Proper 18 year A RCL

September 7, 2008

Matthew 18:15-20

Jesus said, "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."

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. In the name of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” During our liturgy for Morning Prayer (which we don’t do all that often here at St. Timothy’s) there is a prayer at the end of the service called the prayer of St. Chrysostom. I read this prayer every Sunday afternoon at Macklyn House. Part of the prayer to God says, “you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them…” It is really a good prayer that has been used within the Church for about 1600 years. Obviously, the last verse of our Gospel lesson today was St. Chrysostom’s inspiration for his prayer.

John Chrysostom clarifies for us within his prayer what Jesus meant by, “if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.” Bishop Chrysostom prays, “Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us…” This is how he explains why we aren’t cashing in constantly by getting our Christian friends to pray with us that we will win the lottery. Jesus didn’t say that we had to pray only for things that will be best for us. In fact, he said that if two of us agree and pray to the Father for a certain thing, then the Father will hook us up. Yet I’ve tried it like God is my magic lamp and it just doesn’t work like that. Perhaps John Chrysostom got a buddy to pray with the same way and had the same disappointment.  He thought about the whole deal and came up with this idea that God only fulfills those requests that God deems to be in our best interests. This is a good clarification of a verse that could easily be taken too literally.

I’ve had this happen to me many times in my Christian life. The Bible tells me something that seems pretty straight forward, but, low and behold, doesn’t match up with the way that I perceive the world. There is often some kind of disconnect between what I read in the Bible and what I experience.

For instance, when I do my morning devotion I pray and I pretty much figure that Jesus is there with me. I get up into the woods by myself on a glorious summer day and I can sense the presence of Jesus in the smell of nature.  Then I read this verse that says that, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”  This sounds like it takes the two or three gathered before Jesus will join in. And I think to myself that Jesus was already present with me way before I came across the two or three. So I get confused and have to figure out a way to understand the Scripture so that it will match with my reality. Which makes me feel sheepish—as if I am massaging the Scripture somehow to read what I want it to read. Because I really do believe that Scripture should change us rather than us changing the Scripture to justify our prejudices or anything else.

Regardless, this is what I’ve come up with so far: Jesus is especially present when we gather in his name as a Christian community (like now, here, in church).  I don’t think that being a Home Baptist is what Jesus had in mind when he started his ministry. Do you know about the Home Baptists? They don’t need to go to church. They got their Bible at home and they can read it when and if they want to. These people aren’t bad people and I’m not saying that they aren’t Christian. I’m saying that being a follower of Jesus seems to work best when a bunch of us gather and work at it together. Human beings were designed to live and grow in community. And the most nurturing communities are the ones that work together to experience the love of God.

When we gather together here at St. Timothy’s in Jesus’ name the goal is for us to increase our conscious contact with God in a way that is emotionally and spiritually satisfying. If you’re not feeling it, then we have a problem and we need to talk about it. Please do not just drop out and become a Home Baptist. We are all on a spiritual quest for experiencing the love of Christ.  It is a lot more likely that we can achieve this goal together than by ourselves.

==AMEN==