Conversation

 Matthew 18:15-20

September 10, 2023

 

A pastor from Texas told me this story.

Where Two or More Are Gathered
Theresa Daughtry

He had just started a new call at a church in a small town.

Soon after he started, he was in a grocery store.

One of the members of his church saw him from down the aisle.

He was right behind him, he said “hello, Pastor”

a couple of times. He had to have heard him.

The pastor ignores him.

He acts like he didn’t see him and scoots quickly down the aisle.

The member is offended.

 

The member tells his wife: the new pastor ignored me.

He saw me and avoided me. Maybe he’s mad at me.

She tells her friend who is on the council.

Do you know how much money we give to this church?

The council talks. We have seen signs. The pastor is not friendly.

Other church members are told.

Maybe we made a mistake in calling him.

There’s phone calls and quiet discussions.

Yes, we noticed it too. He thinks he’s better than us.

 

Sunday, people seem cold to him, the pastor doesn’t know why.

The pastor doesn’t find out until after church when

one “concerned” spokesperson comes to talk to him.

“Some people are not happy.”

Always a good line to hear.

Well, what’s the problem?

I think it started because you didn’t say

hello to Joe in the grocery store.

Why did you ignore Joe in the grocery store?

 

The pastor is caught unaware.

The pastor thinks, that doesn’t sound like me.

After a little thinking he remembers:

the battery in one of the pastor’s hearing aids gave out,

so he didn’t wear them to the store that day.

If he doesn’t wear his hearing aids, he can’t hear.

He never heard Joe.

He explained it to Joe, and then to the congregation,

and apparently they worked it all out because

the pastor was there for the next 20 years.

 

This story is true.

Well, this is how it was told to me by the pastor.

And I believe it, because this happens a lot.

I’m sure we all have a story or two like this.

Some a lot more destructive than this one.

People complaining to other people instead

of to the person their complaining about.

It happens in families, at work, in organizations

and definitely in churches

maybe most often in churches.

 

I think it might happen in the church even more

than other organizations because we’re supposed to be nice.

We get this impression that we’re supposed

to be of one mind and one opinion and thought.

We think that to be church means that we’re

supposed to only be sweet in front of one another.

To show no disagreement. So when we do disagree with someone,

when we’re frustrated we couldn’t possibly tell them.

That wouldn’t be nice. That could be rude. That could create conflict.

So, we just tell someone else. Maybe even innocently, concerned.

We have parking lot discussions and share gossip.

I have surely participated in it. I bet most of us have.

 

If it helps at all, we obviously haven’t been

the first people to do it this.

We’re in Matthew 18 this week.

The whole concept of the church

has just been brought up for the first time

in chapter 16 when Jesus tells Peter that

he was going to build his church on him.

And here Jesus is, two chapters later,

telling them how to deal with disagreements.

Almost instantly, after church, there was church conflict.

 

Matthew 18.

This is maybe the most directly applicable,

and the most practical advice we’re given in the whole bible:

If someone sins against you, if someone does something to you,

like snubs you in a grocery store,

the first step is to talk to the other person directly. Alone.

 

Don’t tell a bunch of other people first.

That means don’t embarrass them.

Don’t tell them in the middle of a meeting.

Or in the middle of the Narthex where other people can hear.

Don’t tell their spouse or their friend about it. Go to them.

 

So much in the church and the world would be solved

if we just went to that first step.

We wouldn’t have any sit-coms if we did that.

But it would solve a lot of problems.

 

And if that step doesn’t work, there are other practical steps outlined too: 

Take a couple of people and talk to the other person.

(Of course, there’s always a chance the other

two people might disagree with you.) 

And if that doesn’t work, then tell the church.

Then bring it up in a meeting. And if all that doesn’t work,

then treat them as a Gentile or a tax collector.

Of course, we know how Jesus treated Gentiles and Tax Collectors.

This gospel was, of course, written by Matthew-

the Tax Collector – a disciple chosen and loved by Jesus.

 

So this is simple advice.

If you’ve got a problem, go directly to that person and talk to them.

Simple. So why don’t we do it?

Why is it that churches, who have this in our scriptures,

forget to do it so often?

 

The fact is, the steps might be simple and clear,

but they are very, very hard.

They leave us very vulnerable.

Telling other people,

especially other people we are around all the time,

something that they’re doing or saying that we don’t like,

having an honest discussion with them,

staying connected with someone you disagree with is difficult.

Whenever I have to do it, I know I get a knot in my stomach

and it worries me for days.

 

This is often what, I think, turns people off of the church.

It turns people off of organized religion. It can get difficult.

 

Have you ever told someone that you were involved in the church

and they told you that they were “Spiritual but not religious”

They just don’t like all that church stuff?

 

A UCC pastor named Lillian Daniel wrote a great little blog entry

more than 10 years ago called:
“Spiritual But not religious? Stop boring me.”

She complains about the people that she meets on planes

when they find she’s a minister,

most people tell her that “they’re spiritual but not religious.”

She writes:

 

Such a person will always share this

as if it is some kind of daring insight,

unique to them, bold in its rebellion

against the religious status quo.

Next thing you know, he's telling me that he finds God in the sunsets.

These people always find God in the sunsets.

And in walks on the beach.

Sometimes I think these people never leave

the beach or the mountains,

what with all the communing with God they do

on hilltops, hiking trails and . . .

did I mention the beach at sunset yet?

Like people who go to church don't see God in the sunset!

 

What she goes on basically to say is that being spiritual by yourself

with nature that doesn’t talk back, doesn’t have it’s own opinions,

doesn’t change its mind, doesn’t have a bad hair day,

is unchallenging and, in her estimation, kind of boring.

It’s comfortable to be spiritual but not religious. It’s safe.

 

I guess I don’t BLAME people who have decided to leave

religion and the people that come with it.

Church life is difficult, community is tough, people are complicated.

Religion, and all of its humanness is complicated.

We have to deal with institutions that we didn’t create ourselves,

with traditions that might be very important, or irrelevant,

and we have to decide which is which.

We have to deal with people with different experiences,

different upbringings, different backgrounds,

different temperaments, and often very different opinions.

And we have to come together to make something.

 

Sunsets, in comparison, are simple. No attitudes,

no different opinions, they don’t talk back,

they don’t question your methods or motives.

Sunsets don’t want you to be anything

different than you already are.

Sunsets don’t ask anything of you at all.

 

Sure, sunsets and mountains and beaches are

beautiful and can rest your body, mind, and soul,

but is that all that God is? Rest?

 

I think God is rest, but God is also challenge,

God is questions, God is restlessness, God is opinions,

God is sleepless nights, God is messy.

 

God is more complicated than sunsets and beaches.

And church is a reflection of that.

Church is not for the faint of heart.

Community is not for the faint of heart.

I say people, like all of us, who are willing to get in

and get messy, with each other,

we are the bold and daring ones.

 

I think what turns a lot of people away from religion and church

is that often, things tend to fester in them.

Lots of times things are swept under the rug,

sins and offenses are allowed to go on and grow

conflict is avoided until it becomes unbearable,

and then it becomes an all out fight or division.

 

In Ohio, I was on the synod team that dealt with

churches that were in conflict and

I have been to congregational meetings that have

been so destructive, and the words so spiteful

that I have had a crisis of faith myself.

 

You get that microphone set up in the

fellowship hall and people who are normally very

reasonable people suddenly sound like professional wrestlers

challenging the champ to a fight next Saturday night.

 

I have left those meetings thinking that a sunset would

be a much better option.

 

But notice the advice that Jesus gives this week doesn’t say,

“when someone sins against you just deal with it and keep it to yourself.”

or “Just forgive them in your heart and everything will be okay.”

Or “just wait and air all your emotions out at a public meeting”

 

Jesus says talk to that person one on one.

Get involved. Be engaged. Talk to each other directly.

Be vulnerable.

Of course, again, this requires us to be uncomfortable.

 

A lot of those public fights could have been avoided

if there were conversations that were had earlier.

Sometimes 10 or 15 years earlier.

 

In my work on the conflict team I saw some terrible things,

and I have also seen miraculous and beautiful things.

 

Sometimes things are untenable, and

sometimes the best thing is for one of the parties

to remove themselves from the situation.

But sometimes conversations are had, and agreements

are made, and reconciliation happens.

Relationships that were broken are repaired.

 

When this happens at this micro-level, we can see

what God can do. And what God will do, in big ways.

We become signs of God’s grace, love and power.

I will trade a sunset in for that experience any day.

 

God is fixing and repairing and rebuilding all the time.

God is reconciling, and renewing, and resurrecting everywhere.

And we, as church people, get to be partners in that work.

In our own hearts and in our own messy petri dishes

of challenge, conflict, death, and rebirth, which is the church.

 

Sunsets are fine.

But God’s real miracles happen

when we find God’s image in other people,

people that think different than us,

that have different experiences,

different cultures and backgrounds,

different opinions and understandings.

And especially maybe, those who disagree with us.

 

Because where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name –

when we can support one another, work together,

serve God and serve our community—it is a miracle!

And we know that God is with us.