You, mortal, I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, “O wicked ones, you shall surely die,” and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways, and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but you will have saved your life.
Now you, mortal, say to the house of Israel, Thus you have said: “Our transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?” Say to them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?
Ezekiel 33:7-11
Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Romans 13:12b-14
Jesus said, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
Matthew 18:15-20
I’ve been watching lots of mafia movies and shows the past several months. I don’t entirely know why, but I’m not drawn to them because they portray the kingdom of God. They portray the kingdom of violence in, say, suburban New Jersey. I probably find them fascinating for the same reason other Americans do, whether it’s a taste of history, vicarious violence I would never do, or being entertained by stereotypes of Italian Americans.
One thing that I definitely find fascinating about mafia shows is not the gun violence, but the intense verbal fighting. Sometimes these fights end with a hitman in a dark alley, but what’s fascinating is how often these verbal conflicts actually result in reconciliation. Some of us grew up in households and families where there was almost no verbal conflict, or if there was, just between parent and child. Others of us grew up where verbal sparring is how you know someone actually cares. Being open with your passion may sometimes bring anger and deep pain in broken homes, but there can also be intimacy; you know where you stand. In other families, and often in our churches, we want to maintain peace so badly that we just never fight, even when we disagree, and the anger just simmers underneath. Which is better? Fight or flight?
Does Christ call us to one or the other? To either go to spiritual war with each other all the time, or to say “I’m just not going to say anything about how they hurt me because it’s not worth the drama.” And so in society, we cast each other off, either through vicious, violent condemnation or isolation.
Ah, but this is what might make it annoying to be a Christian. Because we don’t have a choice to be violent against each other or to be isolated from each other. We are in the Body of Christ. Through our faith, we are joined in Christ and we belong to each other. If you’ve ever found the teachings of Jesus personally inconvenient to you, you might here again too. So we can’t pick violent fight or permanent flight.
What instead? In many of our affirmations of faith from our Book of Confessions, you’ll notice we sometimes mention this word “reconciliation.” This is not just “making nice.” It is a word we in the Church use to describe what God has been trying to do with us since the day we realized we were naked in the garden. It hurt God’s heart immediately; as soon as Adam and Eve had separated themselves from God, he cried out, “Where are you?” And through the Law, and the prophets, and eventually his son, God has been so desperately wanting to reconcile us with himself, and in Jesus Christ, his cross became the ultimate form of reconciling the world with himself, not in destroying us, but in choosing to die himself so that we might live. We participate in this ultimate act of reconciliation on the cross anytime we confess and repent of our sin. The Church is thus a “reconciling community,” one that helps the world be reconciled with God and reconciles with each other.
Now sometimes, we can gloss over the prophetic edge of Jesus that calls us to repentance and notice our sins. Because we can be so anxious about conflict, we can imagine that Jesus is also anxious about conflict. He isn’t. In the gospels, he echoes the same tones of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and today, Ezekiel in saying exactly where and how we creatures are not embodying the heart and creative vision of our Creator. Does he do this just to make us feel bad about ourselves? Or is his heart still as broken as it was in the Garden? “Where are you?”
Today, God essentially tells Ezekiel: “Ezekiel, I have called you to carry my voice. If you don’t warn people of their errors, and they destroy themselves, they’ll die, but their blood is on your hands. But if you warn them, and they don’t listen, it’s on theirs. But Ezekiel, don’t forget— and this is really important—remember, I want them to live. I want everyone to live. Turn and live.”
The purpose of a prophet is not to tell people how wrong they are. That’s what Jonah thought, and he was upset when Nineveh repented. No, the whole purpose of the prophets is reconciliation. Jesus convicts us of where we’re wrong not that we may stew in our wickedness, but that we may live. It’s the difference between a legal threat and the hardest love letter you’ve ever written. The prophets are love letters from a broken-hearted God.
Often, we try to do the right thing by pointing out the world’s wrongs, witnessing to evil, saying, “God is not a fan of this.” But if we’re not really interested in their reconciliation with God, we are not actually being Christ-like. Let me pause here, which I wish didn’t need to be said, but unfortunately because I’ve lived it, I know it does: I am not pretending like you need to get along with someone who abused you, or even have them in your life. Sometimes, the best love we can give our enemy is love at a distance. Sometimes, you have done all you can and beat yourself up ten times over trying to reconcile with them and they are just not interested. Sometimes, you know it’s just not possible. And too often, people make our relational injuries all the worse by saying some version of, “You just need to get over it and move on from the pain.” That’s not the call today.
Today, amidst those truths of deep pain, we are also called to check our self-righteousness. If we preach with a desire for destruction in our heart, our heart is not with the Christ of reconciliation. But does that humility mean that if someone hurts us or is doing wrong in the world, we say nothing at all?
The love of God in Christ Jesus gives us another option. Sometimes Scripture is not very specific on the “how’s”, but here in Matthew 18, Jesus gives us plain steps for ordinary conflict resolution in the church. Each step doesn’t sacrifice the truth or deny a wrong, but also seeks reunion in the truth that we are all united in Christ. Every step of the way, we’re trying to give each other a chance to live. And when we have done wrong, we need to own it so that we might live. And then, at some point, we have to give it up to God. A priest once said the requirements are to show up, pay attention, tell the truth, and let go of the results. Do your best, and let God have the rest.
To me, if preachers are always first preaching to ourselves, the hard thing I hear Jesus saying to me today is we must not assume that the sin is only in our worst enemy’s hearts. We must not only ask for our enemies to change, but ask how we can change for our enemies to make it easier for them to turn and live. When Paul says, “Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light,” it is not only “reveling and drunkenness and illicit sex and licentiousness,” wrong actions, but also “quarreling and jealousy,” manifestations of the wrong spirit, that are the works of darkness. “Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Rom 13:12-14) Do not give our flesh the provision of licensing the destruction of others, but speak even hard things—especially the hard things—that they may build up in truth. And may this preacher do the same.
There once was a guy who was having car problems. He didn’t know what was wrong, he could just tell there was something off in the engine, but he didn’t have any idea how to fix it. He goes to the local mechanic and asks him to take a look. The mechanic is a kind man, it’s a small town, and when he takes a look at the car, he realizes oh boy, this is going to be such an expensive repair, and he’s not going to listen to me, and he’s just going to get mad. So the mechanic does an oil change, and when the guy returns, the mechanic says, “Oh, it’ll be fine,” and gives him the car. A few days later, the car breaks down. The guy takes it to a second mechanic who might know what he’s doing. This mechanic diagnoses the problem, and says yes, it’s quite expensive. In fact, you really need to replace the whole engine. He tells the car owner how much it’ll cost to repair it, more than what the car is worth. The guy gets outraged and doesn’t want to pay.
So he goes to a third mechanic and says, “I want another opinion.” He drops it off, and after a couple of days, the third mechanic calls the guy to come back because the car’s ready. The guy comes back, goes into the garage, and sees the entire engine has been removed and dismantled. Parts are all over the floor. Furious, the guy says, “What’s going on here?” The mechanic gives him the keys and says, “Yep, you have a broken engine.”
We live in a time when telling each other how we’re wrong is cheaper than ever, and reconciliation is as undesirable as ever. If we are to follow Jesus, who sought to reconcile the world to God, we have to want the reconciliation God wants. If our desire is to destroy our enemy, that’s a check engine light. If our desire is to never have a hard conversation in our life, that’s another check engine light. If we think we have nothing to repent of in ourselves, that’s one more.
A mechanic who doesn’t tell you what’s wrong is a lousy mechanic; a car owner who doesn’t listen is a lousy car owner; and someone who tells people how wrong they are all the time without any desire for them to live is like a mechanic who doesn’t put an engine back together.
Too often with our neighbor, we act like the mechanic who takes apart their engine and leaves it all on the ground. And when it’s us, too often we don’t want Jesus Christ to tell us what’s needed to repair our hearts. Maybe because the cost is very high, higher than we can afford, and no amount of our money can fix it ourselves. But thanks be to God, Jesus Christ has covered the cost, and he is the one who can transform our hearts. And he does transform our hearts with the rejoicing of angels.
And thanks be to God that we owe no one anything except to love one another. May we see all the ways he is reconciling us to himself. May we put on the Lord Jesus Christ and bring our reconciled hearts in hand to the world that so needs it too. Amen.
