TWELFTH SUNDAY after PENTECOST

September 4, 2011

Text: Matthew 18:15-20

Pastor Dale G. Bauer

I’ll never forget the annual theological conference that took place over 20 years ago in Estes Park, Colorado. Clergy and professional church workers from Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming gathered for fellowship, lectures, and conversation with the bishop, Wayne Weissenbuehler. Suggested reading was Is Nothing Sacred? Can’t remember the author, and I loaned the book out a long time ago and haven’t seen it since. It is about sexual misconduct, then largely male clergy with female parishioners. It is about boundaries and the consequences of failing to observe those boundaries.

When it came time for collegial conversation, the bishop said something like this:

Okay brothers and sisters, here are my rules. If you are involved in sexual misconduct with anyone in your parish, you lose your call and your ordination. If you get divorced and it
involves breaking your marriage vows on your part, you lose your call and your ordination. If your spouse breaks marriage vows and you divorce, you keep your call and your ordination. The bishop then went on and outlined what he considered sexual misconduct.

When he finished there was dead silence and a measure of shock. I was surprised that he was so clear, but I was also relieved. It was good to hear those boundaries enunciated. Years before I had instituted a rule in my church that there would always be two adults in any classroom with children. When I am in the presence of children, there are always other adults present. I don’t do long-term counseling because of issues of transference. I use the correct hugging procedure with women.

I believe in boundaries in the Christian community, not just because it makes good sense. They are recommended by Jesus himself. In the eighteenth chapter of Matthew Jesus outlines a procedure to throw people out of the church, the ekklesia, who do not keep boundaries. Jesus does this because he understands that we are by nature sinful and do, in the human community, sin. Knowledge of sin is given to us through our knowledge of the Law, summarized best in the Ten Commandments. He knew that even in the Christian community people would lie about each other, cross sexual boundaries, steal from each other, and worship all kinds of gods other than God, like possessions and success. He suggests that when we are sinned against, we can get together privately with the sinner and make him or her aware of the sin. If that doesn’t bring reconciliation, get others from the community to counsel with the person. If that doesn’t work, go to the leaders of the church and counsel with the person. If that doesn’t work, separate from them. Treat them as gentiles, that is, unclean; as the Fathers of Uncleanliness. The unrepentant don’t belong in the body of Christ.

Ouch. Did I say that? It goes against almost everything we do in the church. I have read countless articles on how to attract people to the church and articles cross my desk (or floor)
daily. I’ve read books on making people comfortable from The Celtic Way of Evangelism to Aqua Church, all promising formulas of success. There’s a training manual for looking at your church the way guests see the church and making it comfortable for them, from a visitor center to directional signs. Robert Schuller, of Crystal Cathedral Fame, said the most important room in your church is the bathroom. John Maxwell believes it is the nursery. There is a church off of Golf Course Road in Rio Rancho that advertises that no perfect people are allowed in it. There’s a church in suburban Atlanta, Buckhorn I think, that is wildly successful on the model that you find what people need and want and you give it to them. Get them in, get them integrated, and get them evangelizing. Never a word about throwing them out. Or holding them responsible. I’ve served three congregations over the last 37 years. To avoid holding sinners accountable I have seen Christians turn their heads the other way to embezzlement, lying, and character assassination—of both lay people and clergy. I have seen people practice idolatry by siding with sin and evil. It is veiled under the guise of friendship or hoping they go away.

There is a provision in the constitution of this congregation, Section 15, Discipline of Members, that provides a procedure taken from our gospel today to reconcile sinners or excommunicate them if they are unrepentant. I have never had a congregation council initiate action against an unrepentant sinner. In cooperation with a congregation council, once, I began the procedure outlined in section 15, against unrepentant sinners in the congregation, with the intention of taking it to its conclusion, excommunication. (We don’t use that word
anymore because it has become so embarrassing.)

Now, I believe in reconciliation. In forgiving. I, like you, never want to be accused of being legalistic, intolerant, or narrow. When Jesus says,

Judge not lest you
be judged,

he is warning against the rush to judgment that often happens. He also is speaking to anyone judging another’s relationship to God. I cannotdo that and will not do that.

God gives us incredibly healthy boundaries by which to live as individuals and a church. We call them the Ten Commandments. Jesus summarized them by loving God first and loving our neighbor. When we fall short of these magnificent boundaries, there should be lots of room for repentance and reconciliation. That’s because the Church of Jesus Christ is at once amazingly strong and amazingly vulnerable. It is so precious that Jesus gives us a formula for keeping it healthy.

To be part of the body of Christ is to honor that body by being a responsible part of it and responsible to it. Nothing less will do when we claim the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Amen.