Agents of Reconciliation: A Sermon for the 15th Week After Pentecost

Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you in the name of Christ our Saviour. Amen.

 

Over the last couple of weeks, we have spent time talking about community – what it is, what it takes to be part of one. Here’s what we’ve learned. The church is a community of loving people all working together, using our unique gifts, acknowledging our calling to be a living sacrifice in the name of Jesus. The church is a community of people who love you, who know your name, and are concerned about you. And Paul tells us that the love we feel within this community should be genuine and full of God’s grace and mercy.

 

Now, within any community there can be conflict, no matter how much we want to avoid it. It can happen any time and any where and we often feel ill-equipped to handle a matter of conflict. As a community, we need to learn how to deal with conflict which then, hopefully, leads to reconciliation both for the community and for the person. Loving your neighbour doesn’t always look like you would expect. Sometimes loving your neighbour means coming to terms with harms done and walking the path of reconciliation. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus provides a blueprint for addressing conflicts. And each step draws us closer to one another in reconciliation.

 

The beginning of the process is realizing that you have either harmed someone else or you have been harmed by someone. In the text, Christ instructs us, as people of faith, to go directly to the person we are arguing with and work together to find a solution. This step draws us closer to one another and allows us to gain greater insight and understanding. It humanizes our issue and asks us to commit to the work of health and wholeness. But it’s scary! What it does not say: Go to two or three or twelve of your closest friends and gossip about it. It says to go to the person who wronged you and talk it out. We should start praying for courage now.

 

Truth-telling isn’t easy but it’s vital for an authentic, a genuine relationship. A loving relationship needs to be an honest one. So, when it’s realized that a harm has occurred, it is vital to acknowledge it. And then it takes more than a simply saying “I’m sorry”. There needs to be some sort of action. In order for true reconciliation to happen there must be change – in the person, in the situation.

 

A piece of that reconciliation is forgiveness. In fact, forgiveness might be the hardest part. Forgiveness is not about saying what happened was ok. It is not about releasing the other person of responsibility. It means releasing a burden. It means letting go of the guilt or the grudge. It’s hard to carry the extra weight of things that happened in the past. Forgiveness means letting go of what you’re carrying. When we let go of things, we release ourselves of the world we have created in our mind and our expectations of how life plays out for everyone around us. Letting go opens the doors to new possibilities and a renewal in the heart. It is an opening to a new day, a new beginning, and a new hope for living.

 

It is human nature to resist letting go. We try to protect our way of life and control the stories people believe about us. The inconvenient truth is that our lives and possessions are passing away, and all the unhealthy relationships we cling to are already dying or dead. So, rehashing in our head something that happened in the past can be like pushing a heavy boulder uphill. A day will come when you realize you are holding on to nothing. Whatever crisis you are trying to repair or mend, remind yourself you are not really in control of the outcome. And at that moment, when you realize you're not in control, open your mind, your heart, and hands and let it go.

 

If the struggle persists, Christ then invites us to seek out support from an outside perspective, one who can draw us closer to each other through careful guidance. In each step toward resolution, Jesus calls us to remain focused on building connections with others instead of shutting them out. Even if an outside party cannot help to resolve our tensions, Jesus teaches us that we should seek support from our church. We should look for resources and tools to aid us in our pursuit of harmony.

 

To summarize, address the person. If that doesn’t work, bring in a neutral party. And if that doesn’t work, bring in the church community. Now I’m not sure Jesus’ way is the perfect way. How many of you would feel comfortable taking care of conflict like this? Maybe the 1^st century approach won’t work exactly for the 21^st century, but that doesn’t mean we should cast Jesus’ words aside.

 

At the end of the gospel reading, Jesus says, “for where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” In this statement there is a word of promise that Jesus is with us, “I am there.” Jesus promises us that he is present, that his presence is real for us, when we are gathered in his name. It is just as important for our communities to know that we are present for them. Through thick and thin, through good times and bad, through peace and through conflict. Jesus will always be there with us, to walk with us, and to give us strength and courage.

 

Forgiveness and reconciliation are hard work. But if we are to have community, love requires us to address the inevitable conflicts that comes with being in relationship with each other. Sweeping things under the rug, holding a grudge, rushing to an inauthentic forgiveness…none of these are healthy for relationship. Not with each other, and certainly not with God.

 

And condemnation is also not the answer. As a community, we should also care for the one who offended. Again, this is not “letting them get away with it.” Caring for the one who offended means acknowledging the harm done and that it wasn’t ok. As we are all emotional human beings, it is important to understand that all actions come from somewhere or something. There is healing to be done for all involved, even the offender. It is not about winning and losing, it is about reconciliation, and about being in relationship.

 

This community that we’ve been talking about these past three weeks, this community called church, is a place of mutual interdependence, where each member is incomplete without the other, where the suffering of one is the suffering of all. It means that conflict between members affects both the individuals and the whole community. When we enter into Christian community, we bind ourselves to each other with Christ at the head. And the ministry of reconciliation must always be at the heart of our community, at the heart of our ministry. When members are in conflict, Jesus tells us to treat them as “a gentile or a tax collector.” Far from shunning them, Jesus calls us to never give up on them, never stop reaching out to them in love, and always pray for grace to restore what has been broken. As living sacrifices in service to God and in the name of Jesus, we are called to be agents of reconciliation to each other and to the world that God loves.

Amen.