Father Riley's homily for September 6, 2020

PROPER XVIII - A - 20 - EZ 33.7-11, ROM. 13. 8-14, MATT. 18. 15-20

No one likes confrontation. It is a very difficult thing. Few of us do it well.  In today’s passage from Matthew, Jesus is giving his disciples a lesson on reconciliation for that is at the very heart of his ministry and the one Jesus has passed on to the Church.

Christ’ teaching concerns forgiveness and its grim counterpart. It’s all part of the “binding and loosing” that comes with the ministry of the Church. It has to do with church discipline and in the worse case excommunication. However, excommunication did not originate with the Church. The Jews of Jesus’ day already employed it.

You may recall the story from St. John’s gospel concerning the man born blind. When the man’s parents were questioned by the Pharisees on how it happened that their son born blind could now see, and who had done it, they refused to answer and referred their inquisitors to their son.

They were afraid of being excommunicated from the synagogue. For anyone who believed in Jesus or who acknowledged his work were threatened with being put out of the synagogue. (Jn, 9. 20-21)

The Ash Wednesday Liturgy contains an invitation to a Holy Lent. Within that invitation is a reminder that “the season of Lent was a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and resorted to the fellowship of the church.” (BCP 265)

Jesus gave the church a three-step process in order to do so with the Hope that the offender might be reconciled. The “grim counterpart”  that of excommunication comes at the end of the process when the offender refuses to repent and instead chooses to continue in his or her ways that run counter to God.

The prophet Ezekiel in today’s first lesson was chosen by God to be a “watchman.” His mission was to warn God’s people to turn from their evil ways and return to God. God demanded of Ezekiel that he never give up; never cease to warn a stubborn and rebellious people. In this Ezekiel shows us a God of Hope. It is the Hope of God that makes possible the forgiveness of God.

Reconciliation is a huge issue today and not just in the church. We see clearly the results of not doing it in our society. We are a divided people. Violent protests continue in our nations’ streets.

In some of our major cities, anarchists reign. The destruction of private and public property and the loss of human life are masked behind so-called peaceful demonstrations by a media that seeks to convince the majority that it is “ok.”

Many of us prefer to pretend there is not a problem. We refuse to face the facts, swallow our anger or resentment, paper over the cracks, and carry on as if everything is normal. On a smaller scale, we have broken marriages, shattered families, and divided churches.

Many Christians have taken this paper over the cracks option, in terms of dealing with individuals, and or institutions, believing that this is what forgiveness means, pretending that everything is alright, that the other person or persons has not done anything wrong.

To ignore it, however, will not do. Obviously, the question came up in the time of Jesus that is why we have his teaching in Matthew’s gospel. Evidence of Christ’ teaching on Church discipline being put into practice can be seen in St. Paul’s writings, primarily in First Corinthians 5.5, and Galatians 6.1.

One cannot ignore the problem. There is no reconciliation without confronting the evil that has been done. Forgiveness does not mean saying, “it didn’t really happen’ or ‘it didn’t really matter.’ In those cases, you don’t need reconciliation; you need to clear up a misunderstanding.

Forgiveness is when it did happen, and it did matter, and you are going to deal with it. Jesus gives us a three-step process in which to do that very thing with the Hope that the offender might be reconciled to the one who has been offended.

The hard part comes if the offender still refuses to yield and be reconciled.

However, together with the hard challenge comes a dramatic promise. We are not left on our own as we struggle to become the sort of communities, families, and churches Jesus is describing. God’s presence is with us. If we take that seriously, engaging in reconciliation will still be costly but it will always be done in real Hope.

The gospel, you see, makes the same demand on us as God did Ezekiel. Never give up. Persevere in Hope that they will hear and listen, and turn back to God. The key to reconciliation is perseverance.

It may be in the end that we have to let go, if they continue to refuse and remain steadfast in their actions. But we do so with the Hope that one day they may return. This Hope is reflected in St. Paul’s message about love, the ultimate debt we owe one another.

Love supports our patience; Love never gives up on the other. Forgiveness is based on love, God’s love for each of us, and our response to His love by loving others as Christ first loved us.

It is God’s love that gifts us with life. This in turn is the love that we owe each other.

The message today is to Hope, to have the greatness of heart to hope even in the one who wrongs us, to Hope that our nation will be healed, that our divisions may cease, and that the Church may be one.

For the meaning of our redemption is that God continued to Hope in us. God’s hope, God’s love, went to such lengths that Christ gave his life on the hard wood of the cross that we might be reconciled to God.

Christ gave his life in the expectation that we would turn from our sinful ways and live. For God, Ezekiel proclaims, does not delight in the death of a sinner, but that he indeed may turn from his ways and live. AMEN+