The Reverend Charleston David Wilson
In the Name of the Living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Most of us talk about someone who has hurt us before we talk to that special someone who has hurt us.
And this happens all the time in every culture and it’s a universal human phenomenon. Murray Bowen, the famed family systems theorist of the 20th century, called it “triangulation.” Basically, the idea works something like this. So, let’s say I experience something that causes stress in a relationship with another person. Instead of confronting the stress and the offender, you and I most often tell someone else, a third party. This, in turn, creates an emotional triangle; hence, the term “triangulation.”
Let me give you a real world scenario.
Imagine a young newlywed wife is mad at her husband for what she feels is his over commitment to work. He’s trying to make a name for himself, you see, which keeps him from taking care of her and the kids. Rather than address a serious issue with her husband by speaking up and telling him about her desires for him to be around more often and to participate more in family life, she picks up the phone, as she often does after she’s had a glass or two of wine in the evening, and calls her mother, telling her things aren’t so good at home. But she tells her mom not to say a word to her husband because she doesn’t’t want to “interfere” with the way her mom sees her husband. Still, she tells her mom all about how her husband comes home late from work, stays up late working while he is at home, keeps his head buried in the iPad, stays grumpy, isn’t involved in activities with the children and doesn’thelp her around the house. She refrains from telling her mom about their abysmal intimate life, opting instead to tell her best friend at work.
As we might expect, the mother-in-law feels angry and feels that her daughter is not being treated fairly by her son-in-law. Still, in this sick sort of way, she has been glad to have her daughter opening up to her and telling her about her life lately, and since she asked her not to say anything, she doesn’t want to break her trust by saying something to her son-in-law.
While all of this is going on, the woman’s husband begins to feel more distant from his wife and he mentions to his brother-in-law that she seems to be more distant from him lately. He tells his brother-in-law not to say anything to his wife, but because he has been friends with his brother-in-law since kindergarten he feels comfortable venting to him.
What ends up happening is that rather than dealing directly with each other so that genuine reconciliation and forgiveness can emerge, both the wife and the husband complain to a third party and they end up avoiding ever addressing the real issues that are creating distance between them. Eventually – and I kid you not – you and I end up talking about their divorce at the Club over a martini, saying something like, “No, nothing really happened; they said it was just irreconcilable differences.”
And our Lord must recognize our propensity to triangulate because look what we’re given today. In the 18th chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel, our Lord says, “If someone sins against you, go and point it out.”
He doesn’t suggest that we should “phone a friend,” put the grievance on Facebook or go around talking bad about the offender. Rather, He says one little word: Go! Just like He says “go” into all the world with the news of the gospel, He says “go” and deal directly with those who’ve injured us. It’s a gospel imperative, if you will, and it’s the sure and certain foundation upon which genuine forgiveness and mutual respect emerge and restore us one to another.
It’s worth noting, moreover, that today’s passage comes just after the Parable of the Lost Sheep, with its emphasis on restoration and forgiveness, and just before our Lord’s most memorable depiction of forgiveness; you remember — when Peter says “Okay, I have to forgive an offender seven times, right?,” and Jesus famously tells him, “No, seventy times seven,” meaning infinitely!
So, we’re smack dab in the middle, you see, of our Lord’s instruction concerning those great hallmarks of the Christian life – reconciliation and forgiveness.
So, in this little homily, I’d like to make one quick little interpretive observation, and then I think we should consider one more thing about forgiveness and reconciliation beyond just saying those are things Christians should go and seek.
In terms of an additional interpretive observation, it’s worth remembering that what we have before us is not a blueprint (or exact science) for dealing with every single confrontation that comes our way. Remember that St. Matthew wrote this exhortation within the context of a specific community for a specific set of circumstances. So, don’t get lost in what can seem like an instruction manual at first glance, because there is an infinitely more important question to consider.
And it is this: What do you and actually I do with this imperative to “go” and seek reconciliation and forgiveness?
I ask this because I have to admit that the command to “go” doesn’t, on its own, do a whole lot for me and the whole “reconciliation project.” I mean, just because Jesus said so doesn’t mean I’m necessarily inclined to follow his counsel. I’ve disobeyed Him before and so have you.
I desperately need something more; I need something beyond myself, you see.
I need a Savior!
I need a Savior to first forgive me, to be merciful unto me, to restore me and to love me so that then — and only then — I can begin to share that mercy, restoration, reconciliation and forgiveness with those whom I’ve injured and with those who’ve hurt me.
And that’s exactly what you and I get to do today! Again this week, we will journey up the aisle, up the steps into the chancel and kneel at the altar rail, where we will receive the One who first received us, remembering:
After supper he took the cup of wine; and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and said, “Drink this, all of you: This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
And in that instance, when “two or three or gathered,” He’ll be amongst us yet again as if for the first time, and we can join our voices with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb! Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.”
Sermon preached by the Rev. Charleston D. Wilson
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
The 13th Sunday after Pentecost
7 September 2014