Power and Forgiveness

Sermon at Parish Mass Trinity 14 2023

Ezekiel 33.7-11

Romans 13.8-14

Matthew 18.15-20

 

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus speaks once more about the Church, and the sort of community it should be. This is a theme in Matthew’s Gospel. Two weeks ago we heard Peter’s confession of faith and Jesus’ response, “on this rock I will build my Church”, “what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven”. But that can set up ideas of authority which can be misinterpreted, as Peter soon finds out when he tries to forbid Jesus from going to Jerusalem to be killed. 

Just before today’s reading, in a bit that is skipped over by the lectionary, the disciples argue about who in the community is going to be the greatest. In spite of Peter’s rebuke they still haven’t got it. And Jesus answers by setting before them a little child, a person who in the society of the time had no status and no rights. The community of the church is one in which authority is given for service, not for wielding power over others.

It’s important to bear that in mind when reading today’s passage. Jesus describes the church as a community in which things will go wrong, members will sin against each other. And that is really a joyful and liberating message, because it means there is hope for us all. The Church is not perfect but it is nonetheless the Church, the community of grace and forgiveness.

Jesus teaches about forgiveness and reconciliation in the Church. When things go wrong in any community they can quickly escalate, gossip and rumours leading to accusation, blame and conflict, scapegoats identified and cast out, people taking sides, entrenched against each other. 

The way the Church is to deal with sin is the reverse of this. Jesus’ teaching on what to do if your brother or sister sins against you is not about excluding that person, but about taking every possible means to keep them included. 

This process of forgiveness is communal, and intended to avoid escalation. First talk in private, then with two or three others, then the whole community. As a last resort, says Jesus, treat the offender as a gentile and tax collector. But gentiles and tax collectors are precisely the ones Jesus reaches out to in the Gospel! This is a process aimed at reconciliation, gathering together. And it also recognises that sin damages the community. Forgiveness is about healing the wounded community, as well as wounded individuals. 

And the Church is the community in which this is to become the reality, remaking humanity. The Church is not the club of good people, it is the community of forgiven people. The community which receives and practices reconciliation. 

But it is also the community that, still, gets things wrong. It is a community in which sin can be horribly damaging. The scandals of abuse that have been so grievous in recent years are not over, as recent news stories about “Soul Survivor” show. 

Abuse so often happens through the misuse of power. It may be that someone is in a position of official authority, and misuses that. Or it may be that someone has power in other ways, perhaps by having a very charismatic personality, or by being skilled at manipulation and control. 

In today’s Gospel Jesus describes a community in which someone who has been wronged can go and talk to the culprit in private to seek reconciliation. But we also need to remember Jesus’ teaching just before this passage. The community that can practice forgiveness in this way is a community in which everyone has the status of a child, and nobody exercises power over another.

It’s important to recognise that. Because situations of abuse are not like that. They arise from the misuse of power. And one of the ways in which the church has gone wrong is to misuse today’s gospel reading, and say to victims and survivors of abuse, “we are Christians, so you should forgive. Talk to the person who has harmed you in private and sort it out between you”. Advice which has led to further harm and continued abuse. 

To read this passage this way ignores its overarching message that forgiveness is about healing the community. Where one member suffers, all suffer. And where the community has been harmed through the misuse of power, the community needs to own that, and forgiveness has to include restorative justice. We should not ask individuals to forgive on their own when it is actually the task of the whole community and needs structural change. We should not expect individuals to stop hurting, if the community does not fix what hurt them.

This is why the Church must constantly be improving its commitment to safeguarding. Why there are safeguarding officers and diocesan safeguarding teams to refer concerns to, when they arise. 

The communal dimension of forgiveness is something that is part of the life of the Church. It is about restoring communities, as well as individuals, to wholeness of life. 

The Church is not the club of good people, it is the community of forgiven people. It is founded on grace, God’s free gift, not anything that we have earned or could earn. It is the community that believes in the forgiveness of sins, that receives the forgiveness of sins, that practices the forgiveness of sins. And this means a commitment to truth telling and justice as aa part of reconciliation, when the community itself has been harmed.

The Church is the community that includes and gathers together, that seeks out and brings in the lost. It is the community where even two or three can start to undo the rivalry, conflict and division that are the wounds of sin, by knowing that the Lord is there with them when they are gathered in his name.  

And it is the community that has to make forgiveness and reconciliation visible in the world, to bring hope to a divided and broken humanity. A humanity that needs to know that forgiveness is not only possible, it is freely offered to all as the gift of God in Jesus Christ. Which is why that must be lived out in the Church, first of all.