Epiphany 6A

Sometimes Jesus is as subtle and vague and confusing 

as David Lynch movies or television,

I am not sure anyone has ever figured out Twin Peaks.

Jesus is subtle and vague when he tells the sly steward parable. 

Twenty centuries later and we still don't know what he was getting at with that one. 

Other times... He is as blunt as..

Well, as blunt as only a middle aged man can be. 

The rest of us have to be more diplomatic than that. 

This is a really difficult passage. 

For lots of people.

There has been a lot of chatter on the Facebook in the clergy groups I am in 

about how to address this Sunday.

Our views on divorce have changed.

People don't keep any vows like they used to.

Swearing is not a big deal anymore, it happens in the work place commonly now.

(unfortunately in our office here, its isn't April or Pastor Judy that lets lose an occasional curse word,

I must confess my sin,

if anyone, its me.)

We try to justify so much that is wrong, or at least only acceptable with the right justification.

The last words of this passage are Jesus saying, leave it at yes or no.

If that is not enough, then we have gone too far.

In so many ways, we have gone too far.

There is so much conflict in this world and most of it is because of us.

Not us specifically, but us generally

us, the little people.

Most of the conflict in the world isn't because of the big people,

the politicians, the governments creating problems.

We the little people,

we start the problems and then they escalate from there.

Racism on an institutional level would not exist

if it weren't for all the little people who fight back against changing the system.

Injustice is not okay.

Living a life of truly following Jesus is very hard.

Keeping internal and external integrity is really hard.

Being in healthy relationships is very hard.

But they are worth doing.

What we have to remember 

in the midst of our petty quarrels is that

Our relationships matter.

Our person-to-person relationship matter,

even in the grand scheme of the world. 

Jesus wants us to be in good relationship.

What struck me most this week was that line in the passage where Jesus says,

if you have something against a brother or sister

or a brother or sister has something against you,

don't come to the altar,

first go reconcile with them and then come to the altar.

I thought about the exercise given to me right there.

I could simply stop the service right now, say,

"Okay everyone, we all know someone in our lives we are not fully reconciled with at the moment.

We all make mistakes, we all mess up, we all hurt each other.

Forget the rest of the service, I want everyone to go make a phone call or a personal visit right now.

Go reconcile with whoever you need to reconcile with.

Everyone has someone to reconcile with, even if they are very good people.

Even if the other person doesn't want to talk, reach out to them.

Keep reaching out to them. 

Jesus teaches us to persevere.

Next week, we will come back and

we will have communion.

We will celebrate Jesus' party then."

Think about that for a moment.

What if we all just left right now and went to reconcile,

to reconnect with someone,

even if it didn't work out perfectly?

Going beyond saying we are sorry, or blaming them for their bad behavior,

but really going to listen and speak truth.

Trying to be in healthy and God-filled relationship.

It would be a powerful moment, 

a powerful movement in the life of the community.

I won't be offended, now or at any time during the rest of the service,

if you get up and walk out in order to go reconcile with someone.

I will take that as a sign of your desire to live as Jesus teaches.

I do know people, and I know it has happened in this parish too,

who have not taken communion because they are not reconciled with someone.

Most of the time we let it go.

We let it slide under the table.... lowball style.

We say to ourselves, "Okay, well, that relationship tanked... 

let's just ignore it for a while and maybe it will go away."

But our relationships matter.

Our interconnected lives together matter.

All those broken relationships, all those connections lost

all these empty pews

are symbols of our human sin and brokenness.

We confess our sins together as a community 

in the general confession, 

but then do we walk out of here on Sunday

and go reconcile with those we need to?

Do we live in good relationship?

It matters to God

whether we are in good standing with our neighbors and family

Our God is one of infinite relationship.

Always together in the Trinity,

deeply embedded in a loving relationship of being

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

long for relationship with us,

all of us.

Seven point eight billion people.

And we have a hard time being in relationship with a hundred people at a time. 

I think a lot of our relationship problems come down to 

control.

Responsibility and control. 

We think we have more control over our lives than we have. 

People swear by lots of things that are not in their control,

they swear to many things that are not in their control, 

no matter how much they think they are.

We think we can simply change our relationships without the consent or care of the other.

In Jesus' days, a man could divorce his wife without even talking to her about it, without her consent. 

We think about hurting another person because we have been hurt,

we devise things to get back at them in our minds,

thinking that because we don't act on them, it is okay.

But all these things corrode our relationships.

They eat away at the goodness inside of us. 

Our relationships matter

to us and to God.

Our relationships inside and outside the church matter.

Jesus wants us to remember that and to live in such a way to share that.

God has always cared about relationships,

Right at the beginning, God created Eve, so that Adam wouldn't be alone.

Certainly, it takes more time and effort and memory and social conscious to stay in healthy relationship with people all the time

but it is worth it 

and it does matter.

We all have some strained relationships,

but making the effort to repair them, to reconcile them, to reconnect with others,

is always on Godly work.

This truth is one of the reasons the Episcopal Church is so concerned 

about what is going on on the social stage these days. 

We have a severe lack of good relationships within the social political realm. 

None of our politicians and lawmakers and public officers seem to know 

how to be in healthy relationships with each other, especially when disagreeing.

Yet, that is when having a healthy relationship is so very important! 

We need to be able to live with each other.

On Facebook, there is that great feature, 

and I have used it too,

you can hide someone's posts from coming up in your feed.

You all know what I mean, 

you can hide all those rabid Philadelphia Phillies fans and their posts,

you can hide all the people who don't believe the same way you do.

However, again, this only hinders our relationships. 

Many people don't care that much about having healthy relationships, 

but it matters to Jesus and thus it should matter to us as Jesus' followers. 

As we heard last week, 

We are the light of the world, 

we should be the ones showing everyone else what healthy good God-filled relationships look like. 

We are the role models, the light, the salt. 

We know, because Jesus teaches us, that healthy relationships are important. 

For us and for God.

At the core of the Invite Welcome Connect ministry 

is an understanding of Jesus' way of saving the world, 

through relationships.

He was forever talking to people, 

including people he shouldn't have been talking to,

because he wanted to be in relationship with those people. 

He wanted to know them and be with them.

He asked them honest questions and expected honest answers.

Jesus was a relationship guy

because God is a relationship God. 

Much of the Invite Welcome Connect book talks 

about moving from a passive way of being in relationship

a passive way of inviting people into the church, 

through opening the doors and letting them come to us

to an active relationship,

actually speaking to people,

actually seeing people

actually listening to people

actually being with people.

I pray this day,

as we all go about our lives

that we see each other 

that we know our relationships

and that we love one another,

just as God has loved us

and desired relationship with us.

Amen.