Homily for Proper 18, Year A
Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 149
Romans 13:8-14 Matthew 18:15-20
Do you remember before cell phones and email when people actually wrote letters? In cursive? It was a deliberate, thoughtful process that imposed a pace that allowed consideration of each sentence.
Oh well!
My mother was a prolific letter writer.
Every Sunday afternoon, after we’d been to church and the remains of dinner had been cleared, she’d sit down at the dining room table or in her favorite rocking chair with a writing board on her lap and begin writing. She had what people who got her letters called, “the beautiful hand of a schoolteacher.”
She’d write on regular stationary but also on whatever blank paper was handy like the lined paper from one of our school binders. Or it was on what were known in those days as “penny postcards”. She’d write around the margins of a cartoon she thought particularly funny and didn’t stop until late in the afternoon when she’d put down her writing materials and take a nap!
She was one of ten and her letters kept our widely scattered family connected. To this day, relatives will recall “letters from Aunt Esther”.
When I left home for medical school, every Wednesday there’d be something waiting in my mailbox. It might be a full-scale letter or a joke she’d enjoyed or an incident she found amusing. Often it was just, “What Dad and I have been doing this week.”
But every Wednesday it would be there, a comforting reminder of home and the love and support of family.
Down through the years, there’ve been people we remember for the letters they wrote, like the letters of the Stoic Seneca to his friend Lucilius, the beautiful correspondence between Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or the tormented musings of Flannery O’Connor, for example.
The Apostle Paul was another prodigious writer of letters.
His letters comprise much of our New Testament. They’re letters to the struggling little groups of believers he established wherever he went. They’re not written primarily as theological treatises! They’re all very personal, addressed to real people struggling to figure out what this new thing called “church”, and “community” are all about. They’re written in response to their questions or problems within their particular group. Sometimes, they’re about things he wanted to warn them about, things he felt were getting in the way of their functioning as loving communities. He doesn’t mince words. He “calls them out” if they’re moving in the wrong direction or hindering the faith of any member or threatening the unity of that little Christian community.
And…he sometimes has some pretty pointed things to say to them!
But whatever the topic or however stern the message, Paul’s letters always begin with expressions of his genuine love for them!
It’s like he’s writing to his own children!
Whether its Rome, or Corinth, or Ephesus, or Philippi, or Galatia, or Colossae… the same words appear: “Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
And only then he comes to the point! There’s no hedging, no “political correctness”, just what he’s observed and heard is going on among these new believers. And there’s always that strong note of encouragement and assurance of his love for them. He’s always looking after their unity and the strengthening of the bonds that hold them together in community. He longs for them to become “like family”, a family with Jesus as the head.
In his letter to Christians at Rome, he writes, for example, “Yes, the commandments are important, but it’s more important that you love each other! Don’t go off on things that interfere with a loving community. Stop quarreling and being jealous of each other! Focus on your lives as followers of Jesus Christ!
Focus on the big stuff, the important stuff, and don’t get sidelined on the little stuff.” …and…it’s time to get with it!
As ++Michael, our Presiding Bishop has said over and over and over again “It’s all about love, People!”
Jesus said much the same things as Matthew relates “If there is “hurt” in the fellowship, deal with it and get rid of it! Don’t let it fester. Take the ‘bull by the horns.’ Don’t let division or conflict harm the community. This stuff has eternal import. It’s holy stuff you need to be about and it’s really powerful if you get together and agree on things. If you do that, ‘I will be among you!”, he assures them.
Jesus and Paul are both talking about issues, some big, some small that make loving communities stop loving and begin to tear themselves apart.
“Big” things can surely tear a community (or a family, or a church congregation, or a nation) apart!
But it’s usually “little” things, those little irritations or misunderstandings that “nibble” away at a community and weaken it… small hurts, grumbling, or perceived slights of one sort or another.
“Little things” strain relationships, wound and sap the vigor and energy of communities and lead them into places like those Paul and Jesus warn us about: anything not borne out of caring, of loving respect, differences of opinion or viewpoint notwithstanding.
The point of both is: Always take care of the community and the members of it and never, ever, let anything tear it apart! Base all your relationships on love and all will be well! This is the pathway to becoming “The Beloved Community”!
This doesn’t mean there will not be disagreements!
Neither Jesus nor Paul ever suggest that!
It does meanthat the way of love is the primary characteristic of “The Beloved Community.”
So…imagine this:
Tomorrow morning Janet begins to open the day’s mail. She comes to an envelope addressed thus:
All the People
The Church of St. Martin
640 Hawthorne Lane
Davis, California 95616?
The letter begins:
“To all God’s beloved at St. Martin’s, who are called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ.”
It’s signed:
Love,
Paul
What might the body of that letter say?
I wonder!
Amen!
