15th Sunday after Pentecost

A couple of weeks ago, after we returned from New Hampshire, I was watching some late-night TV. In the course of channel surfing, I stumbled upon the old show “Cheers” on Netflix. I hadn’t seen it in years. So, I settled in and binged several episodes. It was a real trip down memory lane for me, transporting me back to the TV lounge in Horner Hall at Earlham College, where we would gather on Thursday nights to watch the latest episode.

It’s easy to see why it was a popular show. After all, it’s the place “where everybody knows your name”, right? And even though the characters would often become annoyed with one another, there was always an undercurrent of care and affection amongst them. Who wouldn’t want to have a place like that? You could be part of the community. People would always be glad to see you. And apparently you rarely, if ever, have to pay for your beer!

Community is essential to who we are, as human beings. We’re hard-wired for it. We need to be in relationship with others. Because it’s such a huge part of who and what we are, it’s no surprise that the Bible devotes a large percentage of its pages to the subject of community with God and community with one another. And today’s readings are no exception to that.

The book of Romans, by and large, is not a proclamation of the Gospel. Not in the same sense that the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are. Romans is more like a user’s manual for the Gospel. It shows us what it looks like to live the kind of life to which faith calls us. It is a disruptive life.

When Paul writes, “8Owe no one anything” he’s not talking about sound fiscal policies. To understand what Paul is getting at, here, we need to understand first-century Roman culture a bit better. The language of obligation defined the life of Roman citizens. They owed the emperor honor and allegiance. You owed your benefactor money, possessions, honor. Slaves owed service and their very lives. Wives owed submission, and so on. So, when Paul exhorts his audience to “owe” nothing except love, he’s rearranging everything. To owe nothing except love eliminates the structures inherent in the life of Roman citizens and subjects. Paul’s exhortation to owe nothing except love forces some rethinking. Paul does not say, “In addition to what you already do, love one another.” He says owe nothing. Suddenly the culturally derived conceptions of obligation and what they require are made irrelevant in light of the obligation of love to one another.

The transformation of the mind that Paul talks about, the offering of the body, being clothed with Christ, means rearranging our lives with new priorities. It is to owe nothing, and to live differently. It means adopting a new way of life. Paul is advocating a new and radical understanding of what it means to be in community with God and with one another. Fulfilling the law is being obligated to love of one another, rather than drawing lines of distinction between Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free, benefactor and beneficiary. Loving one another, understood through the lens of the cross, means giving up our claims to ourselves and our claims over others, regardless of whether they’re “right” or “fair” according to our own norms or mores.

God created us for community. God calls us to be in community with one another. And God knows that being in community with one another is hard. Which brings us to the reading from Matthew. Matthew's deep concern in this passage and in so many other places is community -- honest-to-goodness, authentic Christian community.

Here’s the thing about community: 1) we all say we want it and 2) we usually have no idea how difficult it is to come by. Community is one of those words that tend to bring out the idealist in us. We imagine something like Cheers: A place where you're accepted for who you are. A place where you're never lonely. And a place where, of course, everybody knows your name.

But the really difficult thing about community is that it's made up of people! And people -- not you and me, of course, but most people – can, at turns, be difficult, challenging, selfish, and unreliable.  And loving, encouraging, altruistic, and dependable. This is the reality that Jesus addresses in Matthew, and these are the points that he makes: People sin. Communities are made up of these sinning people. When that happens and you're involved, do something about it. Go talk to the other person directly like a mature adult rather than behind his or her back. If that doesn't work, involve some others from the community. Not in order to gather witnesses, but rather to involve and preserve the larger community that is being affected by this dispute. If that doesn't work, then things are serious and you're all at risk. And as to treating the offender "as a Gentile and tax collector": We need to remind ourselves of how it was that Jesus himself dealt with the Gentiles and Tax collectors. He didn’t ignore them. He didn’t reject them. Instead, he went to them. He offered them healing and restoration, not rejection and perpetual anger. Matthew himself was a tax collector, after all.

To put it more succinctly: Authentic community is hard to come by. It's work, but it's worth it. Because when you find it, it's like discovering a little bit of heaven on earth; it's like experiencing the reality of God's communal fellowship and existence in your midst. It’s the Kingdom of Heaven happening among us. Matthew isn’t setting up rules of engagement. He’s trying to build authentic Christian community. The point isn’t so much about having a code of conduct to follow, but more about regaining a brother or sister. It’s about creating an environment where Christ’s presence continues to bring forgiveness, healing, and joy.

Jesus promises that when we gather with honesty and integrity, even when it's hard, amazing things can happen because Jesus is with us, right there, in our very midst, forming and being formed by our communal sharing. The question is, what kind of community do we want to be? Do we want something primarily social and somewhat superficial (which is, of course, safer)? Do we want something more meaningful or intimate (which is riskier and more difficult)? Do we want a place that can both encourage us and hold us accountable? Are we looking for a place where we can be honest about our hopes and fears, dreams and anxieties? Do we want somewhere we can just blend in or are we looking for a place we can really make a difference?

Creating and maintaining authentic community is hard. But it’s also powerful, and it’s healing, and it’s a tremendous witness. It’s a lot of work, but it’s also worth it.

There is so much that challenges us in the world today. There’s the devastation from hurricanes.  Neo-Nazis recently gathered publicly outside of Disney world and in Orlando, waving flags with swastikas on them and spewing their own personal brand of vitriolic hate. Attacks on LGBTQ individuals are on the rise. Reported incidents of Antisemitism in the United States rose by 36% in 2022. Racially motivated violence has become commonplace. And unless the numbers are truly eye-popping, we don’t even hear about the majority of mass shootings that take place every year. The world desperately needs us to be the Body of Christ. 

And then there’s everything going on in our personal lives, from our greatest fears and disappointments to our biggest hopes and joys, we also need to be cared for by, and to be part of, the Body of Christ. So, I’ll say it again: authentic community is hard. But it’s also powerful and healing. And a tremendous witness. And a heck of a lot of work, to be sure, but always worth it.

And when we grow tired following the path that Jesus has set before us, and we will grow tired from time to time, we can remind each other that we have Jesus’ promise that each and every time we try, he is there with us – instructing us in the way of love, urging us on, forgiving us, and sending us out to be agents of reconciliation and peace, accompanying us everywhere we go.

The world needs you. And thanks be to God that we are not alone. Each and every time we come together, whether it’s two, twenty-two, or two-thousand-and-two, Jesus is here. Even when it’s just a few of us, Jesus promises his presence in our gatherings. And that makes all the difference, because it makes what we do more than just what we do. It makes it ministry. It makes it the work of the Body of Christ. It makes it the work of the Kingdom of Heaven.

AMEN