We Belong

Deuteronomy 30: 15 – 20 & Matthew 5: 21 – 26

 

Since the mid-January, we have been talking about what it means for Faith Church to be a place to belong. Today, I want to wrap up our exploration of belonging and begin to build a bridge to our next topic – what it means to become followers of Jesus, who is the Christ the Lord. 

 

This transition coincides with a transition in the church year… we will soon end the season after the epiphany and begin the season of Lent.  Next week, following the tradition of the church year, we’ll talk about Jesus’ transfiguration before Peter, James and John. That event recorded in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, places Jesus in the line of prophets aligning him with Moses and Elijah. Following that, we will mark Ash Wednesday and then walk together through the 40 days of Lent.

 

Being in transitional times serves a purpose – transitions move us to the next thing. I like to think that paying attention to transitions helps us to mark progress, to process where we have been as we anticipate what might be next. (perhaps talk about thresholds here?)

 

As I looked back over the ways we have talked about belonging, we’ve talked a lot about the space we have to prepare in our hearts and minds to receive others. I want to pivot a bit today to talk about the ways that we might have to actively CHOOSE for ourselves to be part of a bigger whole.

You see, we have before us a choice to belong to Faith Church. Bigger than that, perhaps, we have the choice to recognize that we belong to God…and then in a commitment to that choice, we have a choice to be active in the body of Christ.

 

If we had been following the revised common lectionary texts these past few weeks, we would be at the end of a series of teachings about how Jesus described and understood the Kin-dom of God. 

 

So today’s reading from Matthew’s gospel, when taken in the sweep of texts read in prior weeks, is not just a text about the commandments, but it is a text about how the LAW expressed in Torah guides society to righteousness and wholeness, has the potential to guide the community or society to be the peaceful and just Kin-dom of God. Jesus is teaching here about the law being lived out in life-giving, peace-seeking, inclusive ways – so yes, murder is wrong AND therefore, by the way, you might need to deal with anger that keeps you from fully loving the folks around you. The anger that leads us to separation might be that sinful as well.

 

And today’s reading from Deuteronomy sets up the choice before the Jewish people – will you be God’s people, living with God’s law or will you seek your own path. As I mentioned, this is the sort of choice that we have to make to belong to something bigger than ourselves, perhaps letting go of some control, some ego, in order to love as God loves. This is the larger context into which Jesus, a Jew, is speaking in the Matthew text. 

 

Specifically in today’s text, Jesus is teaching that if we really want to live in the spirit of the commandment not to murder, we ought to check our worldly disagreements, our grudges, and our differences of opinions. 

 

He is teaching that we ought to strive not just to avoid destroying another bodily, we ought to strive to live in peace and connection with one another. We ought to be reconciled to one another.

 

But c’mon. That is really, really hard.

 

Who among us doesn’t avoid someone who makes us a little crazy.

Who among us is not bearing some grudge? 

Who among us doesn’t have a disparaging judgement about a neighbor, a co-worker, a fellow committee member?

 

Jesus has specific instructions – before you give your gifts at the altar during worship, go and be reconciled with your siblings, with your neighbor, your family-member, your colleague, your fellow citizen of the Kin-dom of God.

 

That idea of “reconciliation” is complex.

By definition, to reconcile is to “bring back together,” to “restore friendly relations,” to “coexist in harmony” or to “make compatible.”

 

I kind of like the definition that relates to accounting – “Make consistent with one another, especially allowing for transactions begun and not yet completed.”

 

If we are mindful of life’s trajectory, it would seem that we are constantly in the midst of transactions begun and not yet completed – so how do we allow space for consistency in our relationships with one another in light of that?

 

Sometimes in our society, we are socialized to believe that our forgiveness or our willingness to overlook a disagreement, or the act of reconciliation makes us the “better person.” Maybe we are taught to strive for some superiority or better way by not holding grudges or participating in arguments with another.

 

But what if instead, we are called to be reconciled to one another as an acknowledgement that we are all God’s beloved, we are all imperfect, we all need God’s grace?

 

Kristofer Phan Hoffman writes this in commentary from Faith & Lead at Luther Seminary:

The Gospel of Matthew… roots forgiveness in the care of God for humanity and creation. Forgiveness, as Jesus reminds his disciples, comes about when we remember our own frailty. We are like the birds of the air and the flowers of the field; we require the mercy of God for our daily bread. Because of the mercy and forgiveness that God extends to us, we extend mercy and forgiveness to others. We do not do so because we are “bigger people” than them, but because we realize that we are all dependent on the mercy of the one who is greater than all of us. For Matthew, the fragility of our lives, not our inner strength gives urgency to our forgiveness. 

 

In the traditional structure of worship, there is liturgy that helps us to remember to do this work of remembering our need for God’s forgiveness and in light of God’s forgiveness, the need to forgive and live reconciled with others.  While we’ve gotten away from the rhythm here at Faith, times of confession and an assurance of God’s pardon are traditionally completed with the passing of the peace – the moment we recognize that because God loves us and forgives us, we are also to forgive and live in peaceful reconciliation with others. When we do this in worship, we are actually practicing the way Jesus taught us to be reconciled before giving our offering in worship.

 

This week, before I was even thinking about this sermon, I was reminded of a prayer my father wrote for Matt and I after our wedding:

“Please God bless these, your disciples with Serenity. Not just the mechanical serenity that comes in bottles, but the sublime peace of mind in knowing the right and doing it; the serenity that allowed one of us to say, “Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.”

 

Might it be that living into this choice we have, the choice to let go of our human need to be right or better or whatever, instead choosing to be in right relationship, choosing to belong to one another, actually grants us peace that passes understanding? 

 

As I typed along, I remembered the contemporary gospel anthem, I Need You to Survive.

 

I need you, you need me

We're all a part of God's body

Stand with me, agree with me

We're all a part of God's body

It is His will that every need be supplied

You are important to me, I need you to survive 

 

Imagine looking one another in the eye each week and saying those words – you are important to me, I need you to survive. 

 

Imagine saying …We belong to one another. I am willing to belong. I choose to belong.

 

I am mindful of how much of the world has changed over the past few years. It is hard to face a lot of the disruptions. But our work here at Faith is to do the work of belonging to one another…to be able to look one another in the eye and recognize that each of us belongs to God. And because of that, we belong to one another.

As an active choice.

That gospel anthem goes on this way..

 

I pray for you

You pray for me

I love you

I need you to survive

I won't harm you with words from my mouth

I love you

I need you to survive 

 

Today, we are going to practice what it means to choose reconciliation and belonging by passing the peace.

I am going to acknowledge that passing the peace can feel really hard for the introverts among us. 

I am going to acknowledge that passing the peace can feel really awkward for the visitors among us.

And I am going to acknowledge that we do this in worship to practice the way we are called to live by Jesus.

 

Beloved, before our anthem…let’s take a moment to stand and greet one another with signs of reconciliation and peace, perhaps one from this refrain:

I pray for you

You pray for me

I love you

I need you to survive