Proper 18 :: Ezekiel 33: 7–11 / Psalm 119: 33–40 / Romans 13: 8–14 / Matthew 18: 15–20
This
is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker
on Sunday, September 6, 2020.
“PRESERVING THE CHURCH IN ORDER TO PREPARE IT FOR MINISTRY”
(Homily text: Matthew 18: 15–20)
There are many
things that can undermine the Church, things that, if left unaddressed and
unattended to, can cause the Church to be ineffective in its work and ministry
in the world.
Some of those
destructive things might include:
- A failure to assign
Holy Scripture to its rightful place as the supreme authority in all matters
pertaining to faith and salvation. (Yes, we Episcopalians, who are inheritors
of the Anglican ethos, confirm that supplemental sources of authority consist
in Right Reason (we might say “common sense” today), and also in the Church’s
received tradition….but these two sources of authority are supplemental to the
authority of Holy Scripture….so there is no so-called “Three-legged-stool” of
authority, as if to say that Scripture, Right Reason and Tradition are all
equal in their weight.)[1]
- Dilution of the
Church’s proper focus on doing God’s work by shifting our attention onto
secondary concerns….the Church’s main reason-for-being has to do with its work
of connecting God with people and people with God, and with the nurturing of
that relationship.
- Adoption of a
secular agenda to such an extent that the Church begins to look like the
secular world in which it is situated.
- Allowing interpersonal strife and disagreements to crowd out our Christ-like witness to the world.
It is this last
point which is the focus of our Lord’s teaching, heard in our Gospel text this
morning. Jesus describes the way in which personal wrongdoing is to be handled
in the Church: His approach preserves the privacy of the wrongdoer, and values
the continuing relationship that can exist between an offender and the body of
Christ. That is the reason for our Lord’s prescription which calls for a
wrongdoer to be approached privately by one person who has knowledge of the
situation.
If that initial
encounter between an offender and a person who has knowledge of the nature of
the situation doesn’t resolve the matter, then the Lord says that two or three
witnesses are to go with the individual to confront the person. Only then, if
this second step fails to bring about a rightful outcome, is the Church as a
whole to be brought into the decision-making process.
The Church, should
it find that there are grounds for dealing with a wrongful act(s), is to treat
a guilty party by treating them as a “Gentile and a tax collector”. At first
glance, that should prompt the Church’s members to shun a guilty person. But if
we remember that our Lord sought out such persons, again and again, His example
should encourage us to seek reconciliation and restoration of relationship.
Why is it so
important that the Church maintain unity within its membership? Why is it so
important that each member of the Church live a holy and exemplary life? I
think the reason is that we are called to show forth by what we say and by what
we do that our Lord Jesus Christ’s presence within our hearts and minds goes so
deeply into those places that our desire is to live righteously and uprightly
before the Lord and before the world. A saying which has been attributed to St.
Francis of Assisi seems to be an appropriate way to summarize how we are to
live: He said, “Always preach the Gospel. If necessary, use words”. AMEN.
[1] It was the 16th century Anglican priest, Richard Hooker, who articulated the Anglican understanding of the sources of authority.
