September 7—Discipline and the Disciple

"If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” –Matthew 13:15-20

When I was in college, several friends of mine went to a large and very popular church near campus. I remember hearing a story once about how their church had used this passage to handle an incidence of adultery within the congregation. The church leaders attempted to talk with the man in private, and when he refused to give up his affair, they brought him before the entire church one Sunday and publicly cast him out of the congregation. There’s no doubt that they took this passage seriously.

I remember feeling rather ambivalent about the whole thing at the time. Certainly I’ve never been okay with adultery, and kicking people out of the community for sin is found in scripture—in addition to this passage, there is the common refrain found in Deuteronomy, “ So you shall purge the evil from your midst” (Deut. 13:5, 17:7, 19:19, etc.), and Paul’s rhetoric on the contaminating effects of sin in 1 Corinthians 5. At the same time there seemed something rather harsh to me in simply throwing the man out of the church. Granted, I didn’t know this situation from the inside, and perhaps pastorally, such strong consequences were necessary for the person to acknowledge his own behavior. But I wondered how likely it was that this man would ever begin to address the broken relationship and hurt that his actions had caused if he were summarily cut off from his faith community. If the lines of dialogue were closed, how would the offender ever grow? How would the offended ever heal?

When I looked again at today’s lectionary passage in Matthew, a passage upon which many such protocols are based, I realized that Jesus’ rules for church discipline aren’t about punishment or rejection. Nor are they meant to preserve unity in the church at the cost of disagreement or diversity. Rather, they are all about relationships within the community. Notice how, in verse 15, the question is posed as “If another member of the church sins against you…” (italics mine). Now, those two little words set the tone for the entire passage. If they are not there, then the passage can be taken to address generic activities that contradict the church’s moral or ethical code. In some ancient sources, these words are indeed missing from the passage, suggesting such a general interpretation.

But if the two words are part of verse 15, as other ancient sources attest, then the entire passage becomes all about holding my Christian sibling accountable when her actions have broken our relationship. For in this the Apostle Paul is right—“a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough” (1 Cor. 5:6), and the bitterness and anger that results from an open wound between two people eventually poisons the whole community. So in this interpretation, Jesus’ plan sets up a way for the community to address broken relationships so that justice and reconciliation can take place. For when the community comes alongside one who has been wronged, confronts the breach, and calls for justice, it is not about enforcing uniformity of doctrine or belief. It is about being a disciple of Jesus—for just as Jesus came to heal humanity’s relationship with the Creator, members of his church are called to heal relationships with one another. And that healing cannot take place if we don’t address our brokenness with honesty and authenticity.

Yet what if someone refuses to acknowledge his wrong and try to mend fences? Is that the point at which we cast him out? In the past, when I’ve read the words, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (v. 17), I assumed that this was meant as a rejection of the offender. But as New Testament professor Mark Allan Powell points out in his commentary on Matthew, Jesus is saying quite the opposite—Gentiles and tax collectors were the outsiders of the Jewish community, to be sure, but they were also some of the people Jesus most persistently reached out to during his ministry. Treating someone as a Gentile and tax collector is not a call to cut off the wrong-doer, but a call to deeper and more persistent engagement with that person. For ultimately, the goal is unity—a reconciling unity, in which Christ himself is present among us (v. 20). And that requires not uniformity of opinion, but uniformity of loving, grace-filled care toward one another.

Our business as a church, then, is not about casting out and cutting off. But at the same time, it isn’t about discreetly overlooking the broken relationships within our community—from the petty fights and painful betrayals buzzing within local congregations to our failure as a Christian faith community to love and serve all humanity. Reconciliation cannot happen without justice, just as justice is empty without healing and reconciliation. And in Jesus’ discipline for the church, he gives us a practical, everyday starting point for practicing both.

Kelsey

PS-- The image above is of the Zaccheus story, one of the most famous stories of Jesus reaching out to a tax collector to bring him to discipleship.

August 17-- Two for One Fun

Passages: Genesis 45:1-15; Psalm 133; Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15:(10-20), 21-28

Last week, we looked at the early part of the Joseph story, in which the selfish and privileged boy, through a terrible reversal of his fortunes, begins his journey toward leadership. I told you that we would finish the story this week, and we will. But I also saw that this week is the Canaanite woman story in Matthew. You may not be familiar with it, but I think it is one of the most fascinating little stories in the gospels. So rather than chose between them, I’m going to do two shorter reflections on each. Sorry it is so long!

The Big Revelation

Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Come closer to me." And they came closer. He said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. –Matthew 45: 4-9

If you’re familiar with the Joseph story, you’re aware that we’ve jumped over quite a bit of action since last week’s lectionary passage. After being sold into Egypt last week, the coat that symbolized all his power and privilege stripped from him, Joseph experiences a variety of ups and downs. He is put in charge of his master Potiphar’s house, only to be unjustly accused and sent to prison. Even after interpreting the dream of some officials in Pharaoh’s court, he remains forgotten. Yet his life changes again when Joseph is called upon to interpret a dream for Pharaoh. He becomes the de facto ruler of Egypt as a result, and through his grain rationing program the country has enough food to face seven years of famine… and profitably sell their excess to their less-prepared neighbors.

Now this is how Joseph’s brothers reenter the picture. After several dramatic scenes, today’s lectionary passage recounts the climactic moment in which Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. As one commentary I read points out, this is a story in which sorrow unexpectedly, impossibly turns to joy—even Joseph’s invitation for his father to “come down to me” and share in the bounty of Egypt (v. 9) echoes Jacob’s lament from last week that “I shall go down to Sheol [the underworld] to my son, mourning” (37:25). In the Joseph story, the impossible becomes possible.

Moreover, our characters have been transformed from selfish jerks into servant leaders. Judah, who sold Joseph for a tidy little profit in 37:26-27, offers himself in the place of Benjamin in 44:18-34. And Joseph, who openly bragged about his power over his brothers in the beginning of the story, now sees his power in a quite different light. Through his identification with the lowest rungs of society, he finally understands that God has given him power not for his own glorification, but “to preserve for you a remnant on earth” (v. 7). Much of Genesis, you may remember, has been about chosen people. Here, in Joseph’s final statement, it becomes clear why Joseph is chosen—so that God might feed the people of Egypt, and Canaan, and the whole world.

Could Joseph have been this kind of leader without the struggles of the past? I don’t think so. Joseph needed not only to see powerlessness, but to lose his own pretentious power in order to become the kind of leader who could give and forgive. For the experience of gaining and losing power freed him from its seductive grip—after being stripped of everything, after losing his life to his brothers and to his master, he could later act for justice without fear of loss.

As people of faith, we are a called people. That doesn’t always mean a life of prosperity and plentitude—if we listen to the biblical witness, being called by God usually means being stripped of all worldly pretensions and power. But as the Joseph story points out, it is this process of letting go that allows us to truly hear God’s call in the midst of our cluttered , self-important lives. If you take this seriously, it is kind of frightening. Yet in the kindom of God, only this path frees us to truly make a difference.

The Long-Lost, Never-Preached Story of the Canaanite Woman

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly. –Matthew 15:21-28

A couple of years ago, our Massachusetts Bible Society Lenten Bible study class studied the Markan version of this passage (Mark 7:24-31). I remember Don Wells telling me that no one in class would be familiar with it. Much to my surprise, he was right. It’s one of the Bible’s troubling texts, and Jesus is the key player in it.

Why do we avoid this passage? Mainly because the Jesus we like to preach about, the Jesus that loves the child and the outcast, the Jesus of abundance, is not the Jesus we see here. Rather, we see a Jesus who calls a woman and her sick child “dogs,” a Jesus who comes off as narrowly ethnocentric. Those of us who have heard this story generally take it one of two ways—either Jesus is simply testing the woman’s faith (the preferred interpretation, in my experience), or Jesus is wrong and the woman changes his mind about the matter.

At the heart of these two interpretations is the larger issue of Jesus and perfection. Was Jesus perfect? For those who embrace the “testing theory” of this story, the answer to that question is really at stake in their reading. For if Jesus wasn’t testing this woman, that means he really did change his mind—he didn’t already know the full scope of his mission. It means, in the words of theologian Sabine Van Den Eynde, that Jesus “shows in his ensuing deeds a change in his own attitude.” And the notion of Jesus changing or evolving over his human life seems unpalatable to most of us. It means he is not perfect.

But what is perfection, anyway? Why would we have a problem with a Jesus who learns and grows through his ministry from the people to whom he ministers? What are the consequences if we believe that being perfect means never changing our minds when we receive new insight or information? Can we ever grow into servant leadership (see Joseph above) if we believe that perfection and change are mutually exclusive, that we can't learn from outcast, female foreigners like the Canaanite woman?

If we say that Jesus did learn from the Canaanite woman, the only person in Matthew’s gospel to whom he attributes great faith (v. 28), then we suggest that perfection is not a pre-packaged little instruction manual that we must follow precisely in order to be saved. That, as we know, is the kind of legalism Jesus critiqued in his ministry. Rather, perhaps Jesus’ ‘perfection’ is an openness to growth, to learning, and to honest encounter with the other. Perhaps by learning from the Canaanite woman, Jesus redefines what it means to be perfect. Rather than being supra-human, Jesus’ path of perfection leads us to fuller, richer humanity—the humanity which God truly intends for creation.

August 3-- Feeding the Crowds (Instead of Turning and Running)

Passages: Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 17:1-7, 15; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21

Life in the Boston area, I have discovered, always involves crowds—you just never seem to be able to escape them. My husband and I drove all the way to Salem a few nights ago for a quiet, relaxing seaside dinner. We made it through road closures, traffic snarls, and blocks of parking spot-less curbs, only to finally dine in a restaurant so loud that we could hardly hear one another speak. When I recently went to experience the meditative, peaceful environs that inspired Walden, I was shocked to find Walden Pond swarmed by hundreds of people crammed onto its tiny beaches, their voices drifting up in a dull roar that echoed through Thoreau’s hallowed woods. In Massachusetts, especially during the summer tourist season, it seems that the only path to true solitude leads to somewhere in upstate Maine.

So we folks from Massachusetts can feel some of Jesus’ pain when, in today’s gospel lectionary passage, he gets in his boat and sails off for some R&R, only to find that he just can’t escape those pesky crowds. Jesus has good reason to seek solitude—he has just heard the news of John the Baptist’s death, and John’s killer thinks that Jesus is a resurrected John (14:1-2). It is smart for Jesus to lie low for a few days.

But someone in Jesus’ camp isn’t good about keeping his itinerary secret. For just like Walden Pond’s beaches on a sunny Saturday afternoon, upon coming ashore Jesus sees the beach jammed with people from the nearby towns. If Jesus had been like you or me, he probably would have cruised a little further up the coast for a more secluded beach. This being Jesus, though, “he had compassion for them and cured their sick” (v. 14).

Yet Jesus has something more in mind for this crowd than simply a few healings. To understand what’s going on, it helps to take a step back and think about the role this story plays in Matthew’s larger narrative. Many scholars have pointed out that for Matthew, Jesus is a latter-day Moses, the new lawgiver (Moses is threatened at birth but miraculously escapes; Matthew’s Jesus is threatened at birth but miraculously escapes. Moses gives the children of Israel the Law on Mount Sinai; Matthew’s Jesus preaches the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7). So when Jesus feeds the crowds twice in Matthew’s gospel—here in 14:13-21 and again in 15:29-39—there are echoes of Moses providing manna and quail to the Israelites on God’s behalf in Exodus 16 and Numbers 11. Jesus is to these people as Moses was to their ancestors, God’s miraculous messenger sent to lead them to the Promised Land.

But is Jesus really Moses here? Or is Jesus actually playing out the divine role in this little Exodus/Numbers parody? For when the disciples come to Jesus and ask him to send the crowds away, he doesn’t respond by telling everyone how God has promised to feed them, as Moses did. Instead, he tells the disciples, “You give them something to eat” (v. 16). When they offer all that they have, Jesus himself does the miraculous, transformative work that before had been reserved only for God. Here Matthew clearly states that Jesus is not simply a new Moses, but greater than Moses. Jesus not only speaks for God, but is the Son of God.

What about those disciples, then? The disciples, like Moses, are God’s servants to the people. They participate in the miracle, not only bringing the five loaves and two fish, but also distributing the meal to the crowds. The whole passage has a ritualistic, liturgical undertone to it—with all this blessing and breaking, giving and receiving, it sounds a lot like our own Eucharist services today. Jesus is inaugurating a new community to follow his teachings, a community where God amplifies our limited human tools to effectively serve the world. Jesus’ disciples find that with his help, they can in fact meet the needs of the crowds. They may not be new lawgivers, as Moses was, but they find that what they have to give is enough to do the job.

In these dog days of summer, when the needs of those around us threaten to swallow us like voices swallowed up in a crowded restaurant, remember Jesus feeding the five thousand. It isn’t just about the abundant feast that Jesus has put before us to nourish and sustain us on our personal journeys. For we are not only the crowds, but we are the disciples—called to offer grace and mercy to others as Christ has offered us grace and mercy. Our tools can seem woefully inadequate to the task. But through Christ’s transformative power, our lack becomes God’s abundance in us. Through Christ’s grace, we find sustenance for ourselves and strength to serve the world.

June 8 -- The Tax Man

Passages: Genesis 12:1-9, Psalm 33:1-12, Romans 4:13-25, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Many believe St. Matthew, the tax collector in today's passage, is also the author of the Gospel of Matthew, but many scholars hold this improbable and date the Gospel forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus.

In Matthew 9.9 we have the calling of Matthew; Jesus takes the tax collector as a disciple and eats dinner at his house with other tax collectors and "sinners." When he is questioned by the Pharisees about the company he keeps, Jesus says, "For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners" (Mt. 9.13). Jesus is always siding with the underdogs, those who are marginalized and the oppressed, and even shows them blatant favoritism at time to other social groups. Although Jesus' teachings and sacrifice is for all people, his ministry certainly focuses on and favors the poor, needy and outcast. But this is what makes the tax collector such an interesting figure in Jesus' ministry -- they aren't "the little guy." Not only are they materially comfortable, but they also work hand-in-hand with the Roman occupation.

Nobody likes the IRS, especially when taxes are taking food off your table. But in the first century Judea, the disdain for tax collectors went far beyond economics. Tax collectors were traitors, Jews who not only accepted Roman occupation but enabled and supported it. Furthermore, the way tax collectors made money was by collecting additional money than what was required. This was not necessarily corruption -- Rome expected this from its collectors. So when John the Baptist instructs tax collectors to "collect no more than you are required to" (Lk. 3.13) he is asking them to essentially work without wages. To most Jews living under Roman rule, tax collectors were traitors and extortionists, one of the worst kinds of people.

Jesus reaches out to the tax collectors precisely because they are ostracized by their communities, especially by the religious order that saw close cooperation with Gentiles as straying from their religious identities. They are unique from lepers, prostitutes, the disabled, and other marginalized groups Jesus ministers to because tax collectors occupy a certain level of privilege and have power that these other groups do not. However, as a disciple Jesus expects Matthew to open his homes to all kinds of "sinners" and to sacrifice what privilege he has for the sake of others.

There are lots of people in the modern world who occupy comfortable positions of privilege and are active and willing participants in a system that oppresses and hurts others. The tax man serves as an archetype for the middle class who "sell out" to this system and cooperate with imperialism. It's comforting to know that there is a special place in Jesus' teachings and ministry that serve people like the tax collectors: people struggling with their conscience and own identity, and that Jesus even invites them into his closest circle.