense, because dead is dead.

            It does not take a great deal of imagination to picture what Peter was thinking as Jesus said these words. I suspect that he heard a roaring sound in his ears, and waves of denial, then anger rushed over him. What Jesus is telling us cannot be true. What Jesus is telling us will not be true!

            No! No, Jesus! No, no, no, no, no!

            Stop saying these things. Stop saying these words. You are the Messiah. I just said it. I just confessed it. You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Did I say living God? Living not dying, not dead. The Messiah is not supposed to suffer. The Messiah is supposed to make our enemies suffer. The Messiah is not supposed to die. The Messiah is supposed to put our enemies, the ones who have oppressed us for so long to the sword. No, Jesus, no!

            “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

            But Jesus is not messing around, He is not playing games. He is not trying to make them guess what will happen next. He is trying to make them understand, to see, to imagine the full truth of what it means to really be the Messiah.

            “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.”

            From building rock to stumbling block. The Greek word for stumbling block is skandalon. It is a deadly snare, a moral trap. Can you hear the word in English that we get from this? Scandal. What Peter said was scandalous. Jesus rebukes Peter just as Peter rebuked him, and he calls him a skandalon. In his failure of imagination, Peter is not only something that will trip up others, he will serve as a deadly snare that will misdirect others to his wrong way of thinking. Peter can only see the human things. He cannot see the divine things. And in this instance, the divine things are what we as humans most dread: suffering and death.

            But this was not the end of Jesus’ rebuke. Listen, he told the disciples,

            “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?”

            This is finally where the rubber hits the road. This is finally where the disciples must come to grips with the fact that if they truly want to follow Jesus, if they truly want to learn from him and walk in his steps and witness to his message of the kingdom of God, then their fates are inextricably bound with his own. He will go to the cross and sacrifice his life for the children of God, and they are going to have to deny themselves and pick up their own crosses and do the same. You want to save your life, Jesus tells them, then you’ll end up losing it. But if you are willing to lose your life, you will end up having more life than you could have ever dreamed of. You could turn away from me now and gain the whole world, but in the end you will forfeit your everything. Can you imagine it? Can you imagine that these are the divine things I am speaking of?

Peter, the building rock, was focusing only on human things. He could not grasp that the Messiah had finally come, only to be told that the Messiah would ultimately die. He could not imagine that life would come from death, that resurrection would come from a cross. He could not imagine that in denying himself and picking up his cross, he would gain everything. In that moment, I suspect Peter, and the other disciples as well, experienced a failure of imagination.

Jesus was telling the disciples what the divine things were, what they looked like, what they meant, but the disciples could not imagine it. My question is, can we?

I admit that I get Peter this morning. I don’t want to hear words about death or denial or suffering. I don’t want to be reminded that in order to truly follow Jesus, I have to pick up my own cross and bear its weight. I just don’t. I want to hear about happy things and words that are filled with sweetness and light. But in wanting all of this, I also know that I am experiencing a failure of imagination.

This dramatic scene between Jesus and Peter and the other disciples is not the first time that Jesus has shown his true self. Jesus has been showing them his true nature all along. They have seen it in his healing of so many people, in his teaching and preaching, in his willingness to sit at table with people no respectable rabbi would ever dine with. They have seen it in his willingness to speak truth to power, and to buck the letter of the Law so that the spirit of the Law could be fulfilled. They have seen Jesus walk on water and still storms. These were not parlor tricks. These were not done just to get their attention. Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. And because Jesus is the Messiah, that means that everything he has said and everything he has done, and everything he will say and do, is about revealing what the divine things truly are. He has been stretching the disciples’ imagination all along. The kingdom is already here, in your midst, he’s told them. Can you imagine it?

The kingdom of God is not based on human values of success, it is based on love, God’s love. Love that is a verb not a noun. Love that does the hard work of truly loving others, even the ones who are the most other of all others possible. God’s kingdom is based on compassion and mindfulness and making sure that everyone is fed, and everyone has enough. God’s kingdom is where the meek and the poor and the mourning are blessed and loved and comforted.

Can you imagine it?

The kingdom of God is where both justice and mercy reign. It is where righteousness, not self-righteousness lives. The kingdom of God is not where the oppressors finally make room at the table for the oppressed, but where a whole new table is created for everyone. The kingdom of God is where the abundance of God and God’s love and grace and mercy is finally understood and realized.

Can you imagine it? Can we imagine it?

Jesus’ words are good news. Because they call us to imagine what the world might actually look like if we did what he said we must do: deny ourselves and pick up our crosses. Jesus calls us to imagine beyond the suffering and death, beyond our belief that the kingdom is only found on another plane of existence, and to see it right here and right now. Can we finally imagine these divine things? Can we imagine?

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.” Amen.