Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Binding and Loosing; Sermon September 10, 2017

Ezekiel 33:7-11
Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20

Sermon; Binding and Loosing

A few weeks ago, we were talking about finances of the church in a Diaconate meeting.  The church is facing a shortfall this year, and we were discussing our different options to making up the shortfall.  I may have inquired about using the Sharon Field Fund – the portion of our Hargleroad endowment that is dedicated to go to charity and emergency aid in our community.  That thought was met with some stiff opposition and some good storytelling.  Tanya shared her vivid memory of Sharon Field on the day our congregation learned about the Hargleroad fund.  How our congregation, then too in the midst of a financial shortfall, had been given a gift – and we are required to give back.  She talked about radical generosity, the type of generosity where you give without being concerned about the amount, or whether you’ll have enough in the future.  The kind of generosity that is a kind of ‘paying it forward’ as an act of our faith; the kind of generosity that seems insane but is a reflection of putting all our trust and gratitude in God.  Sharon argued that the same God who showed up for us unexpectedly in the form of the surprise endowment must now show of for others unexpectedly.  Although many people in the congregation doubted this idea, I heard that she was very persistent. 

Today in our First reading from the Old Testament, God tells the Prophet Ezekiel that he will make him a sentinel for the house of Israel.  A sentinel is a soldier or a guard whose job is to stand and keep watch.  Ezekiel is charged with keeping watch over the morals of Israel; to be a truth-teller and sound the alarm when the community is going in the wrong direction.  To be a motivator, a coach, a encourager to turn away from wickedness and back to the surprising graciousness of God. 

Our sentinels are sometimes our teachers, showing us a way that we did not expect, like Tanya keeping watch on the Sharon Field Fund.  Our teachers, like our Sunday School teachers this morning, are sometimes our sentinels, laying wide our Christian story and drawing the landscape of faith. We may see a lot of unexpected Sentinels in our every day lives, like Sharon herself, who taught our congregation in her day the meaning of the radical generosity of the gospel, and kept watch on how to exist in the world as an extension of the body of Christ.  These people are surely sentinels in our midst. 

In our Old Testament reading this morning, Ezekiel is talking with God on the brink of the elite of Judah being allowed back into Jerusalem after years of the Babylonian exile.  This book marks a change from admonishing them about the failures they had to get to exile, and instead inviting them back into relationship with God as they are restored as one people in their holy city.  It’s interesting that it’s immediately paired with our gospel reading, which dwells on binding and loosing. 

The last time we heard these words, Jesus was standing with his disciples in the city of Ceasari Philippi; at the far reaches of the Jewish world, but the epi-center of the Pagan God Pan.  In this city that has been built in all grandeur as a tribute to Ceasar and named in honor of Herod’s Son, they are standing at the base of a 40 foot cliff which had been excavated with dozens of grottos hosting stone replicas of their Gods. 

Here, staring at this intimidating sight, is when Jesus asks, ‘who is it you say that I am’ and Peter responds with, ‘the Messiah, Son of the Living God.’  Jesus rewards this proclamation by promising Peter – and presumedly the other disciples – the keys to a different kingdom, not that which they are staring at but one that is beyond imagining but lives between people.  Having the keys means Peter and the others will have the ability to open the door to others.  And he says, ‘whatever you bind – or fasten - will be bound in heaven, and loose with be loosed in heaven.’

What does binding and loosing really mean? Scholars suggest that it has to do with teaching the way of Jesus, the way of Truth.  What is taught by these disciples will be followed and remembered for centuries.

But how do we bind or loose on earth? Sometimes, it is with great results.  Sometimes we bind ourselves to the generosity that helps us live out the Gospel, like with the Sharon Field Fund.  Sometimes, we bind ourselves to our biases, with not so great results.

Last week, I received a request to join a Friday prayer vigil on behalf of PFLAG prior to the PRIDE march and festival that took place yesterday.  PFLAG, if you aren’t familiar, stands for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. The email asked for clergy to show up and join in prayer concerning the violence against the LBGT community, and the great number of suicides by LGBT persons.  The year 2016 achieved a grisly record of having the highest murders of LGBT persons – even without the nightclub shooting.  And we are on par to break that record in 2017.

But a greater threat is suicide.  According to the Trevor Project, a national organization that provides crisis intervention to LGBT youth, The rate of suicide attempts is 4 times greater for LGB youth and 2 times greater for questioning youth than that of straight youth.  In a national study, 40% of transgender adults reported having made a suicide attempt. 92% of these individuals reported having attempted suicide before the age of 25.  Recently in Nebraska, a transgender middle-schooler in Scottsbluff committed suicide, and a 21 year old bisexual woman from North Platte attempted suicide.  She survived, but was paralyzed on one side of her body.  

At Friday’s vigil, I was struck that several of the LGBT persons who took the podium referred to themselves as a ‘suicide survivor’.  Some didn’t offer details, others did.

There was a young woman who shared how she learned to love God long before she learned which gender she loved.  She grew up in a very conservative tradition and she knew that her gayness made her an ‘abomination’ in her church’s doctrine.  She had dreams of serving the Lord, and so as this realization became painful for her, she enrolled in Seminary and decided that celibacy might be the answer.  She went into ministry for a short time, but as it became clear that she was leading a double life she found it difficult and left her position.  It was after that she attempted suicide.

Another person shared told a similar story about growing up Catholic and having the backing of a childhood priest to enter Seminary, until she recognized that she is transgender.  Now she can’t get a return call from her priest, even for a private meeting. 

There was also a pastor that confessed to having a childhood friend, a friend of the highest regard, who protected him from bullies and other harsh realities of school.  But when that friend came out as gay, this Pastor cut off connection with him, like many others in his life, for the next 13 years, only to reconcile and ask for forgiveness recently. 

Rather than bullying, or family rejection, the common thread in all these situations is the church – little ‘c’, the universal church.  These people were told that there is no way that God can love them. People who loved church and loved serving the Lord, stripped of that love and told who they are is unacceptable in God’s sight.  The church has the power to harm or to heal, and we have done our share of harm.  When the church is causing this much harm – when theological righteousness is causing death or attempts at death, maybe it’s time for us to look again, think again about what we are binding and loosing on earth.

In some ways, I wonder if Jesus was warning us.  After all, it is our human tendency to gather in twos and threes and figure out who is in and who is out.  We do it as kids, we do it as adults, and we do it as the church.  This Gospel chapter begins with the disciples asking that childish question, ‘who is the greatest in the kingdom’?  Jesus answers with a series of parables about the weak, the innocent, the vulnerable, the lost. The greatest in the kingdom, Jesus says, will be as vulnerable and powerless as a child.  The greatest in the kingdom will be humble or devoted enough to leave 99 sheep on a hillside in order to retrieve one tiny sheep that has lost its way.  Jesus’ focus is on regaining the flock, not persecuting or judging the flock.

And then, in this chapter in Matthew, the very next verse is about forgiveness.  Jesus is asked, how many times must I forgive my brother in faith?  Is seven times enough?  Jesus says – 77 times.  I am thankful this verse comes within the context of a strong ethic of forgiveness.  In the years to come, we may find that the church universal will be asking forgiveness from the LGBT community for all the harm we’ve done.

In the meantime, we can be sentinels for the body of Christ. In the words of the Apostle Paul: love, love of neighbor, unconditional love fulfills the law, and fulfills the commandments. But for LGBT people who have been harmed by the church, there can be many scars to be overcome in this process.  In his book, Does Jesus Really Love Me?, Jeff Chu – a gay journalist and Seminarian, writes about what it takes to break through;

 “You give them constant doses of the truth, the truth that is based in love that is unconditional,” he says. “You love them until they can hear that they are lovable. You love them until they know nobody else can define who they are. You love them until they can process their pain without reliving their pain.”

We can be sentinels in the midst of this world.  We can keep watch for words of pain and words of trauma, for people who feel unlovable and people who have been told they are unloveable.  We can extend God’s hand to them, through our hand, and show that we are open to hearing about their lives and their loves, their pain and their scars.  We can hold their hearts, and their hurts, within our own and interrupt the statistics on suicide.


We can gather, as two or three, and with Jesus in our midst, offer love.  Amen.  

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