One of the first tasks in a classroom at this time of the year happens as the teacher and the students decide how their class will function. The two essential parts of this task are rules and routines. Sometimes the teacher has these posted on a bulletin board for the students to see as they enter. Other teachers spend time in the first few days engaging the students in the development of rules. Routines often follow from the teacher's style of instruction. But students, through their restlessness or their cooperation, often influence the routines the teacher uses.
Rules and routines help us order our lives. If they are imposed on us by others, we may resist. If we create our own, they become our habits—comfortable, if not always good for us or folks around us. If we are in a family or any group that lives or works together, conflict happens when my view about what the rules and routines should be disagrees with your view in these matters. How will it get resolved? Is there a right way that decisions should be made? Especially in the body of Christ, the church, does scripture lead us into good ways to order our life together?
Were I a person who had no experience in a church community and showed up this morning to find out more about “church,” what would I think as I listened to the reading from St, Paul's epistle to the Romans and the reading of Jesus' teaching from Matthew? (I might just not come back!) On the other hand, we who have been members of this Christian community (or any Christian community for a while), how will we react Paul's teaching and Jesus' instruction?
These lessons indicate that the life in a Christian community is important to its members and to God. Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” St. Paul noted that Christians should “owe no one anything, except to love one another.” How important is this community for each of us? Why is it important? What do with gain by being part of this community? What, if anything, do we give up by making a commitment to our church? Each of us came this morning with an answer to these questions—even though we may not be aware of exactly what our answers are.
Might your answer be like St. Paul's? This community should be a place where I can learn about and practice self-giving love—agape. I should find moral behavior honored, especially the mandate not to harm others by self-centered and violent behavior. I would expect this community to focus on salvation through the light of God in Jesus Christ and reject behavior that pulls a person away from what is good and wholesome.
Then there's a possible answer in the reading from Matthew’s gospel. Did you come this morning expecting to find a place where folks take responsibility for keeping the community safe by working to help others recognize when they have been engaging in self-centered behavior that wounds others. Matthew reported that Jesus recommended steps to keep the community “safe” by dealing with conflicts between disciples. What sorts of behavior will be allowed in the community? Although Matthew's putting the word “church” in Jesus' mouth may be a bit premature, the issue is the same for any group committed to holy living and decision making for the greater good.
Douglas Webster, a Presbyterian pastor, comments on the irony in this passage: “Jesus' spiritual direction on confrontation compels us to distinguish between definable overt sins and the chronic friction we inflict on one another. We are habitual sinners—troublemakers at the core. If we confronted one another over every issue that bothers us, we would spend all our time scheduling appointments.” Webster explains he derives comfort in Jesus' parable of the wheat and the weeds. In this parable, Jesus “[cuts us] some slack, allowing some things to take their course. [In the parable] he's telling us to leave the 'weeding' and the judging to God.”
My guess is that the answer to the question, “Why did you come this morning?” is found in neither passage. Mine certainly isn't. I'm really not looking for someone to take me aside and tell me how I have offended them—nor do I come to planning on taking someone else aside for conversation about how they have missed the mark. In addition, I don't actually feel holy enough to measure up to the standards St. Paul sets for “putting on the armor of light” and eagerly anticipating salvation.
Rather I come—and indeed I came all those years before I was paid to show up on Sunday with a sermon in hand—I come because I believe that it is in Christian community generally and in our community of St. Nicholas' at this moment that I will encounter God's blessing, God's love and God's grace. I count on blessing, love and grace from God coming through the power of the Holy Spirit to infuse our liturgy, our fellowship and even (God help me) my preaching. We need to receive what God has prepared for us today. We need to receive it in the company of others who long for exactly the same things. Why? So all of us may get through the week ahead with whatever life places on our path. And more—we will be strengthened to share the forgiveness and peace we have received. We will be empowered to work for the relief of folks in need. We will be emboldened to share the good news of salvation with all whom God loves—which is everybody.
So it's not some rule, nor even my routines that bring me here this morning. It is my hope, my hope in God, that brought me here. How about you?
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