Jesus told his disciples, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Is there any better news for a small congregation than this? “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” We may be small, but there are way more than two or three of us here. We sitting at what, around thirty this morning? Jesus is here like fifteen times!
“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” What these words from Jesus tell us is an affirmation we were made for community; that we are made to be in community. That humanity was made for community is one of those awesome times where science and scripture meet. In the creation story, God said “It is not good that the man should be alone.” So God made man a partner, someone to be in community with. We read it in scripture, and it plays out in science. Study after study has found the health risks of loneliness are comparable to obesity, substance abuse, injury and violence, and environmental quality. Being alone can, quite literally, kill us.
We need community, we crave community, we were literally created in the image of God to be in community. But here’s the kicker, we’re human, so we’re kind of bad at it a lot of times. Sometimes it’s a simple miscommunication that leads to unintentionally hurt feelings, sometimes we’re tired or grumpy or upset, but sometimes we’re just straight up mean. This, sadly, is also affirmed for us by scripture. The bible tells us that God made two people, and they had two children, and one of the children killed the other one. Think about it. The story of Cain and Abel is a story about how there were exactly four people on the entire planet, and even then, they couldn’t get along. Now there are something in the neighborhood of seven point five billion people in the world, is it any wonder that we don’t seem to be very good at this whole living together thing?
It’s hard, being in relationship with each other is super hard! If you’ve ever had a spouse, or a roommate, or a friend, or even a pet, you know that living with another living thing is a constant dance of compromise. And yet, here’s the good news. I tell this to every couple whose wedding I officiate, and its true not just in marriages but in all sorts of relationships, “for where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” What this means is God does not leave us to figure out this whole being in community thing on our own. We need community, God knows we need community, God created us to need community, and so God gave us Jesus, because God also knew that, left to our own devices, we were totally going to screw up this whole live together in community thing.
This section of Matthew comes from one of the long speeches of Jesus known as the “Community Discourse,” because it is Jesus’ teachings about how the disciples and other Jesus followers are to live together. There is an inward focus to this section. Like I mentioned in the sermon last week, these teachings are not about setting parameters for how people are to enter into the community of Christ followers, they are rules for governing the behavior of those already counted as part of the community. The commentaries stress that these are not general rules for personal relationships, but are church rules for helping grow Christian congregational life. This section of Matthew is basically Jesus saying, OK, once I’m gone, you all are going to have to play nice with each other. And I know you’re totally going to screw it up. Peter’s going to get all high and mighty, and Paul’s going to think Peter’s a jerk, and Thomas is just going to wander off on his own, and James and John are going to be, well, James and John. So before all that happens, let me give you some rules for how to deal with the conflicts that are inevitably going to take place. So often the point of this section of Matthew becomes about how best to call someone else out on their sin, how best to get to treat someone “as a Gentile and a tax collector.” But remember what Jesus did with gentiles and tax collectors? He broke bread with them, taught them, healed them, and was in relationship with him. The point of this section of Matthew is to draw us into relationship. Instead of walking away when someone hurts us, this passage calls us to seek reconciliation. To go to someone first alone, to see if there was a misunderstanding. And then if that doesn’t work, go with a few others. And then if that still doesn’t work, bring in someone with some authority. And then, if that still doesn’t work, let them be “as a gentile and a tax collector.” Which, if we follow in the manner of Jesus, means they may not be a part of the community any longer, we may not necessarily associate with them regularly, but we still have to care about them.
Now, I have to tell you a coincidence this week that I just found amazing. One of the things I love about being a lectionary preacher is the way texts I would not necessarily have chosen end up weaving together perfectly with the life of the church. One of the projects the council has taken on this year is updating our congregational constitution. You may not have even known we have a church constitution, but we do. And as a person who loves policy, I’ve been geeking out since July getting to work on it. And mark your calendars now, because if all goes according to schedule, the updated constitution will be ready for congregational review and vote at the annual meeting in February. So that’s definitely going to be a can’t miss meeting.
But anyway, after I finished my Bible study notes for this week, I switched to the next task on my list, which was working on chapter eight of the church constitution, which deals with church membership. And our Trinity church constitution referred to 20.41.02 of the ELCA Constitution, which read “Discipline for an offense shall be administered consistent with the procedure which Christ instructed his disciples to follow (Matthew 18:15–17).” And I just about laughed out loud, because leave it to the Holy Spirit that the week I would be working on that section of the Constitution, I would also find myself preaching on the very section of Matthew which that section was based on.
This section of our constitution addresses what to do if the congregation needs to end someone’s membership. Section 20.41 I referred to earlier is just shy of three pages single-spaced, which tells you how seriously we as a church take this issue. But there are times when the actions of an individual are so damaging to a congregation or its ministry, that for the health and safety of the rest of the congregation, a person has to be asked to leave. It’s a constant refrain for me, grace is not the same as niceness. If someone is bullying or abusing another person, sometimes the most grace-ful thing we can do as people of God is say, that is not behavior that is tolerated here. And the ELCA has a three-page manual on how to do that. But what really got me is the last line. Section 8.05 from our congregational constitution, you can look it up if you want, after explaining the reason someone’s membership could be terminated, reads “Such persons who have been removed from the roll of members shall remain persons for whom the church has a continuing pastoral concern.” My friends, THAT is grace. Imagine if we as a world lived up to the standard that we have set for ourselves as a church. Grace is, at this point in time, we cannot be in relationship together. Something about us, about the way we are together, maybe you or maybe me, is dangerous and detrimental to this place and these people. And because of this conflict, we need to be apart. But even though this can no longer be a place for you, you are still a person who is our brother or sister in Christ, and this community still has concern and responsibilities for you. That is grace and that is the power of authentic Christian community. It gives us the power and the will and the courage, and most importantly the strength to be neither a bully nor a doormat, but to stand firm in relationships, to keep offering grace and forgiveness to ourselves and to others, and to keep seeking relationship again and again.
Yes, this is hard. This is super hard. It’s hard and it’s totally counter-cultural and counter-intuitive. Jesus knows forgiving and asking for forgiveness is hard, calling out sin is hard, and taking space when it is necessary is hard. We’d rather be nice, but nice is not grace. Jesus knows it is hard, and that’s why he promised that when two or three are gathered, he would be with us. That word “gathered” is key. He didn’t say, when two or three agree. In verse nineteen he did say agree, in nineteen he said, when two agree it will be done for you. But in verse twenty, he only said “when two or three are gathered…I am there among them.” Which means, Jesus is with us regardless of whether we agree or not. Jesus is with us. When we are speaking up against systems of injustice, Jesus is with us. When we are asking forgiveness from someone we’ve hurt, Jesus is with us. When someone has hurt us, Jesus is with us. Jesus is here, and everywhere else where two or three are gathered in his name. That is the great blessing and the enormous challenge of this text. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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