Not Good If Detached
Matthew 18:15-20
Years ago I was apart of a congregation that had a history of conflict. When I arrived there I was told “the story of the back pew.”
The parish was small and did not have a church hall so the church building was used for worship on Sunday morning and the children’s program in the afternoon. Because there wasn’t much room in the church, a table was set up for the children in the back of the church and one of the back pews was turned around to supply some of the seating around the table.
There was never a full church on a Sunday morning so the pew could probably have remained turned around without causing any problem for the congregation. However, there was a conflict between the Rector’s Warden and those who led the children’s program, so after Sunday afternoon the Warden would come in and turn the pew around “the right way”. After the morning service, the church school leaders would have to turn the pew around again for their class. This went on week after week until one Sunday afternoon the Rector’s Warden came in, turned the pew around so that it faced the same ways as all the other pews in the church, and BOLTED it to the floor. The church school had to come up with another solution for accommodating their class.
After a time, the Rectors Warden died. The day after the funeral, the leaders of the children’s program came into the church and removed the bolts from the back pew and turned the pew around so they could once again use it for their class.
This story was symbolic of the conflict that existed in that congregation and never really ended. There were two factions of people that never seem to be able to get along. When members of one group were elected on to the parish council, the others would sit back and complain. When the members of the other group would get into power, those that had not been elected would try to jeopardize the decisions that were made. Life was difficult in that parish. It seemed like nothing could ever get done because there were always a group that was ‘agin it no matter what it was.’ It just seemed that so much negative energy was expended and so much that was worthwhile was lost.
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This is the kind of conflict that the early church often had to face. The people were split into factions over a number of issues like who was in and who was out, or what laws were to be required of the followers of Jesus, or the interpretation of the words of Jesus, and the meaning of his resurrection. Sometimes it was the behavior of individuals in conflict with one another that threatened to destroy the community of faith. When they were in conflict was difficult to do the work of Jesus. Somehow they had address these conflicts or fail in their mission to the world.
I think that this is why we have these kind of instructions in the Gospel today. I don’t know whether they were Jesus’ actual words because they were written years after Jesus death but they certainly reflect the conflict that the early church experienced and they express the kind of thing that Jesus might have said if he had lived in that time. They are really quite simple when you read them, but not so simple trying to employ them. You first of all try to deal with it person to person. Then that doesn’t work, then you involve a few other people. If that is unsuccessful then the whole church needs to get together and deal with it. Through the whole process, the emphasis is not on trying to discipline someone for their wrong-doing by lording it over them and saying, “I’m OK, but you’re not so hot.”, but trying to build bridges so that the community can go ahead and to be what it was attended to be, an effective instrument of God’s reconciling love in the world.
I believe that in the congregation that I mentioned earlier they could have worked together if they had really faced up to their problem. It was possible. They did get together and showed compassion and love toward one another in a time of tragedy, but as soon as the tragedy had abated, they were back to their old ways. If only one of them had been able to say, “Lets sit down and deal with this issue together“! If only they all had been willing to get together! Things could have been a lot different. But the problem was ignored like the elephant in the kitchen. Instead of facing it, they pretended that it wasn’t there and tried to work around it. But you know if you never face the things that are tearing you apart they just get worse.
I was angry with my friend,
I told my wrath,
my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe,
I told it not,
my wrath did grow. (William Blake)
It is difficult to care for people in the world when we are not a caring community. It is totally absurd to speak of peace in a world when we do not have peace in our community. It is impossible to be an instrument of love in the world if we are not a community of love.
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What is true in the Church is of course true in the world as a whole. We do need to learn to live together. Railway tickets use to carry the words, “Not good if detached” That is true of life in general. Our survival and progress as people on this planet are dependent on our inter-relatedness .
Many years ago I was impressed by the words of one of the astronauts, Archibald McLeish, on the eve of the first moon landing:
“To see the earth as it truly is, small, blue, beautiful in the eternal silence where it floats , is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together…”
That is a wonderful image, riders on the earth together. It speaks of our togetherness as a human race, brothers and sisters on this fragile island within the vastness of the universe. Brothers and sisters that really need to know that we are brothers and sisters.
We need to do all that we can to build bridges, to mend bridges, to stay together as a true community because we are:
Not good if detached
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