The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 7, 2008
Matthew 18:15-20
~The Rev. Dr. Kris Lewis

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O God, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.

Summer camp is one of the quintessential experiences of childhood—spending time away from home, sleeping in cabins or tents near the lake, or perhaps even the ocean. New friends, swimming, sports, crafts, camp songs and campfires—and of course, s’mores! What could be better?

When I was a kid, however, I never got to go to camp—and I really wanted to go. Girl Scout camp, church camp, it didn’t matter, I just wanted to go, but for one reason or another it never worked out. Finally, beginning about 10 years ago, I had the opportunity to make up for this missing piece of my childhood—I got to go to camp!—first as a part of a week-long session of ‘family camp’ and then in subsequent summers as a part of the volunteer staff for regular camp sessions. Just as I’d imagined, and even as an adult, those were some of the best weeks of my summers. A beautiful setting, good company, good food, games, singing, campfires, chapel services overlooking the lake—it was awesome, and I was always a bit sad when the week was over and it was time to return home.

As I’ve reflected on my camp experiences over time, I’ve come to realize that what made going to camp so special for me was not just the fun activities and the new friends, not just the good food—not even the s’mores!—it was living in an intentional community, a community of faith, a community that came together to have fun to be sure, but also to share each person’s stories and struggles, and to become, within the structures of worship and faith, something more real, more Christ-like together than any of us could be as individuals, even if for just a brief moment in time. Being part of that community stayed with me even after camp was over, it continued to shape me and my interactions with the world going forward.

We, of course, live out our daily lives in a variety of civic and social communities—our neighborhoods, our towns, our schools, our workplaces, and our churches—communities that likewise shape us in important ways as we participate in them. We value our communities and our place in them, but as Americans, we also pride ourselves on our rugged individualism, our independence, our ability to go it alone. As a consequence, we struggle with the limits that living in community place on us, often seeking to curb the influence our communities exert on our lives, and asserting our self-sufficiency.

However, for us as people of faith, as Christians, we slough off community and assert our self-reliance at our peril. In this post-Christian culture it’s all too easy for us to fail to see church as a community at all, let alone an essential community. It’s easy to begin to feel that church consumes too much of our time, to wonder if it really has anything to say about how we live in this complex 21st century world. But it is precisely because we live in a complex, difficult, post-Christian world that we need the support of our Christian community, the one of which we are a part right here at Saint Mary’s, our church.

Of course, church, for us, is a word with a multitude of meanings—it can refer to the building, to the services we hold here, to the larger institutional structures of which we are a part, to the whole body of Christian believers, and we often lose sight of the church as community. But the word church, at its NT roots, really is a synonym for community. When Jesus used the word we now translate as church and when Paul used it in his letters, they were using the Greek word ekklesia, a word that originally connoted not a building or an institution, but rather an assembly, a gathering, or a community.

Yes, a community. In a very real sense, Jesus in his preaching and teaching was calling us into a community—an intentional community of faith, bound together by our recognition of Jesus as our messiah, the son of the living God, and bound together by a common way of life, a life of discipleship. As we’ve moved through Matthew’s gospel this year in our lectionary we’ve heard Jesus teaching over and over again about what it means to live as disciples, and by extension, what it means to live as a community, a community centered in Christ. But it’s not just there in Matthew’s gospel, it’s found in all the gospels, and in Paul’s writings—letters written to the various ekklesiai , communities of Christ followers as well, and in the Acts of the Apostles. In a very real way the whole of the New Testament calls us into community, instructs us in how to live, even as it testifies to the reality of Jesus, our lord and savior.

Today’s readings are a case in point. In today’s gospel we hear Jesus speaking to his disciples about resolving a conflict, dealing with someone who has sinned against—offended in some grievous way—another member of the group. Jesus begins by saying, "If another member of the community sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone,” and then he continues to outline a whole step by step process to be followed in dealing with this issue, ending with presenting the issue to the entire community for resolution. While this process may sound difficult to us, the larger thrust of what Jesus is saying should not be lost on us. Jesus is calling us, as members of a community, to speak the truth in love, to speak directly to those with whom we have issues, and to be accountable to one another in all our actions—all hallmarks of a healthy community.

Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans gives instructions about living in community as well. “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law,” Paul writes. “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, …[and] put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul’s words were directed to particular problems in a particular time and place, but their value transcends that particularity. As a community centered on Christ, what better advice could we have than to love one another, a way of life that in Jesus’ own words is of utmost importance.

Perhaps the most essential truth about what it means to live in community as Christians, to be a community bound by faith, is found at the end of our gospel today, when Jesus says, “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." What more reassuring words for us. When we gather in his name, as we do here today, we are not here on our own—Jesus is right here with us. Jesus is the very heart of our community, surrounding us and filling us with God’s grace and love. And so surrounded, we are shaped and transformed by this community; as we share not only our faith but also our stories and our struggles, our hopes and our burdens, we become something more real, something more essential, something larger than the sum of our individual selves and at the same time we become more fully the people God calls us to be.

It doesn’t stop there, however. Jesus calls us into community where we are filled and strengthened and then having been transformed, he sends us back out into the world, to take some of that larger being with us, both to strengthen us and to shine as a beacon for others. As we go back into the world this week, may we be so strengthened, may we be clothed in the armor of light, and may we go full speed to be true disciples, loving God and our neighbor, and to invite our neighbor into community with us.

AMEN.