Pentecost 13

Pentecost 13 (Matthew 18:15-20

“For where two or three are gathered in my Name: I am there among them.”

In most cases, it is better to preserve a relationship than to be right. Law based religion seeks both to practice and impose right behavior. Knowledge based religion seeks both to hold and require right belief.

Jesus teaches that the purpose of the Law is to facilitate right relationship. There can be no rigid inflexible uncompromising practice when we follow the Jesus Way of right relationship. The way of right relationship is the Way of abundant life. The practice of this Way begins with silence. At first, this way of silence seems counterintuitive.

Do you experience silence in your life? Do you choose moments of silence for your life? The English lay theologian C.C\S. Lewis envisioned Hell as a realm of endless noise. The purpose for this noise is to keep the fallen angels and lost human souls in a state of distraction and agitation.

God says: be still and know that I am God. The prophet Elijah discovered the Real Presence of the Divine in the silent moment following conflict and natural disaster. The Psalmist writes: “For God alone my soul in silence waits.” We not only need moments of silence in our lives, silence is a basic design feature of our souls. Silence holds Real Presence.

Satan wants to keep us distracted by noise and lost in the melodrama of earthly existence. Make a different choice. Choose to enter into moments of silence each day. Silence isn’t magic. Silence isn’t easy. It is not the lightning spiritual path of the quick fix. It is a practice.

Silence is very similar to gardening. You plan, you prepare, you plant, you prune and you wait patiently. Are you willing to wait for Jesus? Or, do you always have one eye on the clock and one foot out the door to chase after the next thing? From Silence we make room for Jesus.

The practice of the Way of relationships is communal. The old English word for this was “corporate.” In North America that word has acquired some connotations that are not necessarily helpful to our understanding of the Way. Nevertheless, it is not a bad word. It simply means “out of many- one.” The one God himself is a unified community of three distinct co-eternal persons. Moses observed that this corporate God, the One who is eternally manifesting as three persons, created us in His own image and likeness. We, too, are many and one. The Biblical writers assert that the basic unit of society is the family- not the individual. The apostles teach that the basic unit of the church is the parish. We become more of who God created us to be in community.

From time to time people tell me that they have a personal relationship with God and therefore don’t need the church. A phrase they often use is: “it’s just me and God.” From time to time other people tell me they are spiritual but not religious. They also say they don’t need a church or a religion to find God. God has a very different perspective. We can know God’s perspective by reading Moses and the prophets. We can experience God’s perspective in Jesus Christ.

Jesus gives us a principle as he says: when two or three of you are gathered together. It is the principle of relationship. It is the image and likeness of love. It is the reality that love cannot exist apart from a set of relationships.

That principle offers insight into the very nature of the Triune God who is love, who is one and three. That principle also offers insight into understanding who we are. We are collectively the Body of Christ. A person is saved from original separation ( original sin) individually by being grafted into the Triune God through the waters of baptism. A Christian who stands separate and apart is an oxymoron.

Our Heavenly Father reunifies each of us to Himself in Jesus Christ and each of us to all of us in Jesus Christ. The great work of sanctification (personal transformation) can only be accomplished in community. When we stand apart we lose the blessing Jesus offers us through His Body, the Church. When we stay apart we deny others the blessing God designed into our souls to bring to others. When we live apart we are lost. God designed us for community.

It is not easy. It does not come naturally. It requires the supernatural assistance of the Holy Spirit. It requires that we heal ourselves in the medicine of immortality and nourish ourselves in the food and drink of new and unending life. The sacrament of total immersion is Holy Communion. The Church requires that at least two people be present for Holy Communion: the priest and one other who together hold the image of God in community. The Mass is the symbol and the emerging reality of the Body of Christ, the faithful community.

The process of sanctification- transformation in the co-eternal community of divine love- will only take place in the community of the faithful, the Church. The cutting edge of sanctification is learning to surrender self- will to divine will. The application is in how we manage our relationships.

That is why it is usually more important to learn how to preserve a relationship than it is to be right. The Holy Spirit can always bring greater clarity of thought to the faithful as we accept the fact we may be wrong. Once we break a relationship to prove ourselves right and the other person wrong, it becomes much more difficult to repair the soul. We move from the sanctifying grace of the community to the pride of the individual will to power. Pride kills. Love enlivens.

The Holy Spirit creates and preserves unity in community at the altar of sacrifice in the sacrament of divine love. All blessings flow from the altar to be metabolized by the faithful community before the blessings can be appropriated by the individual and then shared.

As we do this, as we follow where the Holy Spirit leads, as we embrace the Way our Heavenly Father designed us as a species and as a community- as we make a real choice to do these things- Jesus assures us He is with us.

 “For where two or three are gathered in my Name: I am there among you.”