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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