The Rev. Dayle Casey Proper 18 -- A

The Chapel of Our Saviour Ezekiel 33:1-11

Colorado Springs, Colorado Romans 12:9-21

September 8, 2002 Matthew 18:15-20

What is God using the Bible to do to us today?

Sometimes the Bible is hard to understand. What does it mean, for instance, when Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a woman leavening dough? Or what does it mean when the Scriptures say that there was a day when the sun stood still? What does the author of Revelation mean when he writes about seeing the sun turn black and the moon as red as blood? What does it mean when the Bible speaks of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Is God one, or three? Some parts of the Scriptures are mysterious. There are passages about which we scratch our heads.

But the mysterious parts of the Bible are not the difficult parts. We can deal with the parts that are mysterious as, well, mysterious. Sometimes the ways of God are mysterious. As Mark Twain observed, the parts of the Bible that are really hard for us are those parts that we do understand, the parts that are as clear as day, like today's readings. There is no mistaking what God is using the Bible to do to us this morning, and it's on days like today that the Bible really gives us fits.

These parts are hard for us because we're like the little boy who asked his mother why he had to go to Sunday School. His mother said, "So you can learn to be a nice boy." And the little boy replied, "I already know how to be a nicer boy than I want to be."

Why do we read the Bible? We read the Bible so that we can learn how to be God's Church. But we already know how to be God's Church more than we want to be.

Last Sunday, and again today, without ambiguity, St. Paul tells us what it means to be God's Church, what it means to be the community of faith, the Body of Christ: Christians are people who practice community, and one practices community by taking other people seriously, by practicing hospitality and forgiveness.

First, Christians are people who "practice hospitality." It's as clear as it can be. There is nothing ambiguous or mysterious about it. And we know it. That's why it's so hard for us. We already know how to be God's Church more than we want to be!

As we saw last week, some translations capture an even stronger urgency here by putting it this way: "Make hospitality your special care." And like this: "Go out of your way to be hospitable." In other words, seek out those who need you, and offer yourselves to them. Isn't that what Paul means when he adds: Do not be proud. Instead, be quick to associate with people of humble position. Esteem others more highly than yourself. Contribute to the needs of God's people.

Paul is not talking about entertaining people. Entertainment is good, but it is different from hospitality. Entertainment is what we sometimes do when we invite people over, perhaps into our homes, perhaps into our parish, eager to show off the house or the grounds or the pool, looking to impress.

Hospitality, on the other hand, the virtue Paul is talking about, is related to the words "hospital" and "hospice." It's the kind of relating to other people that contributes to healing, to their wholeness and to ours. It's a way of being toward other people that contributes to the restoring or creating of relationships. Hospitality, unlike entertainment, is welcoming others into our lives, welcoming the stranger, the lonely, the lowly, the one of humble position. Offering hospitality is something that every person can do. And I was pleased to see us doing a lot of it at the wonderful picnic Kim and so many others of you put on for everyone yesterday, welcoming others into our parish in such a way that we seek to let them know that they are themselves at home among us. It matters not whether the dwelling is grand or humble. The house may not be tidy, the grass may have turned to dust, but, whatever the circumstances, we want you to know that you are part of the family here. You belong. You are welcome. We want you to be at home among us.

Taking others seriously; being quick to associate with all people, especially those of humble position; esteeming others more highly than ourselves; contributing to their needs. It starts with the name.

Names are terrifyingly significant. "Buechner," says Frederick Buechner. "It is my name. B-u-e-c-h-n-e-r. It's pronounced Beekner. If someone mispronounces my name in some foolish way, I have the feeling that what's foolish is me. If someone forgets it, I feel that it's I who am forgotten." If someone remembers my name, I feel that it is I who am remembered. If someone ignores my name, I feel that it is I who am being ignored. If someone takes my name seriously, I feel that it is I who am being taken seriously.

There is nothing in this world more deadly than being ignored, nothing more certain to sap the very life and spirit right out of a person than not to be taken seriously. And if you ignore the name, you ignore the person.

For those who know, as we do, that God calls each of us by name, it is not sufficient to say, "I'm just no good at names." That's like saying, "I'm no good at people." And what Jesus and Paul are telling us today -- and there's no ambiguity about it -- is that those who practice hospitality, those who would be God's Church, are good at people, because God is good at people. We are called to take each other seriously, called to know each other, to care for each other, to esteem each other more highly than ourselves, to contribute to the needs of others, to go out of our way to offer hospitality -- wholeness, health -- to others, because God has offered it to us.

And not just to those whom it's easy to meet, or whom we seem naturally to like, but to all, in the name of Christ. And it all begins with the name. It cannot be done without the name. Christians, says Paul, are a people who practice this virtue, who go out of their way to be hospitable.

Second, says Paul, Christians are people who practice forgiveness: Bless those who persecute you. Bless them; do not curse them. Never pay back evil with evil. Shun evil, and hold fast to what is good. Do not seek revenge. Persist in prayer. If your enemy is hungry or thirsty, give him something to eat and drink. That way evil will never conquer you, but you will conquer evil with good.

It's so clear, so obvious, so basic, just as Jesus is clear when he says that the way to live a life that is really abundant life is to do to others as you want others to do to you. And yet it can tie us in knots the way those obscure, mysterious parts of the Bible don't. Lord, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lord, forgive us our sins in the same way that we forgive others who sin against us. There is nothing about that that's hard to understand. The problem is not in the understanding. The problem is in already knowing more about how to forgive than I want to.

Practicing forgiveness. Refusing to seek revenge. Holding fast to what is good. Blessing those who persecute you, blessing them rather than cursing them. Offering your enemy nourishment if he is hungry, offering him wholeness and health when he has offered you nothing of the kind. It is, say Paul and Jesus, the way to conquer evil with good, the way to make sure that evil never conquers us.

The problem is not that we don't understand that. Jesus and Paul, at least, are very clear about it. The problem is that it doesn't come naturally. For those who would be God's Church, those who would practice community, it's not sufficient to say, "I'm just no good at forgiveness," anymore than it's sufficient to say, "I'm just no good at names." Forgiveness, like hospitality, has to be believed in, valued, cherished, and then worked at.

This Wednesday, September 11, we will remember the anniversary of our having been struck on the cheek. We will do that here at Our Saviour by gathering to share food and drink with Jesus. What is the response that Jesus and Paul encourage for such an occasion?

In the 1930s and 1940s, Satan struck the world hard. In those grim days, he struck not only the cheek, but also the heart. He struck not only the Jews; he struck at the very core of all religious principle, at Christian principle as well as Jewish. He struck at the very life of human civilization.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer responded, not with weapons, but with his will. He refused his own consent, and in 1943 Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Nazis for his refusal to consent to their designs. He spent the rest of his life in their prisons.

While in prison, Bonhoeffer spent his time in prayer and in writing. "How does one effectively combat evil?" Bonhoeffer asked. It is no good trying to combat fanaticism with fanaticism, he concluded. "The fanatic thinks that his single-minded principles qualify him to do battle with the powers of evil; but like a bull, he rushes at the red cloak instead of at the person who is holding it; he exhausts himself, and is beaten....

"There is a very real danger [in times like these, a danger] of our drifting into an attitude of contempt for humanity. We know quite well that we have no right to do so, and that it would lead us into the most sterile relation to our fellow-men. The following thoughts may keep us from such a temptation. It means that we at once fall into the worst blunders of our opponents. The man who despises another will never be able to make anything of him.

"Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. We often expect from others more than we are willing to do ourselves.... We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer. The only profitable relationship to others -- and especially to our weaker brethren -- is one of love, and that means the will to hold fellowship with them. God himself did not despise humanity, but became man for men's sake." (Letters and Papers from Prison, pp. 3, 9)

On April 9, 1945, Bonhoeffer was executed for his trouble, but he did not allow evil to conquer himself, and therefore to have its way with the part of the world he was in charge of.

Two questions persist. How big is God's community, the community God became man for; who are the people of God, the people whom God loves, those for whom Christ himself died? And what part of the world am I in charge of?

How big is God's community, the community God became man for; who are the people of God, the people whom God loves, those for whom Christ himself died? Jean Vanier, the leader of L'Arche Community in Toronto, warns about our human habit of dividing ourselves into the "good" people and the "bad" people. When we do this, he says, usually over some kind of "issue," invariably we see ourselves as the "good" people, while the others are the "bad." "In issue-oriented groups," he notes, "the enemy is always outside, those who are of the other party."

"True community is different," he reminds us, as Jesus and Paul and Bonhoeffer have reminded us before. True community is different from "issue-oriented groups," because, in true community our "single-minded principles" are trumped by the principle of the Cross. "True community is different because of the realization that the evil is inside, not just inside the community, but inside me. I cannot think of taking the speck of dust out of my neighbor's eye unless I'm working on the log in my own. Evil is here in me. Warfare is inside my own community, and I am called to be an agent of peace there. But warfare is also in me, and I am called to seek wholeness inside myself." (From Brokenness to Community.)

What both Bonhoeffer and Vanier correctly observe in the context of human conflict in our own day is what Jesus and Paul and all the saints of the Bible knew centuries ago -- that the evil which would tear human beings apart cuts through every human heart and culture. It is, as C. S. Lewis once said, as if the whole earth is enemy-occupied territory, and Satan works mightily to divide us into groups called good and bad so that we will tear each other apart.

Second, what part of the world am I in charge of? "One thing I've learned about loving my neighbor and doing good things for my enemy," writes Sue Armentrout, bringing it all even closer to home, "is that practicing kindness and generosity towards [my enemy] has a way of defusing the tension and the enmity. If I follow Paul's advice, I sometimes end up changing my attitude towards the person [to] whom I'm giving food and drink. So I may start out by acting in such a manner in order to heap coals of fire, but I may end up by making a friend out of an enemy. My enemy is usually 'the Other,' and when the Other becomes familiar, when I can see that the Other is just like me, then fear and hostility diminish. It is difficult to remain an enemy with someone with whom I have shared food and drink."

We don't have to wait until someone commits another terrorist attack, or even until someone commits just ordinary murder, to practice forgiveness. There are other, more local circumstances that call for forgiveness as we come to God's table to share God's food and drink this morning. Today's Bible readings offer practical, down-to-earth advice about how we human beings, torn within and without by the divisiveness of sin, are to embody the community of God's promised kingdom, here on earth as it is in heaven, even right here in the parish church. It is here, within ourselves and with our own local neighbors, that the war on terrorism begins, and will ultimately be won.

Practicing forgiveness is not optional for the Christian. Nor is practicing hospitality optional. We are to forgive each other as we have been forgiven, just as we are to welcome others as God has welcomed us and as we would like to be welcomed. In fact, as we will later acknowledge when we pray in the way our Lord taught us, the one depends upon the other: our offering forgiveness depends upon our having been forgiven, and our being forgiven depends upon our offering forgiveness.

William Willimon tells about a man who visited his wife at work one day. His wife is an attorney who works in bankruptcy court, and the man said that as the court began that day, before the first particular case was called, the bailiff cried out, "All debtors rise!" That's us! Before there can be any talk about our forgiving anyone else, there must be talk about our asking forgiveness ourselves.

John Hines, a former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, once prayed, "Our Father, save us for heaven's sake. And for earth's sake, make us worth saving." That, I think, is what God is using the Bible to try to do to us today.

It's not very hard to understand. What's hard is wanting it and working at it. It's St. Paul's unambiguous prescription for building up the Body of Christ, his practical advice for being a success at being church. It's as clear as the light of day: Go out of your way to practice hospitality. Go out of your way to practice forgiveness.

It is hard to remain an enemy with someone with whom we have shared food and drink. That's why God welcomes you and me, all of us, to his table this morning.

In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.